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So choppy are the waters of the UK’s permacrisis, and so flat-bottomed the life raft known as Starmerism, that ideas once thought impossible at the outset of Keir Starmer’s initial soft-left, “Corbyn-in-a-suit” journey have become the defining realities of Labour’s present course. As its conference begins in Liverpool this weekend, the party must ask itself whether the political culture it is building is one that can inspire a country, or merely discipline it into compliance. Without a shift towards democracy, discussion and pluralism, Labour risks forfeiting the very moral and political authority it needs to confront the authoritarian voices shouting so loudly beyond our own ranks, and increasingly within them.

The Corbyn wave that swept Labour in 2015 was more than just a political surge. It was a redefinition of the possible, a moment when grassroots activism, radical ideas and the audacity of political hope took centre stage. It represented a demand for genuine democracy, pluralism and change. For many, it was the first time in living memory that Labour had felt like a movement rather than a machine. Today, Starmer’s absolute determination to distance Labour from that era speaks volumes.

The current party leadership views unity not as something cultivated through respectful dialogue and diverse perspectives, but something enforced through control. The Corbyn moment threatened Labour precisely because it signalled a party potentially ungovernable by conventional managerial methods. This is a party unsure how to reconcile democratic participation with electoral success.

Parliamentary candidate selections have been increasingly centralised, and grassroots members and leftwing voices within the party marginalised. A party once brimming with energy, ideas and volunteers has become a professionalised bureaucracy aimed at maintaining power rather than transforming society.

Labour’s aversion to pluralism is most obvious in its rejection of coalition politics. It wants to be an electoral juggernaut capable of winning alone or not at all. Yet contemporary crises – climate breakdown, authoritarian populism, stark economic inequality – demand cooperation beyond narrow party lines. Collaboration between Labour, the Greens, the Liberal Democrats and other progressive forces is not a sign of weakness, but maturity. And the stakes are as high as the very future of our democracy, our planet. Such a refusal to share power becomes not just strategically foolish, but morally questionable.

Nowhere is Labour’s aversion to transformative politics clearer than in its avoidance of public ownership. Consider water. Public opinion consistently favours renationalisation – not as nostalgia, but as a pragmatic response to corporate failures, ecological crises and profound erosion of trust in privatised utilities. Refusing public ownership signals abandonment of democratic control over our collective future, showing Labour’s alignment with a neoliberal orthodoxy that has repeatedly failed.

This alignment finds its starkest symbol in the party’s embrace of corporate influence. This undermines democracy itself by nourishing popular cynicism. When voters see politicians cosying up to the same firms that profited from the 2008 crash, the social contract frays further.

Labour’s timidity on the climate emergency underscores this problem further. This defining crisis of our times demands bold, courageous and imaginative responses. Yet Labour’s approach has been cautious and timid, perpetually afraid of alienating swing voters or corporate backers. Net zero is framed only in terms of competitiveness, not adaptation and survival. Green investment is promised, but always secondary to fiscal rules set by an economic consensus long past its sell-by date. While floods devastate communities and air quality worsens, Labour dithers.

Part of the problem is that the party is paralysed by institutional pressures and geopolitical alignments. Of course, balancing these forces is what makes for great governments and leaders. But Starmer has shown no such inclination. As prime minister, he faces substantial constraints, particularly regarding established alliances such as those with the US. But his careful neutrality over the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and quiet acquiescence to harsh immigration policies reflect an inclination toward diplomatic continuity rather than ethical clarityor moral leadership.

In this vacuum, the populist right seizes ground, offering nativist, nationalist solutions to problems that demand internationalist, ecological and equitable solidarity.

And yet, despite these profound concerns, hope persists. Not because the current Labour leadership inspires it, but in spite of it. Hope survives in the growing networks of community organisers, cooperative movements, union branches, citizen assemblies and environmental campaigns. It flourishes in places ignored by Westminster – municipal projects reclaiming public land, local councils experimenting with participatory budgeting, workers organising in Amazon warehouses and Uber ranks. These spaces show that politics is not the property of party elites, but of people acting in concert to change their lives.

Ultimately, Starmerism risks rendering Labour unfit for the purpose it was created for: to give a political voice to working people and deliver collective solutions to collective problems. Openly addressing this is essential for Labour – and British politics broadly.

The crisis is real, yet so too is the potential for renewal. But that renewal cannot come from above. It must come from below – from a revitalised political culture that sees people not as voters to be harvested, but as citizens to be empowered. Recognising this is the first critical step toward a politics daring enough to imagine and urgently act upon the challenges we collectively face. And if this moment is indeed one of endings, then let it also be a moment of beginnings – a time to organise, to imagine and to build anew.

• Clive Lewis is the Labour MP for Norwich South. This is an edited extract from Clive Lewis’s foreword to The Starmer Symptom, by Mark Perryman