Starmer ruling out a resignation timetable is Olympic level straw-clutching
Keir Starmer does not want the Makerfield by-election to be an explicit referendum on whether he should remain prime minister.
Which is why he has - just now - ruled out setting a timetable for his own resignation if Andy Burnham wins that by-election.
Truthfully this is Olympic level straw-clutching. It will be just such a referendum, whatever the PM says.
As a tactic it reminds me of David Cameron vowing he would not quit if he were to lose the Brexit referendum.
What transpired was that Cameron resigned within hours of being trounced by Johnson, Farage and Cummings.
But some kind of amour propre is preserved by Starmer’s refusal to pledge to surrender the throne after one more battle.
Starmer also says that if someone - say Burnham - were to get the requisite 81 nominations and were to trigger a leadership contest, he would join the fray and fight.
If he is to be taken at his word, this isn’t just any old hard ball, but death-match stuff, with the survival of the Labour Party in the frame.
All the important trade union leaders want Starmer to quit, as do a significant number of Labour MPs (I am not going to say “most” because reliable data is not available, though the party is conspicuously split).
Starmer is saying “bring it on, if you’re hard enough.” And we have to assume that the Evertonian Burnham believes he is.
Starmer’s weekend of ruminating about his future at Chequers has not introduced much in the way of self doubt, for all that he is surrounded by those who doubt him.
That is a genius of sorts. Hats off.
Maybe as and when Burnham becomes an MP again, he will have the revelation that Starmer and Starmerism are a winning combination, despite the contrary evidence of multiple elections.
And possibly Streeting, and Rayner, and Miliband will suddenly surrender any ambition to lead and change the course adopted by their party.
Anything is possible in these volatile times. Though I wouldn’t attach a high probability to an outcome that increases Starmer’s job security.
What is highly probable is that if Burnham wins and Starmer says he ain’t budging, we may witness the kind of mayhem that could destroy Labour.
I am not exaggerating.
Their party is so ideologically riven and so weakened by factionalism that an emotional leadership contest that barks like civil war may put paid to any rolling back of the stone and any escape from the grave.
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