In his first press conference after putting together a new cabinet, Prime Minister Keir Starmer tried to tone down expectations. Reiterating the Labour Party’s commitment to promises made during electioneering, he warned that fixing Britain’s “broken” public services will take time. He himself was “restless for change”, he said, but reforming institutions such as the National Health Service (NHS) could never be an “overnight exercise… I can’t pretend we can fix everything overnight.” Be that as it may, he added, “We’re going to take the tough decisions and do that early.”

With the Conservative (Tory) Party’s humiliating defeat on Thursday, Labour won a huge parliamentary majority for the first time in two decades. Yet it received only 37 per cent of the popular vote, a smaller figure than it achieved in the 2017 election under Jeremy Corbyn. Many even within Labour feel that such a majority on so low a number of votes is a double-edged sword. The party will not have the luxury of blaming its opponents for the inability to pass laws or decrease, as the Tories had been doing.

That is partly why expectations are high: real change is envisaged. But by the euphoria of victory dies down, the fact that this win was due to a protest vote against the Tories will hit home. Many of those who voted Labour do not trust Starmer and his team to do a good job of running the country. Despite winning many safe Tory seats, Labour lost some to independents who ran their campaigns on the issue of the Gaza war. Starmer’s position on the war was no different from former prime minister Rishi Sunak’s. Labour supported Sunak on many other issues, too: some argue that disenchanted Conservative voters found Starmer’s policy profile to be the closest to Sunak’s and voted Labour for that reason.

The Labour government does make overhauling the planning system a priority, which means repositioning the green belt to make room for more homes against the wishes of local communities. The new government is likely to face pressures from its own party’s backbench MPs as well as a higher number of Green Party MPs in the House of Commons. Another party promise is to set up a new publicly owned clean energy company, Great British Energy. That would alienate not only big oil and gas companies working in the North Sea, but also the people of Scotland who are concerned about layoffs and rising unemployment.

One of the most pressing issues for the new government is renegotiating the Brexit deal with the EU. But as Starmer has put forward “red lines” including not rejoining the Common Market or allowing free movement, those are unlikely to achieve much. Former Labour PM Tony Blair wrote an article in The Sunday Times advising Starmer to resist any pressure from his own party ranks to steer left. On the contrary, he argued, Starmer needs to keep swinging right, especially on issues like immigration and NHS reform.

In fact, Blair’s late 1990s Labour government tried to privatise the NHS, bringing in American money and healthcare providers, but fierce opposition limited his ability to do so. People also remember that it was Tony Blair’s government that first introduced university fees for British students.

The tendency to swing right will be even more evident in foreign policy. The promise of a shift in position, supporting a ceasefire in Gaza, is not so different from the current American rhetoric on a truce. Any hints at recognising a Palestinian state will prove to be an electioneering gesture to appease anti-war voters. It would be no surprise if Ukraine turned out to be the priority on Starmer’s foreign policy agenda. Also following the American line, Starmer is likely to take a strong position against China, while interest in the Middle East will focus on attracting investment from the Gulf to support the ailing UK economy.

The current euphoria is likely to fade quickly as it becomes apparent that the promise of change is not as radical as anticipated.

* A version of this article appears in print in the 11 July, 2024 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly