Starmer Won Power by ‘Punching Left.’ Now It’s Punching Back

To turn the page on the Corbyn years and win last year’s UK election, Keir Starmer’s party carried out a strategy that was widely dubbed “punch left.” Now, the left is punching back — and it’s precisely the success of its purge that leaves Labour vulnerable.

That’s because a surge in left-wing sentiment now works to benefit not the UK’s traditional party of social democracy, whose more radical voices have been deselected, expelled or subdued. Voters casting around for a bold antidote to Nigel Farage’s Reform UK are instead flocking to the Greens, who’ve cut through to fresh heights under new leader Zack Polanski.