Keir Starmer, Vote Loser
There is a paradox at the heart of Labour’s new cabinet.
Most of the new ministers got less votes under Starmer than they did when Corbyn was leader in 2019.
Labour’s total vote declined by more than half a million — and more than a quarter of that loss was chalked up by cabinet ministers.
Of the 26 members in Keir Starmer’s cabinet, 24 were candidates in the general election.
All had also contested the 2019 election.
Despite Starmer saying Jeremy Corbyn had made Labour unelectable, 20 of these cabinet members attracted less votes than they did under Corbyn in 2019.
Only four managed modest increases.
In total the 20 ministers lost over 144,000 votes.
Labour’s total vote declined by over 500,000 in the 2024 election.
More than a quarter of that decline was due to the losses racked up by the 20 cabinet ministers, including Keir Starmer himself.
Some of these reductions are due to a variety of other factors: boundary changes, lower turnout and constituency-specific issues.
But the main reason is Starmer’s lacklustre campaign.
Here are the top ten losers.
One
Shabana Mahmood
(Birmingham Ladywood)
Polled over 33,000 votes in 2019 but less than 16,000 in 2024.
Votes lost: 17,797
Mahmood’s result was affected by the strong showing of Ahmed Yaqoob, an independent campaigning against Labour’s support of Israel’s treatment of Palestinians in Gaza and the occupied West Bank. He polled more than 12,000 votes.
Two
Keir Starmer
(Holborn and St Pancras)
The Prime Minister’s massive 36,600 votes in 2019 under Corbyn was slashed to less than 19,000 under his own leadership.
Votes lost: 17,757.
One of the reasons Starmer’s majority fell so sharply was the campaign mounted by former South African MP Andrew Feinstein. His message — that Israel is an apartheid state engaged in genocide — attracted over 7,000 votes.
Ironically, Starmer polled less votes than Jeremy Corbyn’s 24,000 in neighbouring Islington North. This was despite Starmer’s refusal to allow Corbyn to stand as a Labour candidate.
Three
Lucy Powell
(Manchester Central)
In 2019 Powell attracted just under 37,000 votes but only 20,000 in 2024
Votes lost: 16,639
Four
Hilary Benn
(Leeds South)
The new Northern Ireland secretary polled over 30,000 votes under Corbyn in 2019 but just 17,000 in 2024.
Votes lost: 13,296
Five
Steve Reed
(Streatham and Croydon North)
His massive result in 2019 — more than 36,600 — dropped to just over 23,000 in 2024.
Votes lost: 13,263
Six
David Lammy
(Tottenham)
The new Foreign Secretary received more than 35,600 votes under Jeremy Corbyn in 2019 but only 23,000 in 2024 under the Starmer leadership.
Votes lost: 12,555
Seven
Jo Stevens
(Cardiff East)
Under Corbyn, Stevens polled just over 25,600 votes in 2019. In 2024, under Starmer, her votes dropped to less then 16,000.
Votes lost: 9,772.
Eight
Wes Streeting
(Ilford North)
In 2019 the vote for the new Health Secretary was over 25,300: by 2024 it had fallen to 15,600.
Votes lost: 9,676
Independent candidate Leanne Mohamad came within 529 votes of unseating Streeting. The new health secretary is a strong supporter of Israel with a record of repeatedly opposing a ceasefire.
Nine
Anneliese Dodds
(Oxford East)
In 2019 more than 28,000 put an X against her name: in 2024 it was just over 19,500.
Votes lost 8,594.
Ten
Peter Kyle
(Hove and Portslade)
Nearly 33,000 voted for Kyle in 2019 but just over 27,000 in 2024
Lost 5,667 votes.
The Press Gang survey underlines just how unimpressive Labour’s mandate is.
It was a campaign where Labour focused on vague slogans — like “change” — rather than specific policies to attract voters.
The party’s policy was to do and say as little as possible to undermine the tidal wave of disgust against the Tories.
Even so, Starmer’s campaign managed to alienate many Labour supporters on the issue of Israel’s brutal invasion of Gaza and the intensified oppression in the West Bank.
A few days after Israel launched its invasion of Gaza on October 7 — following Hamas’s deadly attack on Israel — Starmer was on LBC radio.
Nick Ferrari asked him:
A siege is appropriate? Cutting off power, cutting off water?
Starmer replied:
I think that Israel does have that right. It is an ongoing situation.
He later attempted to minimise the damage by saying he meant only that Israel had a right to self-defence.
Starmer also offended many Asians when he told an audience of Sun readers during the election campaign that:
At the moment people coming from countries like Bangladesh are not being removed.
The Labour leader had been asked what Labour was going to do to deport people who arrived in the UK illegally.
The 2024 general election demonstrated that the Muslim community is now a force to be reckoned with.
And it is a powerful opposition to the Israel lobby which has dominated Labour policy on Palestine.
Declassified UK recently calculated that 12 cabinet members had received donations from the Israel lobby.
They included Keir Starmer himself (£50,000), David Lammy (£32,000) and Wes Streeting (£29,160).
Press Gang asked Professor John Curtice, the BBC’s polling expert, about our research.
He said
An analysis based on raw votes rather than percentages mixes two things - Labour performance and the decline in turnout (which fell by nearly 8 points).
The phenomenon to which you point is not confined to cabinet members - Labour's vote fell in general in seats it was defending (average by 7 points).
Much though not all of the drop is occasioned by the very sharp drop in seats with large numbers of Muslims - and this affected a number of cabinet members (and cost one potential member, John Ashworth, his seat).
So I am not sure the focus on the fate of the cabinet is particularly illuminating.
All of these points are valid.
But it remains the case that Starmer did nothing to inspire voters.
That honour belongs to Jeremy Corbyn in both 2017 and 2019.
Update
This article was updated on July 13 to include Jeremy Corbyn’s result in Islington North.
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