The immediate political consequence is that it is now beyond doubt that Starmer and Rayner will lead their party into the next election. If Durham Police had fined either of them, they would have to resign. Labor would have immediately descended into the same kind of internal turmoil and introspective argument that now grips the Tories. Now that option is completely off the table. All the talk about Andy Burnham, Lisa Nandy, Rachel Reeves, Wes Streeting and the rest can go back into a box, maybe for two years, maybe even longer. Starmer and Rayner have been vindicated in their belief that no Covid lockdown rules were breached when they had a curry and a beer in Durham during the 2021 local election campaign. The reason why Durham Police took so much to reach her verdict, when she had already looked into the case and found nothing in it, is mysterious. It seems a little fishy that the announcement came just after Johnson’s ouster was complete. Just as happened in London with the findings of the Downing Street party, the police seem willing to delay their announcements until they are less at risk of being accused of meddling in politics. This could have been sorted out a long time ago. The Durham decision is significant in another respect. It ensures that the justifiable public abuse for breaking political rules during the pandemic remains focused where it should be: on Johnson and Downing Street, not on politics as a whole. Had Starmer also been fined, the public would have been entitled to wish the plague on both their houses. Instead, the fact that he had no case to answer allowed Starmer to go into his press conference on Friday afternoon and claim that, with him, honesty and integrity matter. This will clearly be one of the main dividing lines for Labor in the next election campaign. As Starmer himself said on Friday, this is “no small task”. After this dramatic week, the Labor Party suddenly has the scent of power in its nostrils. The ruling party is in confusion. The Tories have lost a leader who, not so long ago, was their electoral asset. There is, of course, a respectable case for asking whether Johnson’s departure (assuming it happens) removes the main reason why so many voters turned against the Tories in the recent Wakefield and Tiverton and Honiton by-elections. But Johnson has destroyed the Tory brand as well as his own over the past three years, and the leadership contest is sure to reveal some deep divisions about what the Conservative party now stands for in the post-Johnson era. One cannot simply assume that a new Tory leader will descend into a dominant position and become popular and credible. There is a remarkable confidence in Starmer at the moment, shown in his rejection of any idea of a coalition with the Scottish Nationalists and his desire for a Labor majority in the face of questions about an alliance with the Lib Dems. Many believe that Labor is deluding itself – something it has done in the past under Neil Kinnock and Ed Miliband – and that the opposition should not be seen in the polls after the last few months. Or it may just be that Starmer’s cautious, gradual approach to regaining power after the Johnson and Corbyn years – while unnerving to those who want him to set out the grand plans he hinted at again on Friday – is turning out to be a very smart play . .
Martin Kettle is a columnist for the Guardian Guardian Newsroom: Boris Johnson steps down Join our panel including John Harris, Jessica Elgott and John Crace as they discuss the end of the Johnson era in this live event on Tuesday 12 July, 8pm. BST | 9 p.m. CEST | 12 pm. PDT | 3 p.m. EDT. Book tickets here
