Given current international events, it is hardly surprising that the internal machinations of a British opposition political party have been received with scant interest. That does not mean, however, that the recent attempts by Keir Starmer to stamp his authority on even the far Left of his party are inconsequential. In fact they have far-reaching implications for Labour, its culture, its policies and its electability.

First there was his extraordinary victory over the Left last week, when 11 members of the Campaign Group of Labour MPs withdrew – when it was suggested that they could lose the party whip – their public support from a letter blaming Nato expansion for provoking the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Then the former shadow chancellor, John McDonnell, cancelled his plans to address a Stop The War rally – again, when the whip was called into question. 

Since the suspension of Jeremy Corbyn in 2020, Keir Starmer has settled on this blunt instrument as its weapon of choice in the battle to impose discipline on its parliamentary ranks. Kicking off the formal party process of expulsion is a long, legally-complicated and unpredictable business involving Labour’s grassroots office holders and members. The decision of whether or not to withhold the whip, on the other hand, lies entirely with the leader’s office. Any MP still without the whip when an election is called cannot stand as an official Labour candidate.

It’s a huge amount of power, and Starmer is not the first Labour leader to hold it. He is, however, the first to wield it.

Who knows whether this was always Starmer’s game plan; if he always harboured Machiavellian tendencies behind his placid, lawyerly countenance. More likely he has come gradually to that realisation. He realises that he has one shot at winning Britain’s top job and he might as well throw caution to the wind rather than limit his already slim chances of becoming prime minister through cautious reform.

Starmer will also be aware that the regular reminder that, barely two years ago, he was campaigning to make Jeremy Corbyn prime minister and John McDonnell chancellor (and Diane Abbott home secretary!) will have hit home with at least some target voters. He needs to reassure that part of the electorate, not least former Labour voters, that the Corbyn era is finally over, that there will be no return to it, and that he genuinely regrets his part in it.

So where does that leave the Labour Party? Having denounced supporters of Stop The War in his parliamentary party, Starmer has no choice now but to extend that embargo to include ordinary party members. Stop The War, an organisation founded by the Trotskyist Socialist Workers’ Party has consistently undermined Labour governments, as well as the Western military alliance of which Britain is a key partner. It should now become a proscribed organisation. Like Militant before it, membership or support should be deemed incompatible with membership of the Labour Party. 

Any party member who publicly supports Stop The War, by speaking at its meetings, signing online petition sponsored by it, or publicly supporting its aims via social media, should be summarily expelled, just as any party member who advocates support for any election candidate other than the Labour one is automatically expelled (unless they happen to work for the leader of the Labour Party, that is).

A draconian measure, to be sure, but to do otherwise would be to stand accused of inconsistency, of advocating one rule for MPs and a different rule for everyone else. If a sitting MP would effectively lose his or her job by supporting Stop The War, can the party really afford to allow an ordinary member who has done exactly the same thing go unpunished? What if that member, in the next few years, is selected as a council or parliamentary candidate?

Starmer’s ambition seems to be to reinvent and redefine the Labour Party in the electorate’s minds. This is a wise strategy: Labour has proved woefully inept at securing the confidence of voters in election after election throughout its history, with short bouts of government punctuating that long record of failure.

To win, Starmer needs to place the Labour Party where the majority of voters already are. That means being honest in a way that his predecessors have not been. It means openly stating that Stop The War and the kind of politics it espouses are anathema, not just to the British people, but to the Labour Party. Those who insist on supporting them can go off and vote for one of the many fringe Leftist groups on the fringes of political debate. 

Keir Starmer’s patience with the Left has run out. That is very good news for the Labour Party.