Labour's 'Radical' Europe Plan to Win Back Voters | Patrick Maguire, Steven Swinford & Lara Spirit

Added: 2026-04-29

[00:00:00]If you're looking at a big offer, you should think about triple lock. What about Europe? You know, what are these actually genuine big issues where you are picking a fight with somebody?

[00:00:06]>> Keir Starmer's rhetoric, he addressed Labour MPs on Monday night. He was sort of sounding a bit like peak FDR, saying like we're taking on people who hoard wealth. Basically sort of cod Corbynite.

[00:00:15]And it, you know, we're a million miles away from where he was this time last year. It's really striking.

[00:00:22]In terms of looking after May at that kind of big offer that Starmer will have to make, you know, I reported at the weekend that he'd been talking to aides on Friday about how that needed to involve accelerating clean energy plans or and talking about that and an offer to young people. That to me sounds like more of an offer to the soft left or to the left of the party in the wake of a big threat from the Green Party than it does necessarily from the much larger number of cabinet ministers according to our MRP who are set to lose their seats from the Reform Party. So, I think you have to remember that whatever big offer we're going to see from Starmer, if it is a big offer, and I should also say that there are some closer to Downing Street who say, "If you're looking at a big offer, you need to and MPs actually, you should think about what about triple lock? What about Europe? You know, what are these actually genuine big issues where you are picking a fight with somebody?" And any of the big if it is going to genuinely be a big offer, I think it is going to also alienate a number of people. And is Starmer strong enough politically at the moment to take an offer like that which is going to alienate some of his strongest colleagues?

[00:01:15]>> You are getting soundings that they're looking at some quite radical things. I mean, so things that probably don't cost them anything. I would be We've talked about this before, but Starmer was asked in an interview with Cathy Newman on Sky News. He was asked, "Would you Would you commit to rejoining the EU as part of your campaign for the next election?" Didn't respond. Really interesting. Normally, he shoots it down, talks about his red lines. So, that is one. You could see a genuinely radical offer at some point on the EU.

[00:01:40]And the other story, which was I I was very envious of obviously, you know, Lobby are the great journalists in it, but this was from Kieran Stacey at The Guardian. He did a story which was Rachel Reeves is looking at freezing private sector rents for a whole year to help deal with the Iran crisis. I will do everything in my power and use every lever we have to bear down on the cost of living, including for people in the private rented sector. Now, that is a really big left or left-wing kind of offer to deal with it. Um and >> It's a million miles away from the political posture of this government under the late Morgan Sweeney. It's a million miles away from what housing ministers have said for a very long time. You know, and it shows you the sort of stakes at play here.

[00:02:20]And Keir Starmer's rhetoric, he addressed Labour MPs on Monday night.

[00:02:24]They're the signs that he was going to get through this week unscathed with clear cuz only two people got up and said mildly critical things. But his language, that he was talking about, you know, he was sort of sounding a bit like, I don't know, Huey Long or some, you know, peak FDR, saying like we're taking on people who hoard wealth and all of that sort of thing, right? Sounding like basically sort of cod Corbynite. And it, you know, we're a million miles away from where he was this time last year.

[00:02:49]It's really striking. Well, what did they say in Jaws? We're going to need a bigger boat. Well, he certainly be a possibly some things in the offing. They will have a plan. What's quite clear is this checkers away day that they did.

[00:02:58]They sat there. They came up with a plan for the privileges committee. But obviously, they were also talking about the broader plan for after the locals.

[00:03:05]So, we are about to enter a fascinating time of kind of life or death for Starmer. And I think he's probably going to have to go quite big to have a good shot of surviving. Yeah, but will it be big enough? Because we've heard countless briefings before about is the prime The prime minister's going to go big. The prime minister's got a new lease of life. He's found a politics that worked that's worked for him. It's funny like you speak to people here involved in coming up with those briefings who sort of look back on them and think, "Well, that was that was never going to happen." Or that sort of thing.

[00:03:35]Like is it going to be big? Or are we going to get a classic Keir Starmer speech where he gets up and says, "Yeah, all that stuff we're doing, all that incremental stuff we're doing, you should be more grateful for that, guys. Like, you know, and I'm just coming up with a new slogan to package it all." Right, that he sort of need I think he does need to sort of set out a bold agenda for the next 12 months that is genuinely bold, that is not something he's doing before that proves that, you know, this guy has ideas. It's not just I am the inhabitant of this office and stuff is ticking along. And if only I could talk to more people about it. If only I can just repeat what Wes Streeting once called the long laundry list of breakfast clubs and all of that sort of stuff. Um so, that is that that is the fundamental problem. And, you know, for the cabinet as well, I think the cabinet has seen this film countless times before.

