In 1932, the Australian government declared war on the country’s emu population. The emus won. It was perhaps the most farcical conflict in human history — until, that is, this week’s Downing Street briefing war against Health Secretary Wes Streeting.

On Tuesday evening — seemingly out of the blue — certain lobby journalists were briefed by senior figures in Number 10 that Keir Starmer would fight any challenge to his leadership. That challenge was perceived to be coming from Streeting. But this attempt to “get ahead” of the coming comms disaster, in actuality, created the comms disaster. Yesterday, Streeting accused Downing Street of being “toxic” and “juvenile”.

This afternoon, the Telegraph reported that it was the Prime Minister’s chief of staff Morgan McSweeney and other senior figures in Number 10 who approved this strategy. It has backfired spectacularly, with the Times reporting that some Cabinet ministers are now demanding McSweeney be sacked. But before caving to pressure and showing him the door, Starmer should study the recent history of the Conservative Party — and, in particular, the fall of Boris Johnson.

In both cases we have a party leader who won a thumping election victory only to find himself in deep trouble not long after. Furthermore, Johnson had his own McSweeney figure who played a pivotal role: Dominic Cummings — his chief advisor from July 2019 to November 2020.

And yet the differences are just as important. For a start, the Cummings strategy — summed up in the slogan “get Brexit done” — was successful. The same cannot be said for whatever McSweeney’s been trying to achieve since becoming Starmer’s chief of staff a year ago. Cummings succeeded because, for a while, he had what McSweeney has never had: control over government policy as well as messaging and strategy. Cummings was even able to manage events within the governing party — most dramatically when the Conservative whip was taken away from 20 MPs who’d rebelled against Johnson on Brexit.

Contrast that to the present day in which McSweeney’s attempt to counter Reform UK’s appeal to voters in Labour seats has been undermined by a string of policy own goals. This includes the surrender of the Chagos Islands, the chaotic handling of the grooming gang inquiry and the failure to get a grip on the arrival and accommodation of illegal immigrants.

It’s convenient to blame McSweeney for Labour’s existentially bad poll ratings, but unlike Cummings he’s been asked to make bricks without straw. Admittedly, Cummings eventually came unstuck too, but for a very different reason: a Downing Street power struggle with the Prime Minister’s partner, which was always going to end one way.

Nothing like that applies to the current operation. But, like Johnson after Cummings’s departure, Starmer will be acutely vulnerable if McSweeney goes. It’s not just the sudden lack of strategic coordination that will be so damaging, but also the power vacuum that’s left behind.

The void will either be filled by the civil service — as it was under David Cameron, when Steve Hilton quit the government — or, even more dangerously, by the Prime Minister’s most senior party colleagues. That is what happened to Johnson after Cummings. It wasn’t obvious at first, but, by 2022, Rishi Sunak, Sajid Javid and Michael Gove had gained enough influence to remove the Prime Minister at a time of their choosing.

The same is in the process of happening to Starmer. Power is already dribbling away to Wes Streeting, Ed Miliband, Shabana Mahmood, Lucy Powell and the still-influential Angela Rayner. This week’s briefing war was, most likely, a clumsy attempt to staunch the flow. But if it only succeeds in removing McSweeney, then Starmer’s own departure will not be long delayed.

To save himself now, the PM must save his chief of staff. More than that, he must double down and give McSweeney as much clout as Cummings enjoyed in 2019. It’s a high-risk strategy, but better than being bled dry by his Labour comrades.

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Peter Franklin is Associate Editor of UnHerd. He was previously a policy advisor and speechwriter on environmental and social issues.

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