Labour insiders fear Keir Starmer will only survive 'one term'

There are fears inside Sir Keir Starmer’s party this could be a “one-term Labour Government” as the Conservatives seek a candidate who will “unite the Right”.

Senior Labour figures are concerned they could be ousted from power if Tory and Reform UK voters come together and the country is hit with economic turmoil.

The race to succeed Rishi Sunak as Conservative leader is expected to begin in earnest this week when the rules for the contest are announced.

Tories say Sir Keir’s victory is "skin deep and built on sand" because only around one in three voters backed Labour with just six out of 10 eligible adults taking part in the election.

A Labour MP said: “I think it will be a one-term Labour Government.”

Warning of the shallowness of support for Labour, they said: "There’s a total blind spot in the Labour Party about how bad that result really was for us."

A key worry is that Labour’s economic plans hinge on an acceleration in economic growth. “Every Government has gambled on this growth unicorn,” they said. “It’s never turned up.”

Likely Tory leadership candidate and former security minister Tom Tugendhat received a major boost when Brexiteer Steve Baker and centrist Damian Green jointly endorsed him.

But Alexander Stafford – who lost the Red Wall seat of Rother Valley by less than 1,000 votes when 7,679 people backed Reform – urged the party to get behind former Business and Trade Secretary Kemi Badenoch.

He told the Sunday Express: “It is clear Labour’s majority is wide but only skin deep and built on sand. If we unite the Right we can easily defeat this Labour Government, which is why we need a leader whose mission is to defeat Reform and unite the opposition to Labour.

“Kemi clearly has the pedigree to do this and is the only serious leadership contender who can defeat Labour on 2029.”

A former Labour frontbencher also voiced concerns that their party would have lost in scores of seats if people who voted Conservative (24 per cent) and Reform (14 per cent) had swung behind a single candidate. They cautioned against thinking “the Right-wing has been defeated”.

Apurav Bhatiya, an expert in political economy at the University of Birmingham, said: “If everyone who had backed Reform had voted Conservative then the Tories would have 180 more seats. Even if half of the Reform votes would have gone to Tories, they would have 73 per cent more seats on top of their current tally and prominent Conservative candidates like Penny Mordaunt, Greg Hands, Liz Truss, among others would have saved their seats.

“The challenge for the next Tory leader is to bring back as many of these voters as possible while somehow also winning back the support of former Tory voters who supported the Lib Dems.”

Former immigration minister Robert Jenrick – who is also expected to run for the Tory leadership – has said the Conservatives must “repent” for having made “promises on immigration and then failed to deliver them”.

A Tory insider said: "To win back Reform voters the Tory party has to prove to voters they say what they mean on immigration. There’s currently a huge credibility gap.

"Candidates on the Right like Robert Jenrick who have taken a very public stand on this issue and shown conviction are best placed to restore trust."

However, a Conservative source said: "Despite what some would have you believe, pandering to Reform is not the answer to rebuilding our party, or the British people’s trust. We need a leader who will not only take the fight to Reform at the next general election, but also to Labour and the Liberal Democrats."