It was a chaotic party under Corbyn, who hailed from the unpolished far left and enraged many colleagues. Starmer held several senior roles but also participated in a failed plot to topple Corbyn, finally replacing him in 2020 after Labour suffered a colossal defeat to then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
“It’s hard to overstate how much that election had damaged the party,” Claire Ainsley, Starmer’s former policy guru, said in an interview. “Morale was at rock bottom, its spirit and purpose had been broken” and it was 26 points behind in the polls, added Ainsley, who is who is now a director at the Progressive Policy Institute, a Washington-based think tank.
Supporters say Starmer’s remaking of Labour — now 20 points ahead — shows he can enact radical change. It has become a sleek, professionalized electoral force, while Starmer has cast himself as Corbyn’s antithesis.
