It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Friday, May 10, 2024
UK
Labour says it’s ‘strengthening’ New Deal despite Unite slamming policy ‘retreat’
Daniel Green & Tom Belger 9th May, 2024
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Labour has said it is “strengthening” its New Deal for Working People, just as its leading union backer Unite claimed its workers’ rights reform package had been watered down so much it was “unrecognisable”.
Trade union Unite claims a new Labour document on its New Deal for Working People is a “betrayal’, suggesting the workers’ rights reforms presented are “unrecognisable” from plans originally produced with unions.
Labour has continually denied any recent rowback on its reforms, but Unite leader Sharon Graham claimed on Wednesday the New Deal had now become a “charter for bad bosses”.
The union accused Labour of rowing back on elements of the package, and hit out at a document allegedly issued to trade unions on Monday before they meet leader Keir Starmer next week.
Graham said: “Workers will see through this and mark this retreat after retreat as a betrayal. This new document is turning what was a real new deal for workers into a charter for bad bosses.
“Labour don’t want a law against fire and rehire and they are effectively ripping up the promise of legislation on a new deal for workers in its first 100 days.
“Instead, we have codes of conduct and pledges of consultation with big business. Likewise, the proposal to legislate against zero hours contracts is watered down to almost nothing.
“In truth, this new document is not worthy of discussion. All unions must now demand that Labour changes course and puts the original deal for workers back on the table.”
But a party spokesperson told LabourList on Thursday: “Labour’s New Deal for Working People is a core part of our mission to grow Britain’s economy and raise living standards across the country.
“A Labour government will need to hit the ground running and that is why we have been strengthening the proposals to implement our commitments. If elected we will bring forward legislation within 100 days of entering government.”
Deputy leader Angela Rayner is due to give a speech on the plans on Thursday.
Labour has faced repeated questions recently about whether the New Deal has been watered down. Sources have confirmed some new materials will be published soon about the proposals, though suggested this was about consolidation and repackaging rather than any substantive changes.
A spokesperson told journalists last week nothing had changed since the National Policy Forum last year – but multiple changes were made then. Some are only now attracting significant attention, such as Labour’s acceptance of some zero-hour contracts where workers agree to them.
Labour figures have said recently that they will “bring forward” legislation within 100 days on the New Deal, but not complete legislation on all measures within 100 days.
It is not clear what prompted Graham’s claim that the party does not want to outlaw fire and rehire. One insider told LabourList: “This hasn’t been handled well, but the substance of what was agreed last year is still there and we have gone further on some of the collective stuff. We are definitely still legislating on fire and rehire.”
The party’s final NPF platform pledged to end fire and rehire. It made no mention however of specific plans included in the initial New Deal green paper to legislate to prevent workers being dismissed for failing to agree worse contracts, and ensure union regulations don’t stop unions protecting workers subjected to fire and rehire tactics. But the insider said the tweak did not mean it had been dropped.
However, she stressed that Labour is “absolutely committed” to delivering the New Deal for Working People “in full”.
Reeves said: “Businesses have got nothing to fear from Labour’s New Deal for Working People. And, of course, we will consult on how to implement these things so that there aren’t any unforeseen, adverse consequences from it.
“But we’re committed to the New Deal for Working People. It’s an important part of our economic offer, both to build a stronger and more resilient economy and to ensure that working people benefit from a growing economy.”
Labour’s draft New Deal for Workers now “unrecognisable” – Unite
“This new document is turning what was a real new deal for workers into a charter for bad bosses.”
Sharon Graham, Unite General Secretary
By Unite the Union
Responding to the recent New Deal documents sent to the trade unions by the Labour Party, the leader of Unite Sharon Graham said:
“It looks like all the warnings Unite made earlier about the dangers of Labour rowing back on its pledges for the New Deal for Workers have been proved right. This new Labour document on the New Deal, issued to the unions on Monday, is a row back on a row back. It is totally unrecognisable from the original proposals produced with the unions. Unrecognisable. Workers will see through this and mark this retreat after retreat as a betrayal.
