Starmer resurrects Tony Blair's New Labor

Keir Starmer (Southwark, 58 years old) has a double ability that, for the moment, works in his favor.

He is capable of transmitting, with his tone and his image, something different from what he really says.

Without renouncing the leftist legacy of his predecessor, Jeremy Corbyn, he projects a willingness to center the Labor Party.

And his structured and cold head grows in the new virtual reality imposed by the pandemic.

Unlike Boris Johnson, increasingly diminished in a scenario where there are neither fans nor

to cheer him on.

In a glazed courtyard, without an audience, the new leader of the Labor opposition on Tuesday addressed the thousands of party members by videoconference in Doncaster, the town where the training congress should have been held if the pandemic had not altered everything.

Without applause, without the warmth of the public, without the debates and parallel activities that make these annual conferences an unrepeatable political event.

And without mentioning Corbyn in a single moment, the speech has been an amendment to the entire previous years of opposition.

"Never again will Labor run for election without voters trusting in our ability to manage national security, or to protect their community, their jobs and their money," Starmer said.

The former human rights defender and former state attorney general (director of the

, or

Office) has presented to his followers the triple bet with which he intends to resurrect Labor, which has not governed for more than a decade .

Patriotism and family values.

Equality and social justice.

And efficacy against ineffective preservatives.

Tony Blair's New Labor, whose main success was to discover that it is only governed with the support of the middle class, for the 21st century.

Patriotism to rescue voters stranded in the economic decline of the north of England or in the nationalist bubble of Scotland: “I want to win because this is the country I love, whose values ​​I make my own.

And for that we must go back to being the party of the whole United Kingdom.

The party of England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland ”, has announced.

"We must stop the premeditated attempt by the nationalists to tear our country apart."

Family values ​​for which he uses his personal career as an example.

Son of humble workers, Oxford pupil, successful lawyer, knighted by the queen.

All without renouncing the values ​​of the left: “I want a country in which we put the family above everything else.

A country that represents the values ​​that I defend the most.

Decency, fairness, opportunity, compassion and security.

Security for our nation, our families and our communities ”.

Starmer does what any aspiring leader of the left (or right) is obliged to do: he sticks with the good of the past to hide the closest mistakes in time.

Labor, he recalled, is the party of the National Health Service (NHS), the open university, the minimum wage, the peace agreement in Northern Ireland.

That of Clement Attlee, Harold Wilson and Tony Blair.

Not Michael Foot, Ed Miliband or Jeremy Corbyn, who in their attempt to drag British voters to the far left side of the spectrum lost their confidence.

“We will only gain that trust if we offer opportunities and job security, if we end the structural failures of an economy in which many have not seen their salary rise in a decade, if we fix the housing crisis that prevents young people from buying a house , if we understand that the economy must respond to the climate crisis, if we guarantee the security and integrity of the nation ”, Starmer explained to the affiliates, in a speech that fulfills all the daily wishes and concerns of the middle class.

He has made it clear to that middle class that the Brexit battle, for their part, is already over.

And that his only yardstick of the management of the current conservative government will be to check whether Prime Minister Boris Johnson is capable of reaching the trade agreement with the EU that he promised the country and that, Starmer recalled, is desperately needed by businessmen .

Inefficiency

Labor has an advantage in his career that he tries to exploit without abusing it: Johnson's apparent inefficiency, revealed during the months of the pandemic.

"A crisis reveals everyone's personality like nothing else," he said.

“And we have all learned a lot from this prime minister.

The conservative deputies know it.

Your ministers know.

We all know.

It's not serious.

He is not up to his position ”.

Starmer debuted as a Labor leader at the height of the first wave of the virus.

And he managed to make a critical speech without losing the image of constructive and responsible opposition.

He has been lucky so far that the limits do not have to be set by him.

Johnson's volunteerism provides them every day.

And the next, Labor has said, is to avoid a second lockdown at all costs.

“It is not inevitable.

It will be a sign of the failure of the Government, not a divine act (...).

We all need the government to succeed.

It is leadership time ”.

His will consist of keeping the bases that one day enthused about Corbyn and the middle left-wing voter who fled scared by his side, while trusting that Johnson continues to cook in his own juice.