Keir Starmer’s Cabinet simply launched a Brexit riot – who will betray him subsequent? | Politics | News | EUROtoday

Picture Sir Keir Starmer in his Downing Street research, nursing a mug of terribly smart tea, when the information arrives. Wesley, his Health Secretary, his secure pair of palms, his loyal lieutenant, has gone rogue on Europe. He has solely gone and known as for a “deeper trading relationship” with the continent. A sneaky sidestep again into the EU customs union dangled like forbidden fruit over the airwaves.

One imagines the Prime Minister’s jaw tightening. The glasses have been adjusted, and the tea set was set down. The boy who by no means fairly made head boy at college has lastly reached the highest. And now? Mutiny within the Cabinet room simply days earlier than Christmas.

But there’s a scrumptious irony on this. 10 years in the past, when MPs have been cheekily requested by a tv broadcaster who could be Prime Minister in a decade, most coyly pointed elsewhere. But not Wes Streeting. Oh no. Mr Streeting squarely pointed to himself. The sheer brass neck of all of it.

And whereas Sir Keir would declare the crown by means of dogged willpower and the spectacular implosion of everybody else round him, Mr Streeting, it appears, by no means fairly deserted that youthful certainty. Now, with the Prime Minister’s approval scores doing a formidable impression of a lead balloon, the Health Secretary seems to be road-testing his management credentials. Starting, apparently, with the one difficulty assured to ship the genteel metropolitan sorts right into a tizzy and Labour backbenchers into hissing suits.

The EU customs union. Those three phrases that also make grown-up politicians weep into their constituency correspondence and critically take into account sacking off the carols this 12 months and shutting the curtains.

Sir Keir has spent months performing an elaborate dance round Brexit — not too shut and never too far. We all know he has by no means forgiven individuals for voting to tear us away from Brussels, however he has been oh-so-coy about it. Sir Keir doesn’t wish to upset the Red Wall voters who lent him their belief, or the Remainers who by no means fairly forgave him for not combating tougher within the first place.

It is the political equal of making an attempt to please everybody at a cocktail party by bringing neither wine nor delicate drinks, however low-alcohol beer that no one really needs or requested for.

Enter Mr Streeting, stage left, with the subtlety of a bulldozer by means of a china store.

But who else is sharpening their knives within the ministerial hall? David Lammy, the previous Foreign Secretary, not ‘having fun with’ the Justice transient, having spent extra time overseas than some airline pilots, absolutely he is aware of his manner round a management marketing campaign?

Then there’s Lucy Powell. Deputy Leader Powell, along with her personal mandate from the occasion membership. Once ousted, now again with a vengeance and her personal democratic legitimacy. The girl who has been there, performed that, and bought the comfort prize. She is aware of how shortly fortunes can flip in Westminster. She has watched leaders rise and fall like soufflés in an earthquake.

The query shouldn’t be whether or not others within the Cabinet harbour ambitions. Of course they do. Politicians with out ambition are like fish with out water, technically doable however considerably lacking the purpose. The query is when the primary drops of blood within the water will convey the others circling.

Sir Keir have to be questioning which assembly will show his final supper. Which colleague, smiling over the Cabinet desk, is mentally measuring the curtains in No 10? Who will probably be subsequent to find a sudden urge to “clarify” Government coverage in a path the Prime Minister by no means fairly supposed?

For now, he troopers on, projecting that trademark air of pained competence. But someplace in Westminster, you’ll be able to nearly hear the sound of management pitches being drafted, focus teams being convened, and constant supporters being quietly sounded out.

The boy who lastly turned head boy is discovering what each prefect learns finally. The badge is perhaps yours. But maintaining it? That is one other matter completely.