“This new document is turning what was a real new deal for workers into a charter for bad bosses. Labour don’t want a law against fire and rehire and they are effectively ripping up the promise of legislation on a new deal for workers in its first 100 days. Instead, we have codes of conduct and pledges of consultation with big business. Likewise, the proposal to legislate against zero hours contracts is watered down to almost nothing.
“In truth this new document is not worthy of discussion. All unions must now demand that Labour changes course and puts the original New Deal for Workers back on the table.”
Starmer will give big business veto on Labour’s ‘new deal’ for workers
The ‘New Deal for Working People’ was already meagre at best
A leak on May Day had already signalled the pro-corporate direction. Now a further one says the party will have a “full and comprehensive” consultation with business on the “New Deal for Working People”.
In 2021 Labour pledged policies including a ban on zero hour contracts and a “right to switch off”, bundled in an “employment rights bill” it would introduce within 100 days of taking office. The package—meagre at its best—also vowed to give workers full employment protections on “day one” of a new job.
Those three pledges have gone according to the FT this week. Labour will now commit to “starting the legislative process” within 100 days if it wins the next general election, saying it will only “publish draft legislative proposals” in that timeframe.
Full rights from day one in a job will be subject to probationary periods of unspecified length, the ban on zero-hours contracts will apply only to “exploitative” contracts, and collective bargaining—unions given the right to negotiate terms across a whole industry—will apply only to social care.
On its pledge to ban fire and rehire the party now says, “It is important that businesses can restructure to remain viable and preserve their workforce when there is genuinely no alternative.”
That’s music to the ears of every brutal boss. A Labour promise to give workers the “right to switch off”, so that employers cannot contact them outside working hours, has also been changed in the document.
The text now promises a more ad hoc approach, based on models in Ireland and Belgium, giving “workers and employers the opportunity to have constructive conversations and work together on bespoke workplace policies or contractual terms that benefit both parties”.
Sharon Graham, general secretary of the Unite union, said the document represented “a row back on a row back”. “It is totally unrecognisable from the original proposals produced with the unions,” she said. “Workers will see through this and mark the retreat after retreat as a betrayal.”
But other union leaders are going along with the treachery. One, who the FT describes as a “moderate union official”, said it was reasonable for Labour and the unions to negotiate a final “transformational” New Deal.
Workers and their unions should not “give Labour a chance”. They should organise for a fightback now. And they should launch the campaign even as the street sweepers are clearing the streamers outside Downing Street and Starmer is waving from the steps.
Argentina: New General Strike announced for May 9th
MAY 7, 2024
The Confederación General del Trabajo (CGT), Argentina’s largest trade union federation, has announced a second general strike for May 9th. Building on previous demonstrations, this nationwide strike aims to address the pressing economic and social challenges facing workers across the country. This time, the strike is seeking to pressure members of Congress to vote against the Ley Bases proposed by the ultra-right wing government of Javier Milei.
The labour chapter of the Ley Bases includes:
the elimination of fines for organisations who fail to register workers.
an extension of the employee trial period from three to six months for companies with more than 100 employees; eight months for SMEs with up to 99 employees; and one year for micro-enterprises with up to five employees.
the implementation of an optional dismissal fund, which would make workers’ pay for their own severance.
The law also pushes through changes to pensions that disproportionately affect women. Under the new regime, it is expected that only one in eleven women will be able to receive a full pension.
CGT General Secretary Héctor Daer also points to the austerity measures recently implemented by the government which were part of “a brutal restructuring of living conditions for the most vulnerable, leaving a vast number of soup kitchens without food, affecting pensioners and the elderly.”
In a document titled “In Defence of Labour, Social and Retirement Rights and the Trade Union Model”, the CGT denounced: “the elimination of price regulations on food, medication, energy, and essential services, at a time when salaries and purchasing power have fallen; the Minister of Economy’s intervention in wage negotiations, which has blocked the appropriate updating of wages; recession and continual price increases which have led to a decline in economic activity and basic consumption, which represent a huge transfer of resources towards the most concentrated and privileged sectors of the economy.”
Daer also draws attention to the dismissals of public sector workers and the closure of state institutions. “We are interested in having the chapter on the public sector discussed again,” he adds.
