Chalk up a win for steady Starmer, but things could still get shaky

Keir Starmer looked upbeat as he addressed reporters on Friday morning after the party’s solid performance in the Wakefield byelection. After a rocky fortnight in which he scolded the shadow cabinet for briefing the press that he was boring, Starmer’s team believe the 12.7% swing will calm nerves and show their steady-as-she-goes strategy is working.

“What’s important is that we can now talk about the fact that getting Labour into government under Keir is a one-term project,” said a Labour source.

Of course, byelection results are often quirky, but a swing on that scale, if replicated nationwide, would see a majority Labour government returned at the next general election. In particular, the result suggests the fabled “red wall” could be rebuilt.

“No one’s measuring the curtains in Downing Street yet, but we’re on the right path,” the source said.

Starmer’s team spent their first months in charge tucking in behind the government on Covid and fighting a series of internal battles, to underline the fact he is very much not Jeremy Corbyn – most strikingly by removing the whip from the former leader over antisemitism.

He has spent much of the intervening period relentlessly trying to undermine Boris Johnson’s credibility over Partygate and the economy – though Johnson has done much of that work himself.

Now, Starmer’s team say he is preparing to set out more in the coming weeks and months about Labour’s message in the run-up to the next general election, which is likely to be squarely focused on the parlous state of the economy.

Their windfall tax policy, worked up by Rachel Reeves and Ed Miliband, scored a direct hit earlier this year, inflicting considerable discomfort on a split Tory party before Rishi Sunak ultimately adopted it.

Starmer’s team are adamant they do not need to be rushed into announcing more policies, pointing instead to the autumn conference, which will be “more focused on the country than the last one”.

They also insist they are relaxed about the prospect of the shapeshifting Conservative party swapping Johnson for another leader.

The prime minister successfully pulled off the trick of appearing to be a change candidate in 2019, despite representing a party that had been in power for nine years.

Some shadow cabinet members fear Starmer’s appeal as the serious, grownup candidate, set against the chaotic Johnson, would be diminished if he faced, say, Penny Mordaunt, Nadhim Zahawi or Jeremy Hunt.

The Labour leader’s allies play down that risk, however, suggesting that if Johnson departs, he would take with him the idea of a fresh start for his party.

“If they move on to another leader it actually really helps us with our ability to say: you’ve had four Tory prime ministers now, at some point you’ve got to see the problem is the party rather than the personalities.”

The increasingly dire economic backdrop, with growth flatlining and inflation heading for 11%, is also likely to help Labour land its overarching argument: that the Conservatives have badly mishandled the economy over the past decade and have no plan to fix it.

Related: Michael Howard calls on Boris Johnson to resign after byelection defeats

Yet Starmer’s colleagues still fret about whether he and his team have the ideas, the policies or the overarching message to carry Labour to success in 2024 – particularly if the Tories chuck Johnson over the side.

And they worry too about his leadership style – encapsulated most recently in this week’s ban on frontbenchers attending RMT picket lines, which turned the issue into a trial of strength. He is still to decide whether to discipline those MPs who defied his instructions.

Starmer told his restive shadow cabinet last week: “What’s boring is being in opposition.” On the basis of the Wakefield result, his allies can now argue that boring works.

Yet it is unlikely to still concerns about his leadership for long, and September’s Labour conference is already being widely regarded in the party as a crucial test.