[00:04:20]They know it. You know, I wrote this on Friday like they all know what the problem with this government is. They are all sort of sitting on their hands and hoping against hope and moaning amongst themselves and leaking and briefing. But at some point, and you know, it may not even come after the 8th of May. I know some of them listen to this podcast, but it's like, "Guys, you know and have always known what the problem here is." We got a big reminder of that from the nature of Morgan Sweeney's evidence this morning. We've had it from every person who's given evidence. We have it from the fact of this privileges debate. Like when are you going to do something? I mean, that is the variable. It's not on the backbenches to do to do it. It is on you to do it. It's not about your cars and boxes. It's about the future of the Labour Party and the country. I mean, and some of them speak like that in private. But you don't get the sense there is impetus towards anything milder than maybe we can have a discussion about asking him for a timetable. To which, as he told Josh Glancy, our colleague, he's just going to say, "No."

[00:05:16]Yeah. I mean, the one other thing that I think is clearly a factor which isn't talked about enough is Starmer himself in all of this. I bumped into a minister when I was heading down to the canteen the other day. And they were saying to me that, "Look, go back to when he talked about playing five-a-side football." He did an interview with Chris Mason. And it was one of those personal ones where he talked about Arsenal and his love of five-a-side. He described himself on the pitch as a hard bastard.

[00:05:40]>> Go on. I've had a morning of people citing things incorrectly and not having read my book. That was a quote given to Gabriel and I by a guy called Martin Plaut, long-time friend of Starmer from Kentish Town, who played five-a-side with him and described him as a hard bastard who played to the edge of the rules.

[00:05:57]>> took it himself. He used the word in the interview. So, he is taking Nick Robinson asked him if he was a hard bastard and he said, "Yeah, I'm a hard bastard." So, he's taken He is plagiarizing from Patrick Maguire.

[00:06:06]>> described as bollocks again in a Josh Glancy interview a long time ago. And yet he quotes it himself.

[00:06:13]That is that is the acme of everything that's wrong with this prime minister. Good. But the reason we are talking about hard bastard is because there is a world in which, let's say, the stars align, you know, Streeting rises, Rayner rises, and he goes, "Okay, come and have a go." And he puts himself automatically on the ballot and he just sees it off because he's got the power.

[00:06:36]He is What I haven't picked up is that the guy is breaking, that he's like Boris in the last days kind of seeing Michael Gove's snake head in the darkness as his aides described it at the time. I'm not getting that. I'm getting the kind of yeah, not Gordon Brown circa 2010 vibe.

[00:06:52]But I'm getting certainly getting someone who is feeling pretty immovable at the moment.

[00:06:55]>> you do speak to the sort of the circle of people who know him well, and that's a pretty small circle in Labour politics, who who do say, "Look, he's not an idiot despite the popular portrayal of him. He's not completely oblivious. He is not totally devoid of political intelligence. He knows there is a pretty big chance he won't lead Labour into the next election. It's just that he now needs to use this next period to say, 'Okay, even if that is true, and maybe at some point we can have a discussion about it. But this is my bold agenda.' best way to shut people up to say, "I'm going to do something you can all get behind." Rather than say, "I'm the prime minister.

[00:07:30]You know, here's the same boring speech I've given a million times before.

[00:07:33]Here's the same policy platform that's clearly not cutting through on the doorsteps even though it's good and progressive. You know, people aren't voting for it. I I I'm going to unite us around something that isn't me cuz the Labour Party and Labour voters are not going to, you know, unite around Keir Starmer. But he could be the standard-bearer for for a message that does unite them. I mean, I think yeah, I think Patrick wrote about the that kind of impetus for a timeline possibly after the May elections from the cabinet. And, you know, I was talking to people about that over the weekend. And you do get a sense from some people that will say along the lines of, "Well, okay, if you actually care about Keir Starmer, if you are one of the few people that genuinely calls him a friend, a personal friend, a political friend, then you might say, 'What is in his interest? Is it in his interest to say, okay, I want an orderly transition. I'm going to come to Labour conference and you're going to, you know, celebrate me as one of the tiny handful of Labour leaders that have ever actually won an election. And, you know, we'll send you to Ukraine and Zelenskyy will hail you as one of the great defenders of his of his nation and the European cause. And it allows you to move out of politics in a in a dignified way. Is that in your interest?' You know, I put that to one friend of the prime minister who said, 'Well, you know, that possibly sounds kind of compelling. But at the end of the day, you know, Tony Blair was under a great deal of pressure to outline a timeline for when he goes. And as soon as you say you'll go, you can't do anything."

[00:08:46]>> right David Cameron, as soon as he did it in his kitchen to James Landale. It went. I remember. He shredded weeks into many. That's what he said.