In the UK, the Argentina Solidarity Campaign (ASC) is organising an open gathering on May 9th at King’s Cross, London, to discuss the laws currently being debated in Congress, and to strengthen solidarity with Argentinian workers.
The ASC also invites unions, universities and other organisations to express their solidarity with Argentinian workers on May 9th, by sharing messages on social media and using the hashtags #NoALaLeyBases #ParoGeneral #9deMayo #CGT.
Earlier this year, I reviewed a book about green colonialism, focusing on North Africa and the Middle East. It discussed the dispossession of indigenous people from their land, using colonial-era laws to do so, and the diversion of valuable water sources – all in the name of pursuing a transition to green energy.
As this new book highlights, the problem is global. Ecuador’s unique tropical forest is now being torn down in the search for balsa wood to build Chinese wind turbines. In South Africa, huge hydrogen plants for exporting ‘clean’ energy are imperilling the way of life of communities which rely on small-scale fishing and agriculture. And in South America’s lithium triangle – in the high Andean salt flats where over half the world’s lithium resources are located – indigenous people are struggling to preserve the scarce water sources that are increasingly being grabbed by international mining conglomerates to equip electric cars with lithium batteries. All these dispossessions are legitimised by the label ‘green’.
The claim on unlimited raw materials from the Global South is just one aspect of this new colonialism. Carbon offset schemes, which serve to postpone the urgent structural changes needed to tackle polluting production processes in the North, are another. A third is the use of sites in the Global South for dumping toxic waste from renewable energy production. A fourth is the way the prosperous North targets the South as a market for selling renewable technologies at high prices, part of the “asymmetric architecture of global trade.”
Ecological modernisation in Europe is driving up demand for key raw materials. Demand for lithium is expected to increase forty-threefold by 2040 compared to 2020, copper twenty-eightfold. Lithium mining in Europe, with its traditions of political freedom and civil society protest, has been met by considerable local opposition. This is due to its environmental impact, particularly in terms of polluting the water table, as Xander Dunlap points out in another new Pluto title, This System is Killing Us.Resistance to these threats is less easy to organise in more distant, repressive states.
Yet, such resistance is happening – and not simply in opposition to the environmental destruction, debilitating though that may be, that the new green extractivism is causing. Recent protests also highlight fundamental questions about societal and global power relations.
Copper mining in Peru, for example, is capital-intensive: few jobs are provided locally to offset the impact on the loss of livelihoods and damage to the environment. These realities led over 100 indigenous people, who were dispossessed of their land, to occupy the Las Bambas copper mine in April 2022. Chile, Argentina and Bolivia have seen similar protests.
Lithium mining in particular consumes unsustainable amounts of water, endangering the way of life of indigenous people in arid regions especially. Chile and Bolivia at least have some regulatory framework, unlike Argentina where extraction is based entirely on a neoliberal model with very low royalties for the government.
It’s clear that simply replacing individualised fossil-fuel transport with lithium-based electric vehicles is not sustainable. A reduction in consumption based on new collective models of transport will be required in the Global North. And that requirement extends beyond transport: as long as developed countries pursue growth strategies based on over-consumption, a neocolonial power imbalance towards the Global South will be maintained.
Besides grassroots resistance, initiatives are also being taken at state level to break the cycle of so-called green extractivism. Indonesia has sought to shift its position from being a raw material to a finished product exporter, producing finished electric vehicle batteries, rather than just their components. To do this, it banned the export of certain raw materials, instead refining them in-country. It also nationalised the mining sector and introduced protectionist policies to nurture its fledgling domestic industries. Predictably these steps fall foul of international trade rules devised by the Global North.
During the Colombian presidential campaign of 2022, the then candidate and now President Gustavo Petro announced he would suspend new hydrocarbon exploration and ban fracking as a means of reducing the use of fossil fuels in the country. The pledge cane 27 years after the U’wa people issued a manifesto saying they would rather face a “dignified death” than have their land exploited for oil production.
In other Latin American countries, indigenous people and farming communities have proposed “leaving the oil underground” as a way of tackling the climate crisis. Over the years, this campaign has grown in support.
The authors are clear: a green transition must be socially just, at a global level. This means de-commodifying energy and seeing it as a part of the commons, to which people have a democratic right and which should be democratically controlled by them.
