Keir Starmer's premiership now hangs in the balance due to a dangerous cumulative effect - Christopher Hope

Keith Bays
Fri, 17 Apr 2026 09:29:35 +0000
Membership

The Prime Minister heads into one of the most important weekends of his premiership, ahead of a week when he must convince MPs he did not mislead them about what he knew about the security vetting of Peter Mandelson.

Is it credible or even plausible that he only found out this week that he did not know Mandelson had failed the Government's security checks - a decision which was overruled by officials in the Foreign Office in January last year. Helpfully for the PM, Mandelson's friends insist he also had no idea.

This matters because Sir Keir Starmer told MPs last September that "due process" was followed. Will this stand up to scrutiny in the House of Commons?

His future hangs on it, according to his own ministerial code, which he signed off on. It says: "Ministers who knowingly mislead Parliament will be expected to offer their resignation to the Prime Minister."

Elsewhere, the Government has begun to look not just divided, but adrift: a group of competing voices without a clear sense of direction.

Over the past month, this impression has hardened that Britain is being steered in the wrong direction by an ever-increasingly out-of-touch Prime Minister.

Consider this chain of events. Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy flies to Washington, D.C. for a last-minute meeting with Vice President JD Vance, a visit that might usually signal constructive talks with Britain’s most important ally, the United States.

All the while, Yvette Cooper, the Foreign Secretary, is left twiddling her thumbs, hardly a sign of a well-run operation.

Then comes the big shock. Days later, Mr Lammy states that a prisoner was released in error every two days over the past 12 months, the sort of announcement that sends a shiver up the spine of most law-abiding members of the community, hardly a sign of being tough on crime on the domestic front.

More like calamity, Lammy. At the same time, across the pond, Chancellor Rachel Reeves criticised the US administration.

Speaking to CNBC, she said: “I’m not convinced this conflict has made the world a safer place”, and in an interview with The Mirror, she took direct aim at President Trump, saying: “I feel very frustrated and angry that the US went into this war without a clear exit plan.”

Elsewhere, the Government has begun to look not just divided, but adrift: a group of competing voices without a clear sense of direction.

Over the past month, this impression has hardened that Britain is being steered in the wrong direction by an ever-increasingly out-of-touch Prime Minister.

Consider this chain of events. Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy flies to Washington, D.C. for a last-minute meeting with Vice President JD Vance, a visit that might usually signal constructive talks with Britain’s most important ally, the United States.

All the while, Yvette Cooper, the Foreign Secretary, is left twiddling her thumbs, hardly a sign of a well-run operation. Then comes the big shock.

Days later, Mr Lammy states that a prisoner was released in error every two days over the past 12 months, the sort of announcement that sends a shiver up the spine of most law-abiding members of the community, hardly a sign of being tough on crime on the domestic front.

More like calamity, Lammy. At the same time, across the pond, Chancellor Rachel Reeves criticised the US administration.

Speaking to CNBC, she said: “I’m not convinced this conflict has made the world a safer place”, and in an interview with The Mirror, she took direct aim at President Trump, saying: “I feel very frustrated and angry that the US went into this war without a clear exit plan.”

This language may play well with her party's soft left base, but it sits uncomfortably against the Government line that its special relationship with the United States is still strong.

More like on the rocks. Diplomacy, in the end, is as much about the mood music as it is about substance. Mixed messages, as in any relationship, personal or diplomatic, rarely end well.

Back on the home front, criticism is ratcheting up from within. Lord Robertson, an ex-Labour defence secretary, has attacked Sir Keir Starmer for his failure to concentrate on keeping the country safe, accusing him of “corrosive complacency”.

The former NATO Secretary General was also critical of what he has seen as splurging more taxpayer money on benefits, saying: “The cold reality of today’s dangerous world is that we cannot defend Britain with an ever-expanding welfare budget.”

Whether voters agree with this view or not, it demonstrates a far deeper issue: the feeling that this government is reactive, and not agenda-setting.

For now, the UK’s attitude looks strangely passive. On the global stage, members of the Cabinet talk about stability, peace, and cooperation, all admirable goals in themselves.

The Prime Minister’s arrival in Paris on Friday for a summit with France's president Emmanuel Macron, designed to open up the Strait of Hormuz, is framed in exactly this way.

But a government unable to maintain consistent messaging in Washington will find it difficult to convince others that there’s a clear strategy to deal with anything, especially with this President.

Successful governments debate the issues behind closed doors and present a united front to voters.

What we are seeing with this Labour government is a series of badly timed, badly thought-out interventions, each one different from the other, each showing a more divided Cabinet.

The danger for the Prime Minister is the cumulative effect. On their own, they are mere flesh wounds; collectively, it’s death by a thousand cuts.

Critics will argue that the foundation of Starmer’s premiership is cracking: a leader unable to control his troops or simply choosing not to.