Tough on elites, tough on the causes of elites: that’s how Starmer can defeat the allure of populism | Andy Beckett

There are times when centrism seems shrewd politics. Progressive enough for some lefties, permissive enough for liberals, cautious enough for conservatives and unobtrusive enough for the many voters who want politicians to “ tread more lightly on your lives ”, as Keir Starmer put it in his first prime ministerial speech. After years of turmoil and extremism, a centrist government – whether of the centre left or centre right – can come as a relief.

Centrism can seem inclusive: “We need to move forward together,” Starmer declared outside No 10. Centrism can seem “unburdened by doctrine”, as he pledged his government would be, instead offering “stability and moderation”. And centrism can promise reforms that are modest in scale but cumulatively uplifting: “The work of change,” he said, “begins immediately.”

The purposeful first fortnight of Britain’s first centre-left government for 14 years has pleased voters. More than twice as many expect Starmer to change the country for the better as expect him to make it worse, according to the pollster Ipsos. The fear that we are in national decline, which during the shambolic years of Boris Johnson, Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak spread across the media and electorate, right- and leftwing alike, has suddenly receded a little. Other wealthy democracies no longer regard Britain as such a laughing stock.

And yet, the state of politics in many of those other democracies contains a warning for Starmer and all those who believe in his “decade of national renewal”. From Germany to Australia to the US, cautious, conscientious, in some ways Starmer-like centre-left leaders have been elected in recent years, enjoyed brief honeymoons, then fallen behind rightwing populists in the polls. Centrist administrations that were supposed to restore sanity, pragmatism and competence to western politics, and in the process reduce populism to a passing fad, instead risk becoming no more than brief, relatively calm interludes in an era of dogma and acrimony.

A pattern seems to be developing where centrists and populists alternate in office. Meanwhile the climate crisis, the housing crisis and other huge problems that require consistency from successive governments worsen further. Why is this destructive electoral zigzag happening – and what could Starmer’s government do to help stop it?

One explanation is that the nonstop drama of populist governments has changed expectations about governments in general. Whether it’s Johnson’s Brexit brinkmanship or Donald Trump’s tantrums in the White House, populists provide easy stories for reporters and can be compelling for those voters usually bored by politics. Even on the night of the UK general election, as Labour was making its biggest breakthrough in decades, much of the initial coverage focused on Reform’s far smaller gains. For some journalists with middle-class backgrounds and liberal politics, populism’s rebel airs, hard-right ideas and working-class credentials – genuine or not – give it the allure of forbidden fruit. Centrism can seem bland in comparison.

In these impatient times, the incremental reforms that centrist governments favour can also feel too slow. The Starmer administration is trying to avoid this problem by quickly launching a mass of reviews and proposed legislation to “ take the brakes off Britain ”, and by having new ministers busily crisscrossing the country. The energy and focus have been refreshing after the laziness and drift of Johnson and Sunak’s tenures. But many of the government’s initiatives will still take years to bring results, if they ever do, and during this waiting period Labour will be vulnerable to claims from Nigel Farage and others – probably including a new, more populist Tory leader – that they can provide miracle cures for Britain that will work much faster.

Another allure of populism is that it identifies people for discontented voters to blame. Starmer’s current strategy of pinning everything wrong with the country on the Tories is good politics – you could see it as centrism with a touch of populist aggression – and in many ways justified. Yet, like Labour’s promise to “ govern for everybody ”, this approach avoids uncomfortable truths: that a large minority of Britons benefited from Tory rule, and they will probably have to lose some of their privileges – for example, low taxes on the rich by international standards – if the public services used by the majority are to be properly funded. If Starmer doesn’t become tougher on elites and tougher on the causes of elites, then populists will continue to blame shortages of public resources on immigrants, other vulnerable minorities and the government itself.

Related: With this king’s speech, Starmer has staked everything on the long game. But politics has a habit of moving fast | Martin Kettle

So far, Starmer’s response to rightwing populism has been quite timid. As opposition leader, rather than attack this often nasty and incoherent movement, he borrowed some of its iconography and preoccupations, surrounding himself with union flags . Labour’s stage sets and membership cards came to look like things from GB News.

In government, there is a danger that he will continue to follow the populists ever rightwards on crime and immigration, an electoral strategy that has already failed for centrist governments across Europe. In Britain, the temptation for centrist premiers to be influenced by populists may be even stronger, because populist ideas pervade so much of our media. While both the Tory and non-Tory wings of the movement sometimes suffer setbacks at general elections, in the wider culture it is never really out of power.

There remains a chance that Starmer could deal with the populist threat differently. His premiership is still forming and so are his political methods, after less than a decade in parliament. As his biographer, Tom Baldwin , writes, when Starmer is faced with a new situation, “He exhausts conventional options before, if necessary, becoming progressively more radical.”

In the 1930s, the last time the far right was so powerful in western democracies, one of the few centre-left governments that survived was in the US, led by Franklin D Roosevelt. Its expansive New Deal policies , distant antecedents of the boldest Labour legislation announced in the king’s speech this week, were crucial to Roosevelt’s success, but so was his rhetoric. In a celebrated 1936 presidential election speech, he said that the forces of “organised money” and the “organised mob” were “unanimous in their hate for me - and I welcome their hatred”. He was re-elected. Starmer may need to be much fiercer towards the populists if he is to manage the same.

• Andy Beckett is a Guardian columnist