Mike Phipps’ book Don’t Stop Thinking About Tomorrow: The Labour Party after Jeremy Corbyn (OR Books, 2022) can be ordered here.
Defected ex-Tory MP Natalie Elphicke’s worrying voting record
Labour MP’s left angered by the former hard-right MP's admission to the party over concerning track record
Natalie Elphicke the MP for Dover defected from the Conservative Party to Labour on Wednesday just before Prime Minister’s Questions blaming Rishi Sunak for the Tories becoming “a byword for incompetence and division”.
However it was many in the Labour Party who were left angered by Keir Starmer’s decision to admit the former Tory into the party, with Labour MPs questioning why a rightwinger with her voting record was admitted and she will share the party’s values.
Following Elphicke’s defection, Starmer said he was “delighted” to welcome her, however the Guardian reported that one shadow cabinet minister said his decision had left people “upset and angry right across the party”.
Another shadow cabinet member told Politico that Starmer’s team had made a very poor decision while others have questioned why Elphicke was allowed to join Labour while MPs like Diane Abbott still have the Labour whip suspended.
Her hard-right views have worried cabinet members, with another telling the Guardian, “are we welcoming Nigel Farage next week?”
Labour MP for Birkenhead, Mick Whitley wrote on X: “Natalie Elphicke’s values are not the values of the labour movement.
“It’s outrageous that she should be allowed to join the Labour benches while principled socialists like @HackneyAbbott and @jeremycorbyn still haven’t had the whip restored.”
A snapshot of her voting record on the website They Work For You says Elphicke consistently voted against laws to promote equality and human rights, voted against measures to prevent climate change, voted against higher taxes on banks and was found to generally have voted against fewer obstacles for access to abortion.
Her record on trade unions also left much to be desired, having voted consistently for more restrictive regulations on trade union activity with critics online sharing a video of her at a debate on P&O Ferries sacking nearly 800 workers, during which she attacked trade unions as she talked of “odious hard left militants”.
Also highlighted online was the time in 2021, when she suggested Marcus Rashford missed a penalty because he spent too much time “playing politics”. The footballer was campaigning for free school meals which subsequently forced former Prime Minister Boris Johnson to U-turn on the issue.
Others have re-surfaced the story that she defended her ex-husband after he had been convicted of sexual assault, casting doubt on his victims’ testimonies. She took over his seat as Dover’s MP in 2019 after he was jailed for two years.
Articles she wrote have also been re-circulated, including one for the Daily Mail titled ‘When will The Left admit this is no refugee crisis… but simply illegal immigration’ and another for the Express, ‘Don’t trust Labour on immigration they really want open borders’.
Elphicke endorsed Liz Truss and Boris Johnson and previously called Keir Starmer ” Sir softie” over Labour’s border control plans. She has repeatedly criticised Labour for being soft on migration and untrustworthy on Brexit, which she supported.
In her defection statement Elphicke said the Labour Party “has changed out of all recognition” and now occupies the “centre ground of British politics”, as she now felt Labour was the party “building a Britain of hope, optimism, opportunity and fairness”.
(Image credit: David Woolfall / UK Parliament)
Hannah Davenport is news reporter at Left Foot Forward
Folkestone & Hythe CLP “appalled” that Tory MP Elphicke welcomed by Labour
“We believe that she is a toxic and divisive figure who has no place in the Labour Party”
Folkestone and Hythe Constituency Labour Party have released the following statement in response to hard-right Tory MP Natalie Elphicke being admitted into the Labour Party.
The Folkestone and Hythe CLP executive was shocked and appalled to hear that Natalie Elphicke had been accepted as an MP within the Labour Party yesterday.
We stand for values of kindness, decency, empathy, and humanity; values that have not been displayed by Elphicke in the time that she has been an MP. We believe that she is a toxic and divisive figure who has no place in the Labour Party and that – while it might have been temporarily headline grabbing to accept her – tremendous damage has been done to the party’s reputation in doing so.
We know that many members of the CLP in Dover and Deal will feel bewildered by this move. We send our solidarity to them, and we hope that they will apply to the NEC to have Elphicke’s application to join the Labour Party rejected as they are entitled to do under the rule book.
