LATIKA M BOURKE: Left circles Starmer after PM loses right-hand man McSweeney

Keir Starmer’s premiership is now a test of political survival and whether he can cope without his political creator, Morgan McSweeney, as his left-wing critics circle, desperate to reclaim control of a party they fear has spent too much time echoing Nigel Farage.

Less than 18 months ago, Starmer sacked his first chief of staff, a career civil servant Sue Gray. This was a first test about whether the Labour party’s shocking start to government was the result of his office or the man himself.

Now we have some answers.

When Gray left, the hope was that installing the campaign strategist Morgan McSweeney would bring some of that electoral landslide magic to Starmer’s governing style. It was McSweeney, not Starmer, who reoriented the post-Corbyn Labour party to a rebooted new Labour centrist position.

And it was McSweeney and his clan who oversaw the selections of MPs in true command and control style, meaning they in effect own the Labour government which governs with a massive 158-seat majority.

On paper, it all should have worked and be working. But it has not. Starmer’s political inexperience, inability to publicly communicate and connect with voters and slingshot of poorly thought-out policies and reversals have only vindicated Reform’s claim that the two major parties are just the same cocktail of self-serving, incompetent elites.

Farage’s populist party has been leading in the polls for almost a year.

McSweeney has been responsive to the disaffection. Under his guidance, Starmer tacked to the right on immigration and tried to cut out-of-control welfare spending. But his MPs revolted and refused him permission to trim disability benefits, partly due to the policy but also due to the style of his team and Cabinet.

On immigration, the issue that is driving the surge in Reform’s support, Starmer was forced into a backdown, saying he regretted describing Britain as a country that risked becoming an “island of strangers” after his left-leaning MPs said that type of language — which evoked memories of Conservative MP Enoch Powell’s controversial 1968 “Rivers of Blood” speech — put the country on a “dark path”.

Starmer was apologetic and seemed to throw his staff under the bus.

“I wouldn’t have used those words if I had known they were, or even would be interpreted as an echo of Powell,” he told his biographer Tom Baldwin.

“I had no idea — and my speechwriters didn’t know either. But that particular phrase — no, it wasn’t right. I’ll give you the honest truth: I deeply regret using it.”

On Sunday, Starmer’s history of blaming staff finally reached his top man on the weekend when his chief of staff was sacrificed on the political altar.

McSweeney had installed his mentor, Peter Mandelson, into the role of UK Ambassador to the United States. Mandelson has been exposed in the Epstein files as not only continuing his friendship with his “best pal” long after the US financiers’ conviction for paedophilia, but also for forwarding him market-sensitive information when in government during the Blair-Brown government.

McSweeney’s departure statement was telling. He said he was resigning “from government,” appearing to conflate his special adviser role with that of the elected executive.

“The decision to appoint Peter Mandelson was wrong. He has damaged our party, our country and trust in politics itself,” McSweeney said.

“When asked, I advised the Prime Minister to make that appointment, and I take full responsibility for that advice. In public life, responsibility must be owned when it matters most, not just when it is most convenient. In the circumstances, the only honourable course is to step aside.”

Mandelson is now under police investigation after the Epstein files showed he passed market-sensitive information to Epstein, a financier. His two homes in the UK were raided over the weekend. He has not been charged with any offences.

In the coming weeks, communications between Mandelson and the Labour government will be released. They are likely damning and will show the so-called “Prince of Darkness” played a far more active role in Starmer’s government, via McSweeney, than ever realised.

Starmer heads into this battlefield fighting on three fronts: how to exist without his right-hand man and pressure from his left-wing to abandon McSweeneyism, or Starmerism and the charge of incompetence.

According to Opinium, the same amount (56 per cent) think that Starmer should have anticipated Mandelson’s controversy and should never have appointed him in the first place.

Starmer’s internal critics mostly come from the left, who feel he is shadowing Reform too heavily and has too much control over the party and government. McSweeny was the suppressive force on that sentiment. He still has many allies in the party, and they prevail for now.

“Set your alarm for Friday 8th of May,” one Blair-era political staffer, cut out by McSweeney, texted The Nightly.

In the early hours of May 8, the results of the Scottish, Welsh and local elections will be known. With Starmer’s favourability polling at -57 he is a marked man.

The Mandelson saga has only confirmed what 55 per cent of voters have been thinking since last November, that he should stand aside for another Labour leader.

Like the opening scenes of Groundhog Day, Starmer finds himself for a second time with new aides, in desperate need of a reboot. There is unlikely to be a third act.