According to a study of the political positions of MPs from every major party, Keir Starmer is on the right-wing side of Labor members of Parliament.
According to research by Chris Hanretty, professor of politics at Royal Holloway, University of London, the Prime Minister is less left-wing than almost all of his 401 Labor colleagues.
The study also shows that the Conservative leader, Kemi Badenoch, sits to the right of her party, with a score that puts her political position closer to Reform UK chief Nigel Farage than most of her own party .
hanretty told the times: “Before Brexit, I would have said that it was normal for Prime Ministers to be more centre-right than the majority of their party. [David] Cameron was way to the left of the Conservative Party. [Tony] Blair was on the right of the Labor Party.”
Hanretty and his team compiled the results by asking 1,006 local councilors to compare their MPs and pitting them against party leaders. he carried it out Same study last year alsoBut this is the first time that the political opinions of most sitting MPs have been framed this way, given that more than half of them were elected for the first time this year.
MPs were rated on a scale from 0 to 100, with 0 being the most left-wing and 100 being the most right-wing. Independent MPs were not included.
Labour’s Nadia Whittome and Diane Abbott came out as the most left-wing MPs from a major party with a score of 4. Reform UK’s Rupert Lowe and the Conservatives’ Suella Braverman were rated furthest to the right, with a rating of 95.
Starmer’s rating of 48 puts him roughly in the center of the Commons, but almost to the right of his entire parliamentary party.
He is slightly further to the right than in the same study last year, a possible reflection of decisions taken by his government in its first few months, including removing winter fuel payments from millions of pensioners and refusing compensation for Waspi women. Doing is involved.
The Parliament as a whole has moved decisively to the left since the same time last year due to the Labor Party’s landslide election victory, as well as significant gains by the Liberal Democrats, who are considered to be just as left-wing as their Labor counterparts. The Lib Dem leader, Ed Davey, is considered significantly more left-wing than Starmer, with a rating of 37.
Badenoch is seen as one of the most right-wing MPs in Parliament, with a score of 88, placing him to the right of most of his Conservative colleagues and just two points to the left of Farage. His predecessor, Rishi Sunak, sits in the middle of his party with a rating of 77.
Since taking over as Leader of the Opposition, Badenoch has held relatively few policy positions, but has said that the previous Conservative government “talked to the right but ruled the left”. She has praised Argentina’s radical right-wing president, Javier Meili, and repeatedly criticized British institutions as examples of what she considers “woke” ideology.
However, he has spent the past few days publicly clashing with Reform, accusing the rival party of falsifying its membership numbers and reportedly urging GB News to stop giving Farage so much broadcast time. Have done.
Hanretty said: “Decisions are always individual, but these measures should give similar results if you repeat the exercises tomorrow.”