Labour’s decision to welcome former Tory MP Natalie Elphicke into its parliamentary ranks has drawn considerable criticism from within the party – with multiple national executive committee members calling for the party whip to be suspended from her.
LabourList asked readers of our daily briefing email this morning whether they think the party is “right” to accept Elphicke’s defection from the Tories.
More than 700 readers had responded by 3:30pm this afternoon, with more than three-quarters (76.4%) saying the party was not right to admit the former Tory MP. Just over a fifth of respondents (20.3%) said the party was right to accept her, while 3.3% said they did not know. You can still vote here.
As the leading dedicated Labour news site with readers across the party, LabourList hopes the poll may give some clues about member sentiment on the move – but it should still be handled with some caution.
LabourList is not suggesting this is a scientific poll that provides an exact representation of the views of all party members at large. While many members read our daily email, anyone can subscribe to it, and anyone can fill in the poll, member or not.
We also asked readers which Tory MP they would most want to join Labour if any, to which more than 400 responded “none”. The Tory MP named in the most responses was Alicia Kearns on 13, followed by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on nine.
Elphicke, the MP for Dover, announced she was quitting the Conservative Party and joining Labour in a statement issued through Labour officials just before Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday.
The former Tory MP argued that the Conservatives have become a “byword for incompetence and division” under Sunak’s leadership, particularly highlighting the party’s record on housing and border security.
“Britain needs a government that will build a future of hope, optimism, opportunity and fairness. A Britain everyone can be part of, that will make the most of the opportunities that lie ahead. That’s why it’s time for change. Time for a Labour government led by Keir Starmer,” she said.
The Labour leader said on Wednesday he was “delighted” to welcome Elphicke to Labour, telling Sky News: “She’s got a strong track record on issues such as housing. She’s on the frontline when it comes to the crisis of small boats.
“And the reason that she’s given for joining the Labour Party is very, very important because I think she speaks for very many Tory voters in saying that the Tory Party has changed, it’s left the centre ground.
“But equally, the Labour Party has changed, and we are very clearly the party of the national interest, of country first, party second. And I look forward to working with her on the mission to deliver the real change that this country desperately needs.”
NEC members Jess Barnard and Mish Rahman – who are both standing for reelection to the party’s governing body with the backing of the Centre-Left Grassroots Alliance and Momentum – have called for the Labour whip to be suspended from Elphicke.
Barnard argued that accepting the former Tory MP was a “colossal error of judgement” from Starmer which “undermines the fight against sexual harassment and is totally inconsistent with Labour values”.
Elphicke has faced scrutiny in part over comments she made supporting her ex-husband, the former Tory MP Charlie Elphicke, after he was convicted of sexual assault. She released a statement today apologising for the comments.
“I have previously, and do, condemn his behaviour towards other women and towards me. It was right that he was prosecuted and I’m sorry for the comments that I made about his victims,” she said.
Others within Labour and on the left have also questioned the decision to accept Elphicke, with The Mirror’s Kevin Maguire asking if it is a “defection too far” and Labour staffer and chair of the GMB branch for members’ staff Jenny Symmons describing the defection as “really, really poor and disappointing”.
“It’s outrageous that she should be allowed to join the Labour benches while principled socialists like Diane Abbott and Jeremy Corbyn still haven’t had the whip restored”
Mick Whitley MP
By Labour Outlook
The Labour Left has hit back after yesterday’s shock announcement that Tory MP, Natalie Elphicke, has defected from the government benches and been welcomed by Keir Starmer into the Parliamentary Labour Party – all while Diane Abbott remains under suspension for comments made last year.
Jess Barnard, a prominent member of Labour’s NEC on the left of the party, said “it’s clear this was a colossal error of judgement from Starmer. His welcoming of Natalie Elphicke undermines the fight against sexual harassment and is totally inconsistent with Labour values. I call on him to suspend the whip from Elphicke and apologise for the hurt caused.”
After Elphicke’s husband was convicted of sex offences, she claimed his victims were part of a “dirty politics” and that he had been punished for being “attractive and attracted” to women. She was also found to have attempted to improperly lobby the judge over the outcome of the court case.
