Owen Polley: Keir Starmer is a shambolic prime minister, but any replacement as Labour leader could be even worse

This government is shambolic and its policies consistently make the UK’s problems worse. The prime minister is also weak on almost every important issue. And, as the criticisms of his premiership have intensified, he’s become unpleasantly prone to shifting responsibility to officials or other ministers.

For example, he sacrificed his chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, to relieve the pressure created by the Mandelson scandal.

With all this in mind, surely we should by now be desperate for Starmer to go as quickly as possible, for the good of the country?

There are two reasons why I am still not sure this tempting conclusion is justified.

Firstly, many of the realistic alternatives as Labour leader are likely to be considerably worse than Starmer.

And secondly, if he is forced out, then four of the last five prime ministers will have been ousted due to crises and fighting in their own parties, rather than elections.

This kind of political chaos, when it is repeated and seems to be becoming a habit, simply cannot be good for Britain, or enhance its reputation as a serious nation and a good place to do business.

Admittedly, Starmer has been much worse in power than anyone predicted.

When Labour won the election with a landslide majority, some commentators suggested that the result disguised a lack of enthusiasm for the party and its leader.

At the same time, many sections of the media were almost indecently gleeful. They claimed that ‘grown-ups’ were now back in charge of the UK, after the ‘chaos’ of Brexit and Conservative rule.

The former BBC political editor, Andrew Marr, even predicted that investors would send a “wall of money” crashing into the country, now that we had a responsible government.

Those self-appointed arbiters of common-sense must feel a bit stupid, just 19 months after Starmer took office.

In this column, I’ve pointed out that many unionists, including Gavin Robinson and Doug Beattie, appeared to welcome the prospect of Labour in power too.

Their disillusionment with the Conservatives was understandable, because the Irish Sea border was erected on the Tories’ watch. But they were at best naive about Labour’s approach to Northern Ireland.

There was a theory that Labour’s friendly attitude to the EU would help alleviate problems with the Windsor Framework.

That hope was spectacularly misplaced. This government has shown no sympathy with unionists over the sea border.

In fact, ministers have depicted it as necessary to protect the ‘peace process’ and insisted it should be strictly implemented.

On this issue, as with others, they may as well have taken their lines directly from Irish nationalists.

Similarly, Labour’s approach to the legacy of the Troubles was to capitulate to Dublin’s demands.

At times, Starmer and his secretary of state for Northern Ireland, Hilary Benn, have spoken warmly about this province’s place in the Union. However, little of their apparent unionism has come out in policy.

If the prime minister were to resign as Labour leader, though, his replacement would likely come from the left of the party. That would not improve the chances that the next administration would be sympathetic to unionists.

In addition, the current government’s policies on the economy, migration and benefits would all surely deteriorate, if Angela Rayner or Ed Miliband were to take charge.

Rayner was behind the full-fat version of Labour’s workers’ rights act, which had to be diluted to avoid destroying the jobs market. As deputy prime minister, she was also thought to have pressed Starmer to recognise Palestine as a sovereign state.

Meanwhile, Ed Miliband signed the UK up to unfeasible ‘net zero’ climate targets. His promise to allow no new licences for North Sea oil has ensured that Britain has to expensively import much of its energy, with the result that we have some of the world’s highest energy prices.

The other prominent contender for Labour leadership, the more right-leaning health secretary Wes Streeting, is an unknown on the Union. He’s also gained a reputation for scheming clumsily against the prime minister, which looks likely to damage his chances.

With these personalities vying to lead Labour and the UK, even hapless, weak, vacillating Starmer, with his uninspiring speaking style and lack of ideological certainty, seems almost reassuring.

Aside from the quality of the contenders, it is worrying to see yet another prime minister on the verge of being harried from office by scandal, and criticism from within his own party. The same thing happened to Theresa May, due to her failure to deliver Brexit, Boris Johnson, thanks to his cake-eating and other controversies, and Liz Truss, after the markets baulked at her economic reforms.

The impression that prime ministers, even those with large majorities like Johnson and Starmer, are liable to be shoved aside at any moment, is bound to be damaging. So too the impression that party-political turmoil, rather than general elections, determines the UK’s leadership.

For those reasons, while Starmer has made a terrible mess of his job I am not yet desperate for him to leave. In politics, even if you’ve come to detest something, remember that what comes next could be even worse.