Shadow cabinet ministers are privately frustrated at Keir Starmer’s failure to attack the government more strongly over the national fuel crisis, worrying that the Labour party has been too inward-looking during its conference. Six members of the senior frontbench expressed disappointment at the party being slow and lacklustre when criticising the government’s handling of the chaos at filling stations. Starmer mentioned the fuel crisis early in his conference speech on Wednesday, saying the government had been “ignoring the problem, blaming someone else, then coming up with a half-baked solution”. He urged Boris Johnson to “either get a grip or get out of the way and let us clear up this mess”. But one shadow cabinet minister said the conference as a whole had been “a huge missed opportunity” for Starmer to have attacked the government more forcefully at a time when the fuel crisis had got so bad that the prime minister has had to put the army on standby. One shadow cabinet minister said it was “not just Keir but all of us in the shadow cabinet [who] need to step up”, when the conference had for days been talking about Labour politics and the country had been talking about the petrol queues.
Criticism was even stronger among some backbenchers, including those on Starmer’s own wing of the party. One Labour MP said part of the problem was there was a cautious approach to media that meant there were “too many Eeyores and not enough Tiggers” on the frontbench who were willing to tour the broadcast studios attacking the government at every opportunity during such a national moment. Another senior Labour backbencher said they had been scouring Labour’s Twitter feed for mentions of the “cost of living crisis” and questioned why Starmer had not made a major public intervention on Saturday. A Labour aide said it was “incomprehensible” that the party had been so slow to call for dedicated petrol stations for key workers, with the London mayor, Sadiq Khan, the Liberal Democrat leader, Ed Davey, and the British Medical Association all making the request a full 24 hours before Starmer waded in. Some in Labour believe Starmer’s wariness on the subject is related to his reticence to get into an argument over whether Brexit is to blame for the crisis. His tone on the issue has been slightly different to that of his shadow cabinet ministers David Lammy and Luke Pollard, who have said Johnson’s Brexit deal is to blame for the shortages of labour. Speaking to Channel 5 News on Tuesday, Starmer said: “I wouldn’t say that Brexit is to blame. What I would say is that it was inevitable as we exited the EU that we needed a plan to deal with drivers. That is obvious whether you voted remain or voted leave, and we took that decision years ago. “And here we are with a shortage of drivers which was completely predictable and predicted – and the government hasn’t got a plan.” Labour sources said the party had also been wary of encouraging more panic-buying and wanted to take a responsible stance. Johnson did not give major broadcast interviews about the fuel crisis until Tuesday, having left the main talks to his Cabinet Office minister, Steve Barclay, the business secretary, Kwasi Kwarteng, and the transport secretary, Grant Shapps. Johnson’s leading cabinet ministers were left to explain the crisis and become the main faces of the government’s response, but the prime minister made an intervention as the queues at petrol stations and negative headlines dragged into a sixth day.