Another Labour NEC member, Mish Rahman, commented similarly: “Elphicke should have the whip withdrawn for comments about victims of sexual harassment.”
“Labour’s Shadow Women and Equalities Minister has to do better than to defend someone who has never been held to account about those awful comments”
Pointing to the hard-rightwinger’s record, a spokesperson for Momentum said “Natalie Elphicke has consistently demonised refugees and aid groups. She voted against Labour proposals to outlaw fire and rehire, while supporting a wide array of destructive and damaging Tory legislation. She should have no place in a Labour Party committed to progressive values and working-class people. Sadly, Keir Starmer is taking Labour away from its core values, aping a failed Tory Party instead of offering a real alternative to it. More than ever, Britain wants change – but is being offered a two-party consensus instead.”
They added: “This hard-right Tory should have no place in a Labour Party worthy of the name.”
“It speaks volumes about Keir Starmer that he is welcoming her with open arms, while leaving Diane Abbott out in the cold.”
MPs also expressed their concern. Mick Whitley said “Natalie Elphicke’s values are not the values of the labour movement.”
“It’s outrageous that she should be allowed to join the Labour benches while principled socialists like Diane Abbott and Jeremy Corbyn still haven’t had the whip restored.”
Nadia Whittome MP, said “I don’t agree with the decision to admit Natalie Elphicke. Labour is a broad church, but there should be limits. I am deeply concerned by Natalie’s past comments and I’m unconvinced that her politics have changed sufficiently for her to represent our party.”
Similarly, John McDonnell told LBC “I’m a great believer in the power of conversion, but even this one would strain the generosity of spirit of John the Baptist.”
Watch and read Starmer’s speech on his small boats plan in Elphicke’s seat
Keir Starmer has today unveiled Labour’s latest proposals to reduce small boat crossings, pledging to end the Tories’ “talk tough, do nothing culture” on the issue with proposals including a new ‘Border Security Command’ – using cash currently allocated to the Rwanda scheme.
The Labour leader delivered a speech this morning on the Kent coast, in the Dover and Deal constituency of his party’s newest MP, the former Tory Natalie Elphicke, who defected to Labour earlier this week.
Starmer accused the Tories of “rank incompetence” and argued that rebuilding the UK’s asylum system has become “a question [of] can you prioritise, at all times, the politics of practical solutions and can you reject the politics of performative symbols, the gimmicks and gestures”.
He announced proposals including the creation of a new Border Security Command, which would bring together the key agencies of the National Crime Agency, Immigration Enforcement, CPS and MI5 and work cross-border with international agencies to tackle people-smuggling gangs.
Discussing Elphicke’s defection in a question-and-answer session with journalists following the speech, Starmer said: “This changed Labour Party ought to be a place where reasonably-minded people, whichever way they voted in the past, feel that they can join with our project to change the country for the better.
“And so it is an invitation to be less tribal in the pursuit of a better country and invite people to our party who want to join in our project of national renewal.”
You can watch back Starmer’s speech here, and a full transcript is below.
Here is the full text of the Labour leader’s speech:
Thank you, Mike, – what a fantastic campaign you are running. And thank you Natalie – it’s fantastic to be here in your constituency. Welcome to the Labour Party, it’s really great to have you on board. And thank you Yvette for everything you do on this brief and on this important challenge.
It’s great to be here in sunny Kent, the Garden of England. I used to play football around here for years, the uncompromising, no-nonsense, hard knocks, training school of the Kent Boys League. So, it’s a part of the world I’m very familiar with this part of the world.
But after elections last week, I have to say, it’s a part of the world the Tories are increasingly unfamiliar with. A county not just green and pleasant, but now also turning red. And on a day like this, I do have to apologise for keeping you all indoors. But we’ll be out there before too long.
But look – we’re here today on serious business. Because this is a community on the frontline of one of the gravest challenges we face as a nation. Illegal migration is a test of seriousness for all governments and would-be governments, and not just here – right across the world. A symbol, as I said in my conference speech last year, of a more volatile world, an age of insecurity.
It’s a hard nut to crack – I’m not going to pretend otherwise. Tackling organised crime is always hard, especially across borders. I know that from my work at the Crown Prosecution Service, on drug smuggling or counter-terrorism operations.
