There was a telling moment at prime minister’s questions last week when a super-keen Labour backbencher used his moment in the spotlight to praise Keir Starmer as a “true statesman”. Mike Tapp was dripping with compliments for his boss as he argued that the Commons should be “united” in order to “achieve a lasting peace” in Ukraine. It’s not unusual for ambitious MPs to offer these kinds of seemingly pointless questions at PMQs: for them, they have a very important function of highlighting their loyalty to the boss they hope will promote them, and also giving that boss a bit of a breather in between more hostile interventions from across the chamber. But there was also something slightly plaintive in the request for the House to remain united, because it can’t, and won’t.
Starmer has rightly been praised from across the political spectrum for the calm way he handled the meltdown in the Oval Office. His careful management of the relationship between the US and UK, and the way he convened European leaders at short notice to plan a “coalition of the willing” to protect Ukraine was indeed statesmanlike behaviour. But in the next few weeks, he is going to be brought back down to earth – and to domestic matters – with a bump. Not only will the opposition parties start asking difficult questions again, but his own side is not exactly united. Perhaps Tapp was trying to persuade his own colleagues to stick by the prime minister as much as he was pre-emptively scolding the opposition for anything other than non-stop agreement.
