Sir Keir Starmer should take lessons from Margaret Thatcher when it comes to hitting back at opposition to his political decisions, one of his former ministers has said.
Louise Haigh, who had served as transport secretary, urged Labour to take action to avoid an “existential crisis” at the next general election, after the party’s drubbing in local polls last week.
The ex-minister has in recent days been outspoken about the Government’s direction, suggesting briefings against high-profile women in the Cabinet were sexist.
Ms Haigh has also signalled welfare cuts, along with the loss of winter fuel payments, had been “totemic” for many voters in the local elections.
Speaking in an interview due to air on Gloria de Piero’s GB News programme, the Labour MP for Sheffield Heeley said the Government was not “taking the fight” to Reform UK, or to businesses engaged in exploitative workplace practices, which ministers plan to restrict with new employment rights.
Though no fan of former Conservative prime minister Baroness Thatcher, Ms Haigh said the PM could learn from her willingness to take on her political opponents.
Ms Haigh told GB News: “Margaret Thatcher drew her strength from that conflict and from defining her enemies, whether it be the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) or the Soviet Union.
“Obviously, I would completely disagree with the battle that she took with the NUM, but that meant that people knew exactly who she was and what she was for, and not everything in politics (is) about conflict. Nobody wants to see everyone rowing all the time.
“But I do think drawing those dividing lines and showing that taking on bad bosses that don’t pay the minimum wage, taking on bad bosses that aren’t delivering the employment rights that we are expanding at the moment.
“That will define why we’re doing the things that we’re doing, and it will make people hear them that much clearer.”
Ms Haigh said she did not “take any joy in speaking out like this”, and described herself as a “loyal foot soldier and a loyal MP for the Labour Party”.
“But I genuinely believe those results on Thursday need to be the canary down the mine for the Labour Party, and I was genuinely alarmed by their response.
“That’s why I felt I had the need to speak out, because I think unless we issue a course correction now, we are in danger of our own existential crisis over the coming months, years, and certainly in the next election,” she added.
Ms Haigh resigned as transport secretary in November, after it emerged that she had pleaded guilty to a criminal offence related to incorrectly telling police that a work mobile phone was stolen in 2013.
The former minister told GB News she “very seriously considered leaving politics” following her resignation and “wanted to go away and never be seen again”.
But she added: “But I have lots of brilliant friends and people who love me around me who kind of carried me through that. And then I’ve been able to give my head a shake and come back fighting. And as I say, I’m delighted to be back serving on the back benches.”