And let’s be clear at the start – this is a criminal enterprise we are dealing with. A business that pits nation against nation, that thrives in the grey areas of our rules – the cracks between our institutions, where, they believe, they can exploit some of the most vulnerable people in the world with impunity. A vile trade – that preys on the desperation and the hope it finds in its victims. The common humanity that ultimately it seeks to extinguish.
Not so long ago, back in 2016, I went for myself to the outskirts of Calais. It was winter, it was freezing. The ground was mud sodden with rain and human waste. I saw the children there – the same age as my own. Back then, that was aged five and aged seven. Huddling together in a tent that offered almost nothing in the way of warmth. A desperate situation. That night, I went home and said goodnight to my children, each in their own bedroom, with central heating on.
I came away from that day profoundly depressed, and I would defy anybody to go into those camps and come away with any other reaction. That camp represented a monumental failure, across nations. People had been brutally let down, by governments of course. Not just in terms of the truly awful conditions but also because the failure of our asylum system had encouraged a false hope. A hope that had unequivocally made those people more vulnerable to exploitation. Gangs were hovering round the camp, that day, using it as a job centre for modern slavery.
Now – that camp has long gone, but the smuggling business remains. The exploitation remains. The peril. As Yvette said, the children dying in our waters. Just three weeks ago – a seven-year-old girl. The same age as one of the children I saw in that camp. That all remains.
So, no matter how good anyone thinks their intentions are, turning a blind-eye to this business, not understanding how important a rules-based asylum system is for tackling that exploitation, for removing the criminal business-model if you like – that is not a progressive and compassionate position, it is the complete opposite of a progressive and compassionate position. This problem must be tackled. These gangs must be stopped, our asylum system must be rebuilt, our borders must be secured.
But to do that. To finally grip this problem. We need to turn the page and move on from an unhealthy interest in gesture politics that has long defined this policy area. And which has dragged the Tories as a serious party of government onto rocks of their own delusion.
Let me give you a few examples of what I mean by gesture politics. September 2020: The Sun newspaper reports that the government was exploring the procurement of Yamaha jet-skis. The plan, allegedly, to patrol the English Channel and tow boats containing asylum seekers back to France.
October 2020: The Financial Times reports that the government is undertaking a “secret consultation with the maritime industry”. The plan now? Constructing “floating walls” or “marine fencing”, in order to block small boats. And presumably, in the busiest shipping lane in the world, all other boats.
December 2020: Yvette will remember this – Chris Philp, then the immigration minister, at the Home Affairs select Ccmmittee in front of Yvette, refusing to rule out the use of wave machines to blow back the boats. A policy that by then had – somehow – also managed to find its way into newspapers.
I could go on. After all, there is plenty more material: sound cannons, sonic weapons, various deployments of the Royal Navy – against advice and with little success – the list is endless.
And yet here we are. Over 8,000 people have made the perilous journey across the Channel in small boats this year. On track to surpass the record set in 2022.
Now, I want to be clear – there is no implied critique of the reporting here. If a government source tells you it’s going to build a wall in the English Channel, you better believe – that is a story.
But the question this record must raise is whether the latest gimmick, the Prime Minister’s Rwanda scheme, can really be taken as a serious solution to this important challenge? I don’t think so.
They will get flights off the ground – I don’t doubt that. But I also don’t doubt – that this will not work. A policy that will see just a few hundred people a year removed to Rwanda, less than 1% of the people who cross the sea in small boats every year, less than one per cent – for £600m, that is neither an effective deterrent or a good use of your money.
And then you look at the rest of our border system. And honestly, it’s like a sieve. Just the other day, the Home Office admitted it’s lost track of thousands of people they think have no right to be here. And yet still the government refuses to do anything than focus all its time and energy propping up Rwanda. Throwing good money after bad, hoping it will get a few flights – with what, a couple of hundred migrants off the ground, because it’s symbolic.
For party management. For the election. It’s gesture politics. £600m for a few hundred removed – that is gesture politics, and Britain can do better.
Labour will do better. We will end this farce. We will restore serious government to our borders, tackle this problem, at source, and replace the Rwanda policy – permanently.
