In less than a year, it is hard to articulate the transformation in Sir Keir Starmer’s fortunes.
From being the first Labour prime minister other than Tony Blair to win a general election this century – rolling up to Downing Street with a similar number of MPs after ending 14 years of Conservative rule – to having his massive majority threatened by rebels on his own benches.
Not to mention the electoral doom forecast by multiple opinion polls.
In a statement to MPs on Thursday – updating them on the G7 and Nato summits he’d attended over the past two weeks – the PM indicated some sort of compromise with backbenchers ahead of the Welfare Bill on Tuesday.
Over 120 Labour MPs have indicated they’ll oppose the measures in the bill and put their names to a wrecking amendment to stop the planned cuts to disability and sickness-related benefits, aimed at reducing the welfare budget by £5 billion.
"We want to see reform implemented with Labour values of fairness. That conversation will continue in the coming days”, Starmer told the Commons.
But one of the rebels, York Central’s Rachael Maskell, was vigorously shaking her head as he was addressing the House. Whether a compromise can be reached that avoids a major rebellion remains to be seen.
Although there isn’t, strictly speaking, a particular Jewish angle to the Welfare Bill rebellion, it is yet another area where the prime minister seems like he is being pushed towards a more radical position by his backbenchers. Where else have we seen that, eh?
Like with Israel, rebellious MPs have discovered that there are enough of them to potentially force ministers to adapt to their way of thinking, rather than them toe the government line.
Labour’s position has seemingly shifted from Starmer saying that Israel had the right to shut off water and electricity to Gaza at the start of the war with Hamas, to imposing a partial arms embargo and becoming the first British prime minister to impose sanctions on Israeli ministers.
And there is still pressure on him to do more.
Amid the chaos, Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch seemed to be having a rare moment of joy at Starmer’s expense.
“In his statement, the prime minister said, ‘we urge Iran and Israel to honour the ceasefire’. He said we are using every diplomatic lever to support this effort. What diplomatic levers are they? The same levers he's using with his backbench rebels? Is he just asking them to please play nice. Let's be honest Mr Speaker, nobody cares what this prime minister thinks”, she told MPs, accusing her opponent of reducing Britain’s role on the global stage.
Badenoch also put the boot into Starmer seeming out of the loop with the Americans. She brought up the fact that, shortly after the G7 summit, he told travelling journalists that he didn’t think President Trump would bomb Iran.
“He had no idea what was going on”, said the Tory leader, adding: “The week before, Israel launched an attack on Iran, and it became apparent that the UK was not even informed about the attack in advance, despite us having been involved in previous preventative action”.
But it wasn’t just the prime minister under pressure, as Badenoch also had Foreign Secretary David Lammy and Attorney General Lord Hermer firmly in her sights: “What we need is a leader. Instead, we have three lawyers”.
“On Tuesday, the foreign secretary, a lawyer, repeatedly could not say whether the US strikes against Iran's nuclear facilities were legal. This is a government that doesn't know what it's doing”.
Critics of Starmer may think she has a point.
When it comes to the US and Israeli strikes on Iran, the government can’t actually say whether they think they were a) good and b) legal.
“It has been the stated policy of the UK and our allies that Iran must never obtain a nuclear weapon. No one who cares about the security of our country or the future of the Middle East could live with that eventuality. For decades, we have worked to prevent it, and on Saturday night, the US took a big step towards resolving that threat” Starmer told MPs robotically.
By contrast, Badenoch called on European nations to “step up” and deal with the Iranian threat. Something she said the UK should be playing a leading role in.
“Instead, we have an attorney general using international law to constrain and restrict the UK while the prime minister hovers indecisively on the sidelines”, she said.
Prior to the strikes by the US on Iran, it was widely reported that Hermer had advised the government the UK should limit its involvement because the strikes may be illegal, though Convention dictates that the attorney general doesn’t tend to disclose the content of legal advice.
There have been ongoing grumblings about Hermer’s role in government for several months now.
In February, a Labour source told me: “There seem to have been some concerns over a lack of clarity about how he sees the role – his client is the government.
“He should be representing them, not adjudicating at a distance.”
It is interesting – and troubling for Labour supporters – to see the scale of the rows within the government.
The Times and Politico report on spats between “government sources” and the Whips Office as to who is to blame for the welfare rebellion.
It is abnormal to see such public divisions in the early days of a government with what used to seem like an insurmountable majority.
Sky News’ deputy political editor Sam Coates described the scale of the problems facing Number 10 as “late Sunak vibes” – in reference to the doomed tenure of the last prime minister.
As I see things, the government has three big problems.
First, with multiple opinion polls showing Labour set for a walloping by Reform UK, the whips may find their roles hard enough even without sniping from “government sources”.
How will they make MPs who don’t think they’ll be on the green benches after the next general election – and therefore have nothing to lose – toe the party line?
Second, there is no substitute for making a coherent and explicit political argument for government policy.
If ministers can’t clearly articulate a position – especially on something as important as strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities – then it is no wonder their opponents criticise them for it.
Although Lord Hermer’s legal past – which includes acting for clients like Gerry Adams and Shamima Begum – was always going to feature in Tory attack lines, the government’s inability to state whether they think the attacks on Iran are legal was always going to fuel the perception of “government by lawyers”.
And finally, there is a potential long-term danger in being seen to compromise too much.
One Labour MP I spoke to was incandescent with their “treasonous” colleagues, who they accused of undermining their party’s first shot at government in 14 years.
A supporter of the planned £5 billion cuts, they insisted that the voters in their constituency were fully supportive of the need to control the spiralling benefits bill.
If Starmer is seen to be dictated to by rebels, why should hitherto-supportive MPs bother with sticking to an ever-changing party line?
