“Who do you think will lead the Labour government’s revolt on Europe?” asked my walking companion, steeped in politics, as we battled a cold morning headwind on a Chiltern hillside this week, the hedgerows around us suddenly in full leaf again and the chalkland remarkably dry after that pitiless early April rain, before he added: “And when will it come?”
These are both good questions. But they are hard to answer in a fierce wind and going uphill. Back in the dry, I have mulled them more carefully. The revolt on which my companion and I speculated would be a revolt to push Keir Starmer to go further on Europe than he says he is willing to go. The answer is that the pivotal factor may not be geopolitical- and security-related, as some may assume amid the increasingly dire conflict with Russia in Ukraine. More probably, it would be the state of the economy over which Labour finds itself presiding as Starmer’s government reaches its midterm point.
