IT IS clear that Keir Starmer’s leadership of the Labour Party and the country is drawing to an end. It is a matter of when, not if, he is replaced.

His political authority is broken, his grip on government weakened beyond recall.  No-one any longer listens to his arguments, nor fears his displeasure. 

The sullen faces and sub-tepid cheers on the Labour benches for the Prime Minister when he made his statement on the latest twist in the Mandelson  fiasco said it all.

Of course, those MPs are, in their majority, also experts on procrastination and ducking difficult choices. It may be that disaster in the elections on May 7 will precipitate a leadership contest, or it could be that the moment will be deferred until later this year.

But it will come. However, Labour MPs will be deluding themselves if they imagine a new face in Number Ten, whoever it is, will be sufficient to restore their party to political health.

The rot goes far deeper, to the factional heart of the ideologically bankrupt Labour right which imposed Starmer on Labour through mendacity and authoritarianism.

John McDonnell put his finger on the problem in his contribution to the debate on Starmer’s statement on Monday: “When he sought to realise his ambition to become leader of the Labour Party, with very little base within the party, he became dependent on McSweeney, Mandelson and Labour Together to organise and fund his election. 

“When he became Prime Minister, the reward for McSweeney was control of No 10, and the reward for Mandelson was the highest diplomatic office. The unspoken message to civil servants was, ‘What Mandelson wants, Mandelson gets.’ This has damaged the party that I have been a member of for 50 years. I urge the Prime Minister to take steps to clear this toxic culture out of our party, and to take the first step by having an independent inquiry into Labour Together.”

McDonnell is absolutely right, although he knows that there is no chance of Starmer taking the measures he urged at the end of his question.

Apsana Begum made the same point, telling Starmer Mandelson’s appointment happened “because of Mandelson’s role in the Prime Minister’s own leadership campaign and because it served the interests of one particular faction in the Labour Party.”

The appointment of Mandelson as Ambassador to Washington was a factional project from beginning to end, designed to reward the political godfather of the Labour right, including then-Downing Street chief of staff Morgan McSweeney.

This required overlooking the multiple publicly known indicators of Mandelson’s utter unsuitability for the post, all for the purpose of indulging his refusal to leave the political stage and accept that his time in public life was over.

McSweeney may be gone from Downing Street, but Labour Together’s alumni remain ensconced in high office – Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood and Communities Secretary Steve Reed among them.

Labour Together’s record of law-breaking, deception and harassment of critics and independent journalists is well-known. Nor has its supremacy in Labour’s counsels offered either political success or good governance, as a glance at the party’s polling position and Starmer’s record establishes.

This is, at least in part, because, unlike previous iterations of Labour’s right wing, it believes in nothing beyond antipathy to socialism and a cynical sense of self-entitlement. It has neither ideas nor programme worth a mention. It represents the worst of machine politics.

So Starmer’s impending exit will avail Labour little unless it is accompanied not only by major policy changes but by a clearing out of the Labour Together gang which has dragged the party to this humiliating point.