In Britain, the Labour Party's change of leadership is unlikely to have much of an impact on politics or governance in the near future, as people are preoccupied with the COVID-19 emergency and will then have to face its economic, financial and social consequences.

Labour's capacity to influence the course of events is weak both inside the Westminster parliament and outside. The Conservative government is largely united and has a solid majority of MPs.

That said, the possibility cannot be discounted that Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his ministers might face the wrath of the public before too long, having made a colossal mistake or two in their handling of the coronavirus crisis or its consequences.

Nonetheless, for the time being, the impact of Labour's changes at the top is likely to remain underwhelming.

Former leader Jeremy Corbyn announced his intention to stand down shortly after last December's General Election, when Boris Johnson and the Conservative Party won a big majority of the seats in the Westminster parliament.

In the Labour Party leadership elections which followed, a majority (56%) of party members and registered supporters voted for Sir Keir Starmer over Rebecca Long-Bailey and Lisa Nandy to replace Corbyn.

This represents a turn to the right inside the Labour Party, although not one as straightforward as some of Starmer's critics or supporters might think.

Firstly, while leaders wield extraordinary power in Britain's major parliamentary parties, it is not unlimited. This is certainly true of the Labour Party, although Tony Blair did his utmost as party leader and prime minister to centralize decision-making into his own hands and those of a small number of ministers and advisers.

For instance, Jeremy Corbyn was never in a position to impose a change of official Labour Party policy – which is decided at annual conferences of party delegates – in a number of major areas. Instead, he had to consider very carefully what to say, and how to vote and campaign in an ultimately unsuccessful effort to reconcile official conference policies with his own longstanding principled positions.

Moreover, he had to do this in ways which maintained the support of hundreds of thousands of left-of-center activists, a range of trade unions and millions of not so left-leaning electors, while not provoking yet another rebellion by a hundred or more anti-Corbyn Labour MPs (whose supporters maintained their hold on many local party organizations).

In addition, for part of his time as Labour leader, Corbyn did not have the support of officials in charge of the party's central apparatus, nor a clear left-wing majority on its ruling National Executive Committee (NEC) which comprises representatives of constituency parties, unions, other affiliated bodies, councilors, parliamentarians and Westminster MPs.

Thus, while most Labour MPs dropped their "austerity-lite" position and embraced Corbyn's total opposition to cuts in public services and welfare benefits, and support for more taxes on wealth and corporate profits, he had to abide by official party policy and cease calling for Britain's withdrawal from the European Union and NATO.

When he urged swift implementation of Brexit the day after the initial June 2016 referendum, most of his Shadow Cabinet of MPs resigned and within days the Parliamentary Labour Party had declared "no confidence" in him, forcing a new leadership election.

Before and during Labour's conferences in 2017 and 2018, Corbyn fought to uphold the party's official line to respect – which could only mean to implement – the Brexit referendum result. Many Labour MPs were doing their best to frustrate every possible arrangement for leaving the EU.

Ambiguous Labour conference resolutions opened up the possibility of Labour joining the call for a second referendum, a demand first raised by Tony Blair's political allies and sections of big business in the hope of overturning the result of the first.

Labour went into the December 2019 General Election committed to a repeat referendum, with senior party leaders – except for Corbyn himself – making clear their intention of campaigning to remain in the EU, regardless of any exit arrangements negotiated between a future Labour government and the EU itself.

This proved a disastrous error on top of the sustained, ferocious ruling class and media assault on Jeremy Corbyn aided and abetted by numerous current and defecting Labour MPs.

As such, Johnson swept to victory, capturing 54 seats from Labour, 52 of which had voted to leave the EU in the 2016 referendum.

Keir Starmer played a significant role in these developments. He joined the Shadow Cabinet rebellion against Corbyn in June 2016, believing that only a new leader could offer effective opposition in the wake of the "catastrophic" vote for Brexit.

He then campaigned in the resulting leadership campaign for Owen Smith, a candidate whose leadership qualities had been well hidden and whose challenge won only 38% of the vote. Back in the Shadow Cabinet soon afterwards as Labour's Brexit spokesperson, Starmer refrained from publicly criticizing Corbyn and Labour's progressive economic and social policies – indeed, he genuinely supported many of them.

Behind the scenes, though, he worked hard to push Labour into supporting a second EU referendum, then broke ranks publicly at Labour's 2018 conference when suggesting that an option to remain in the EU should be on the ballot paper. In the run-up to last year's General Election, he exceeded his brief again by declaring that he would campaign to keep Britain in the EU in the event of a second referendum.

On many economic and social issues, Starmer is mildly left-of-center. Decades ago, as a lawyer, he already established himself as a supporter of trade unions and human rights.

On international affairs, he is a typical social democrat who basically supports EU and NATO membership. However, he would not necessarily support every British or U.S. military adventure. He voted against British military intervention in Syria, for example.

As Labour's new leader, he wants to unite much of the party around himself and his preferred policies. However, many in his leadership contest team – which he inherited largely from Owen Smith – want something more, namely, a purge of the socialist left from the party and its governing apparatus. In this, they enjoy the avid support of most of Britain's mainstream mass media.

Already, the left has lost three elected seats on the NEC and Starmer's likely Shadow Cabinet representatives will probably tip the balance in favor of the right.

Together with his advisers, Starmer has chosen a Shadow Cabinet which undoubtedly signifies a rightward shift, but without purging the left entirely, Blair-style.

He had no choice but to accept Angela Rayner as the elected deputy leader. A former trade union activist, she is firmly on the left and – like Corbyn – has opposed British military interventions abroad.

However, she will now be under great pressure from Starmer to uphold official Labour policy on the EU and "national security" issues. Starmer has also given key economic and financial portfolios to anti-socialist MPs who openly opposed Labour's left turn under Corbyn towards policies of radically progressive taxation and the renationalization of key industries.

Intriguingly, though, new Shadow Foreign Secretary Lisa Nandy has long argued that Labour should have honored the EU referendum result, instead of trying to block or delay Brexit as most Labour MPs have been doing up to the present day.

After five years of near silence, it would mark a major change to hear prominent left-wing Labour MPs speaking out clearly once more against the EU, NATO and in defense of the peoples of Palestine and Venezuela.

Even so, that will come too late for many erstwhile Labour Party members. Some have already quit the party in anger or despair; many will end up staying; others have already applied to join Britain's Communist Party.

The danger is that many Labour activists will drift out of organized political activity altogether, when mass campaigning will be vital in order to defend public services, living standards and democratic rights from a post-coronavirus tidal wave of austerity measures.

Robert Griffiths is a former Senior Lectuer in Political Economy and History at the University of Wales and currently the General Secretary of the Communist Party of Britain.

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