Starmer should have conference in his hands – instead, power is slipping through his fingers | Frances Ryan

A little over a year since Labour took office in a landslide and, with the Conservatives flatlining, by any measure, Keir Starmer should be riding into next week’s party conference as, if not quite a conquering hero, a leader in his prime. Instead, he is mired in tanking poll ratings, three scandalous exits and plots by his own MPs to oust him. If the early days of Starmer’s leadership ran with such ease that it spawned the joke he must have found a genie’s lamp, it appears his wishes have well and truly run out.

The idea that Labour’s return to power has been a crushing disappointment is now a well-worn one. From shirking on Gaza and crashing on benefit reform to trusting Peter Mandelson, so far, Starmer’s premiership is a lesson in lost potential, where if a poor decision can be made, it will be and then some.

If it has felt at times to Starmer’s supporters over the past year that he is held to account too harshly, to others, he has unforgivably thrown away not only a precious opportunity but an obligation. You did not have to believe Starmer was going to be Britain’s saviour in July last year to hope he would at least offer some respite after a decade and a half of Tory misrule. That after the public endured austerity, Brexit and Partygate, and at last rid itself of their architects, there could actually be something better around the corner.

Instead, we have been plunged into a groundhog day loop of missed chances: Starmer makes a bad call, a varying-sized chunk of the parliamentary Labour party complain, and a clique-based Downing Street operation – steered by under fire chief of staff Morgan McSweeney – dig their heels in (typically making the situation 10 times worse). Meanwhile, the reasons to elect a Labour government – say, tackling child poverty or building a humane benefits system – go largely unmet and unfulfilled. It is why the latest talk about scrapping the two-child benefit limit feels empty, as we are forced yet again to play the game where a government with a working majority of 156 pretends all of this is out of its hands.

This would be infuriating at any time but has become deeply worrying in light of the surge of Reform UK and wider nationalism. That Starmer will pledge at the Global Progress Action Summit on Friday that his government will lead the fight against the “decline and division” fomented by the far right – a move in stark contrast to the passivity of recent months – suggests he is at least partly aware of the urgent need to reset. But one speech will not compensate for an agenda that fails to make the positive case for immigration and asylum rights. The fact Labour will never be able to satisfy the staunch anti-immigration vote when Reform offers mass deportations (and the claim migrants are eating our swans) makes the chase more tragic still. On its worst days, Starmer’s government is akin to a mediocre tribute band playing cover versions to a crowd who will always prefer the original.

It is often remarked that Starmer finds himself in trouble because he favours managerialism over a vision for the country. That’s true in a way. More than a year in, it is no clearer what Starmerism is “for”, with posturing on flags and the value of work used as a substitute for any sort of narrative. But the issue is also that, far from a break from the chaos associated with the Conservatives, Starmer’s administration has been beset by avoidable errors, inaction and crisis, all on top of the broken public realm and tough finances it inherited. Or to put it another way: basing your project around “delivery, delivery, delivery” only works if you actually deliver. Most voters don’t care about a prime minister’s lack of charisma or sweeping oratory if they can get a GP appointment and pay the weekly food shop. The problem is they still can’t.

The public might be inclined to be more patient if the early signs from Starmer were trustworthy and consistent. After all, no one can overturn 15 years of Tory decline in 15 months. But, after his first year in office, few voters would say they know who their prime minister is, and what they do see seems inauthentic. The son of a toolmaker who is a knight of the realm. The human rights barrister who acts tough on asylum seekers. Add in his chameleon behaviour on policy and early missteps, and the PM has already been defined by frequent U-turns, freezing pensioners and gifted designer glasses. That, in contrast, the genuinely good stuff – from introducing family hubs and the workers’ rights bill to fixing crumbling infrastructure – has barely registered is both deeply unfair and a mess of Starmer’s own making. If you want credit for, say, extending sick pay for workers, stop banging on about taking chronically ill people’s benefits.

And yet the really worrying thing for Starmer is not the critiques from his own side, but that many feel it is not worth trying any more. That some insiders are now plotting about how to make Andy Burnham Labour leader – a figure who is not currently even an MP – suggests the dial has been moved. Critics are no longer at the stage of vainly hoping Starmer will be someone else. That there is a principled and politically savvy leader lurking there, who – with enough nudges – will make the right choices and listen to a diversity of voices, despite all evidence to the contrary. They know who Starmer is and the question now is: is that going to be enough? And if not, what comes next? That’s a remarkable state of affairs for a premiership with almost four years left on the clock, and a sign of just how horribly things have gone.

Starmer’s trailed rebuff to the far right and investment in deprived areas may be the beginnings of a wider fightback. But if he wishes to turn things around, he must first grasp it is not only his career or even the Labour party at stake – it is the country. Because if Starmer does not change tack, he will not just have failed to heal the damage the Conservatives inflicted – he will have opened the door wide for a Reform government. As things stand, it is already ajar.

• Frances Ryan is a Guardian columnist