What does Keir Starmer really believe? That’s the wrong question

We know the Labour leader has been on a political journey, although he is unforthcoming about it, writes John Rentoul

I don’t think that what happens to our relationship with the EU after the next election will be much affected by what Starmer’s ‘natural instincts’ might be (PA)

I think Daniel Finkelstein is asking the wrong question. It is an interesting question, but it is not the right one. He asked in The Times yesterday what Keir Starmer really believes. And Finkelstein concluded that, although it is possible that he had been “an essentially middle-of-the-road type” all along, it was also possible that he has “always been quite left-wing” and “might well still be on the left”.

Some people might welcome this second interpretation, although Finkelstein, a Conservative peer, poses it as a threat: “If he were to capture power he would then be able to move the country leftward, with voter assent. He would return to something closer to his natural instinct. And it would not be the left who would feel betrayed.”

However, although this may be an interesting question, I don’t think answering it will tell us much about what a Labour government would be like. Very few prime ministers believe in anything that makes much difference to how the country is run. Margaret Thatcher had some views about trade unions and privatisation; Tony Blair worked out a theory in government about better public services; Boris Johnson half-wanted to leave the EU.