Starmer’s tightrope

Keir Starmer is trying to hold together a government that's fracturing in real time. One year into a landslide majority, 120 Labour MPs have publicly rebelled over welfare cuts, Iran policy has exposed daylight between London and Washington, and the polls show Reform UK at 34%.

This week on Craft Politics: Sam Coates, deputy political editor of Sky News and co-host of Politics at Jack and Sam's, joins Joseph Lavoie and Andrew Percy to answer what's actually happening inside Labour, whether Nigel Farage could become Prime Minister, and why the UK just broke with America over Iran.

We discuss:

The Iran break. When Trump bombed Iran, Britain backed the ends but not the means. Sam walks through the four calculations Starmer made: international law, party management, voter coalition, and the Diego Garcia base that America never asked to use because they knew the answer would be no.

108 MPs and counting. More than half the majority just put their names to a letter saying kill the welfare bill. This isn't soft left bedwetting. These are red wall MPs who think scroungers should lose everything, but disability cuts were rushed through to fix Rachel Reeves' short-term budget problem.

What does Starmer do now? Pull the vote and look weak, or push it and lose. Sam's answer: "Who knows? I genuinely don't know." The vote is next week and there's no steadying hand because the Prime Minister is at a NATO summit.

Prime Minister Farage? A sitting Labour MP told Andrew he thinks that's where this ends. Sam breaks down the path: Reform polls higher than the Tories, any replacement for Kemi Badenoch will be more sympathetic to an accommodation, and the party with the bigger polling clout gets to name the leader.

The structural limits. Reform is riding the crest, but it's not far off a one-man band. The chairman didn't say no when asked if he believes in ghosts. There's no economic proposition the country could vote for and no cabinet in waiting. Fashions change, and teething troubles are coming.

Assisted dying and abortion. Two massive changes that weren't in the manifesto, passed by a Parliament that can't agree on anything else. Sam's take: fraught with danger, owned by a private member's bill process the government doesn't control, and it's going to be ugly in the next election campaign.

Also discussed: why Lord Hermer's legal advice isn't binding but Starmer followed it anyway, the soft left versus the hard-edged reformers, whether the Conservative Party is the vehicle Farage rides to Downing Street, and why Andrew is still waiting for Sam to buy him a drink.

Find Sam Coates on Sky News and listen to Politics at Jack and Sam's.

00:00 Welcome and introducing Sam Coates from Sky News
01:04 Iran strikes and Starmer's international law tightrope
02:37 The attorney general's influence and breaking with Tony Blair's precedent
04:13 Starmer's misread of Trump and the Diego Garcia question
05:13 Party management versus principle—the Labour coalition problem
10:19 The welfare rebellion—108 Labour MPs revolt
12:04 How Starmer inherited a mess but made it worse
13:39 Rachel Reeves' fiscal crisis and the rushed disability cuts
15:40 Could Starmer lose a confidence vote? The authority crisis
19:21 The soft left myth—who are the Labour rebels really?
21:13 Is there a chance Starmer isn't leader by the next election?
21:38 Where are the Conservatives? The 16 percent problem
22:35 Prime Minister Farage? Reform's 34 percent polling surge
23:44 The Reform-Tory accommodation question and Kemi's survival
24:51 Reform's structural weaknesses—one-man band or government in waiting?
26:31 Reform's left-wing appeal—County Durham and the welfare pitch
27:51 Assisted dying and abortion—the manifesto nobody voted for
28:50 The state-individual relationship shift and the ugly election fight ahead
30:24 Wrap and missing Andrew—the ex-MP treatment