Mike Davis reports that while thousands gathered to cheer the Labour landslide new popular and progressive policies for wealth redistribution and reviving public services were largely absent
Keir Starmer made ten pledges for his election campaign to become leader of the party in 2019. Almost all have been jettisoned. In the stripped down, low expectations Manifesto for the July 5th general election the big message was ‘Change’. This meant renewal, building sound foundations, economic growth and a service focussed government. On a lower total vote and lower percentage than Corbyn achieved in 2019 and an overall lower turnout Labour won a landslide. Miles wide and an inch thick, as one activist remarked.
Predictably the recent Liverpool Labour conference maintained the low expectations but sought to avoid any critical votes. The aim: to stage-manage a smooth media performance demonstrating unity and purpose. It was not quite to be. The composite motion on border security which called for “additional returns arrangements to speed up returns” and an increase in the number of safe countries to deport failed asylum seekers mysteriously disappeared. Meanwhile the motion promoted by Unite rejecting the cut in universal Winter Fuel Payment was carried despite having been shunted back to the graveyard session at the end of conference. The latter policy, ill thought-out and for little financial gain, was an unnecessary own goal that hung over the performative proceedings.
Coming into conference Starmer had been subjected to attacks from Tory media on freebie clothes and posh football seats, and from trade unions and many Labour members, for the harsh treatment (six month suspension) of dissenting MPs on keeping the two-child benefit cap plus the furore around the Winter Fuel Payment. A slow response on a call for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and a 15% cut in arms sales to Israel failed to meet the internationalist challenges required for a real “Change” from Toryism needed from Labour in government.
The conference itself was a lacklustre affair with few new announcements. Chancellor Rachel Reeves continues to remind us of the £22 billion black hole in national finances as the reason for a continuing squeeze on public services and the likelihood of more austerity despite manifesto commitments to end Tory austerity policies. Economic growth will not come without investment and recent talk from the Treasury of deep cuts in capital spend is a bad omen.
There have been good news stories: the pay settlements for junior doctors, teachers and rail workers, alongside renationalisation of rail, plus the anticipated “100 day” implementation of the New Deal for Working People with pledges to end fire and hire, zero hours contracts and boost the minimum wage while scrapping minimum service legislation and other punitive anti-union laws. Great British Energy, the National Wealth Fund, localisation of buses, are all welcome changes.
In the leader’s speech we were reminded of these plans but there was little new to cheer about. There was no mention of democracy, neither reform of the electoral system nor the House of Lords. Nor was the word socialism uttered. Long abandoned were pledges to renationalise water and the post office. There was a commitment to introduce a Hillsborough Law to bring justice for the 97 who died in that disaster and for the sub-postmasters, for the victims of the contaminated blood scandal, the Windrush scandal and the Grenfell Tower fire. All positive. As was the commitment to a Renters Reform Bill and an end to one-word Ofsted judgements.
The strongest part of his speech was a commitment to challenge racism and racist thugs who terrorised communities in August in a planned far right provocation after the killings in Southport. However, this was undermined by concessions to right wing arguments about migrants being the problem. Why not something on the massive contribution migrants make to our vital public services, particularly in health and social care. Also the economic and cultural benefits more broadly that migration brings and particularly the Erasmus+ European youth exchange scheme, and the need for safe routes for refugees to claim asylum. Closer links to Europe was almost a taboo subject, uttered only in fringe meetings, notably at a Fabian Society event. (Starmer and Reeves, both members, were not present.)
Two events on the conference floor marred the smooth revivalist flavour sought by the leadership. First, the manhandling from conference of two activists from Climate Resistance protesting about continuing sales of arms to Israel and the climate emergency, and then, during the leader’s speech, the forceful eviction of a young delegate protesting about the feeble response by Labour on the Gaza genocide of children. Starmer’s response, saying that it was as if he had turned up to the 2019 conference, was another gratuitous side-swipe at his predecessor.
Ann Black, recently re-elected to the NEC, summed up her conference report with this comment. “Through the week there were many references to a changed Labour party. I’d just make a few comments. First, Tony Blair changed the party to New Labour in the 1990s, but it did not stop the pendulum swinging back in the 2010s. Second, there is still too much factional sniping from all sides, including a leading “moderate” whose blog has “subtitles for the Hard of Left”. What goes around comes around, so less triumphalism, more tolerance and more positive, popular and progressive policies are as important as ever.”
The ubiquitous theme, counterposing protest politics to serious politics, injures the party in government. Labour needs grassroots activism combined with parliamentary action. That’s what brings change: that’s the historical message from the Chartists through to the suffragettes and trade union movement that founded Labour.
Starmer spoke about being a “great reforming government” of “taking back control” “giving patients more control over their health”, “communities more control of their streets” people with more control over their lives. To do this the party must embrace social activism and mobilise people to support progressive change. As John Harris has argued (Guardian 30 September) Labour historically has been fuelled by marches and protest. In the 1980s Starmer was co-editor of Socialist Alternatives magazine where he argued that “a pluralist socialism and a pluralist Labour Party must accommodate to different trends, tendencies and ideas provided only that they are united around the socialist programme of the party.” As a lawyer he helped two environmental and social justice activists whose battle against McDonald’s went all the way to the European Court of Human rights.
Labour’s honeymoon has endured for less than three months. To build on electoral success and thwart the rise of the right, real change is needed. That has to mean wealth redistribution with taxes on the richest, ‘those with the broadest shoulders’ to quote Starmer; radically transformed public services; a transformed international policy that puts ethics, cooperation and human rights at its heart; and real control passing to people in communities and workplaces. Above all it means a government and party that stands up to corporate capitalism and its exploitative ways.