Starmer looks to Germany and Australia for advice — on what not to do

LONDON — Keir Starmer spent years in opposition studying the electoral victories of two center-left politicians cast in a similar mold to himself.

Outgoing Chancellor Olaf Scholz in Germany and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese of Australia were seen by the Labour Party’s top strategists as kindred spirits to Starmer.

The U.K. prime minister — who like Scholz and Albanese is often derided by opponents as boring and technocratic — followed the pair’s playbook to win power on a moderate center-left platform that promised drama-free politics in a chaotic age.

However, in a year that will see crucial elections held in both Germany and Australia, the prime minister and his top team look abroad and see nothing but peril. Scholz crashed to a devastating defeat in Germany’s Feb. 23 election, a humbling coda to an unpopular one-term chancellorship. 

Albanese faces a similar fate when Australia votes by mid-May, after months of poor poll ratings.

U.K. Labour strategists now see politics in the two countries not as inspiration — but as a warning.

Peas in a pod

Britain’s Labour Party has historical ties with the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SDP) and the Australian Labor Party (ALP), with years of cross-border collaboration on political strategy and campaigning.

SPD and ALP strategists came to London on multiple occasions between 2021 and 2023 to give presentations on how Labour could copy their election victories.

One of the biggest lessons Labour took from its two sister parties, particularly the Australian Labor Party, was what its strategists called the “small target” or “ming vase” strategy.

The approach meant winning an election with a policy-light platform that centered largely on the weaknesses of its opponents.

While Starmer’s victorious 2024 campaign did have some key narratives around creating more wealth for “working people,” it concentrated on getting the Conservative Party out of office after 14 years and five different prime ministers.

Starmer’s one-word election slogan — “change” — was emblematic of the mood of the nation and the nature of Labour’s campaign.

Albanese ran an almost identical playbook during his victory in 2022 as he came up against an unpopular center-right incumbent after nearly a decade in power.

And while Scholz’s circumstances were slightly different, he still prevailed in 2021 by framing himself as a sensible and pragmatic leader on a policy-light platform.

However, Scholz and Albanese quickly discovered the problem with campaigning in this way after actually taking power.

Both men faced years of drift amid widespread complaints that they had failed to craft a political narrative or governing purpose for their administrations.

One U.K. Labour politician, granted anonymity like others in this article to speak frankly, said the Australian government has failed to “work through a systematic agenda” and has paid the price for it.

“Those small incremental changes often add up  to a decent amount of change and reflect the impression of competence,” they added.

Albanese now faces the real prospect of becoming the first one-term Australian prime minister in decades.

Meanwhile, German-British historian Katja Hoyer said Scholz had been pulled in too many directions by his coalition partners in government.

“Scholz is not the kind of person to step in there with strong leadership and say ‘this is where  I want to take the country’ and then align people behind him’,” she said.

“He’s just not very likeable — he’s a mix of a bit boring, but also aggressive when he gets challenged by journalists or people.”

While Starmer appears to be rising to the moment as Europe scrambles to respond to U.S. President Donald Trump’s Ukraine policy, he has faced a host of similar domestic issues early in his premiership.

His inability to enunciate a clear narrative, and months of political infighting after he entered office, led to a major reset in December.

Polling from Ipsos, gathered the week before that big reset, showed Starmer was the most unpopular prime minister after five months in office since the firm began conducting approval ratings in 1979.

One European diplomat said: “Scholz and Starmer are quite alike.”

“They are both civil servants who have been forced to pretend they are politicians.”

Starmer was not helped by Chancellor Rachel Reeves hiking taxes by £40 billion in November.

This came after Labour spent the entire election campaign saying only very limited tax rises would be needed for their agenda.

Hoyer warned Starmer could face electoral backlash if he governs too far to the left of where he campaigned — especially after recording the lowest vote share for an election winner in modern British history at 33.7 percent.

“Scholz’s government ended up being a lot more left-wing than people imagined, including things like lowering the legal voting age [in the EU election] and legalizing cannabis,” she said.

Looking (further) right

Starmer also faces a challenge from Nigel Farage and his rising populist right-wing Reform UK party, which now leads many Westminster voting intention polls.

Reform has made immigration a signature issue and has attracted many working class supporters in areas that voted Labour for decades — a striking similarity to the AfD in Germany.

The AfD is considered more extreme than Reform — it has been accused of planning to deport German citizens, while some of its senior leaders have called for reduced education on the Holocaust — but both parties benefit from similar anti-incumbent political winds.

Ryan Wain, the executive director of politics at the center-left Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, said British voters feel there is a “pervasive sense of decline” and said Labour should take the AfD’s surge in Germany as a stark warning.

“Our message to this government would be — what’s our transformative agenda? Don’t wallow in decline, but face up to it,” he said.

“Unlike in Germany and Australia, I do think Keir Starmer and Labour have recognized the need for that transformation. Certainly in recent months.”

Labour advisers and strategists say they now have a clearer direction in place to fight off the rising populist tide and learn the lessons from Germany and Australia.

In a recent letter to his Cabinet, Starmer set out his vision for how to stop Labour’s traditional working class voters from drifting off to Reform or even the Conservatives. He argued that “too many people feel left out from or forgotten by the political settlement” — and vowed a laser-focus on working-class concerns on topics like wage growth and immigration.

“We need to be disruptors — on behalf of those ordinary, working people who just want more security in their lives and a country that is on its way back up again,” Starmer wrote.

One government aide, granted anonymity to speak about internal deliberations, said the letter “was a good example of the narrative that can win.”

But they warned: “He now needs to ensure we actually have a plan to deliver that promise. And that the spending review [which is expected to include spending cuts] doesn’t nuke it.”

If Starmer gets it right, he may find that global center-left parties are looking to him for advice — not the other way around.