2021 must be the year of Labour policy.

Coasting on govt incompetence isn’t enough, as the immediate pandemic crisis rolls back, Starmer must look to the country.

Keir Starmer must begin rolling out his vision for Britain, as we enter the New Year. For the initial period of his stewardship of Her Majesty’s Opposition, Sir Keir has coasted to a dead heat in the polls on the basis of looking like the Prime Minister from Love Actually, while the incumbent has botched and U-turned his way through a global pandemic with catastrophic consequences, scandals, and accusations of cronyism, all while looking like a protagonist from Trolls.

This won’t be enough going forward, Starmer has taken a hit from internal divisions. While Starmer himself wants to be Prime Minister and win an election, various bad faith actors around him are more focused on isolating and other-ising the left flank of the party. Vaccines are incoming and a return to relative normality is on the cards as early as Spring, or as late as Summer, prompting a feel good effect that’s already boosting the Johnson government and may help gloss over the cracks of resentment and betrayal we, the governed have felt during this crisis.

Briefs have been messy, and no one’s been clear, especially not Sir Keir, as to what concrete policy planks Labour is wanting to commit to. This is all well and good mid pandemic, but people want to hear opposing plans; contrary to popular belief being “constructive” looks feckless to most voters after a short time, and people want to know where Starmer stands.

2021 must, must, be a big year for Labour or they sink into irrelevance. First, before the end of the year reinstate Jeremy Corbyn, bring in that independent complaints system, and let the tabloids shout, it’s unavoidable, but without party unity and the base on board Labour is SUNK. Following this, Labour needs to move on from old factional divisions; Starmer must diversify the Shadow Cabinet to give at least one of the key three (Foreign, Home, Chancellor) to someone of the left, and failing that, various smaller posts.

Starmer must then look to the country, putting Labour’s past firmly behind him, moving beyond the shadow of his two most prominent predecessors (ironically, Jeremy Corbyn and Tony Blair), and defining himself. He needs to take initiative and not allow himself to be held hostage to the anti-left voices within his fold who would happily see him loose an election if it meant sticking it to Corbyn more. And he must lay out a concrete vision for Britain; not pure policy, but building from the coherent narrative of fairness from conference, and doing what 2019 failed to do, and weaving that narrative through very clear, ambitious, radical policies.

If he does all this, Keir Starmer has a chance.