Today we launch our plan to do that. A new approach to small boat crossings that will secure Britain’s borders, prevent the exploitation by tackling it upstream and smash the criminal smuggling gangs.
And as the first step in this plan – a new manifesto commitment. We will set up a new command with new powers, new resources, and a new way of doing things – Border Security Command.
This is about leveraging the power and potential of dynamic government, based on a counter-terrorism approach which we know works. An end to the fragmentation between policing, the border force and our intelligence agencies, a collective raising of standards, so that border protection becomes an elite force, not a Cinderella service, an essential frontline defence that communities like this can depend upon.
To do all that, Border Security Command will bring together hundreds of specialist investigators. The best of the best. From the National Crime Agency, the Border Force, Immigration Enforcement, the Crown Prosecution Service and yes – MI5, all working to a single mission, all freed from the cloying bureaucracy that so often prevents collaboration between different institutions.
I’ve seen this first-hand at the Crown Prosecution Service. Good ambition is never enough on its own. But I’ve seen how with determination, with leadership, with a single-minded focus, agencies can work together and deliver results. And not just within one country either. We can co-operate across borders, that’s not some kind of weakness, it’s absolutely essential. These criminals do not respect national borders.
When I was at the Crown Prosecution Service, we had prosecutors posted in Pakistan working on counter-terrorism operations. In the Caribbean, on smuggling. In West Africa, disrupting the flow of drugs coming from South America on their way to Europe and ultimately to Britain.
These operations are not easy. Just think about conducting a raid, I’ve been through this so many times, seen it in real time. If you’ve pooled all the intelligence in one place, if you’ve spent weeks, months, years, mapping out the patterns of criminal activity, bringing in prosecutors to help assess the vital evidence. You cannot have your raid in London going off a single minute earlier or later than the coordinating raids in Paris.
So yes – we need more co-operation on illegal migration. We need a new partnership with Europol. We need access to the real-time intelligence-sharing networks that are so crucial to our security and which the government so casually threw away as part of its botched Brexit deal.
That’s why I’ve already been to the Hague with Yvette, to start pushing for a new security pact with our European partners. But look – it is also my firm belief, based on years of experience in this area, that we also need new and stronger powers to bring these vile criminals to justice.
In some areas of criminal activity, counter-terrorism is the most obvious, we have made the decision that the crime justifies tougher measures.
Make no mistake, we have reached that moment with illegal migration. These vile people smugglers are no better than terrorists. They are a threat to our national security and a threat to life, and it is time we treated them as such.
That means new powers that, as with would-be terrorists, can be used pre-conviction with High Court approval, that can limit the ability of the gangs to conduct their vile business – before arrest.
Powers that will allow us to shut off internet access, close their bank accounts, trace their movements – using information provided by the intelligence services. Or powers like stop and search at the border. Or raiding and seizing evidence – before an offence has taken place.
Let me explain why. We use the term ‘small boats’. But these boats are not, for the most part, that small. The gangs now use dinghies that are on a scale way beyond anything you would see for legitimate recreational activity.
We should be working with our European partners to seize those boats, seize material here in the UK to collect further evidence, turn over every stone, use every reasonable power – and that is my message to the smugglers. These shores will become hostile territory for you. We will find you, we will stop you, we will protect your victims, with the Border Security Command, we will secure Britain’s borders.
And we will also rebuild Britain’s broken asylum system. As I said at the beginning – I believe in a rules-based asylum system. I believe that a system that processes claims quickly and humanely, and that finds ways, without squeamishness or cruelty, to detain and remove people who have no right to be here, is essential for security, fairness, and justice.
It is a form of deterrence in itself. Until we are seen around the world as a country that has a firm grip of the process at our border. Until we are busting the Home Office backlog arriving at decisions quickly, without a fuss, so that we can return people who have no right to be here, then yes, Britain will be seen as a soft touch.
It goes without saying, we do not have that effective deterrence at our borders at the moment. Our rules-based asylum system isn’t working. Ask anyone in this part of the world, that much is obvious.
So it’s not hard to see why the Prime Minister might want a path to deterrence, without the hard graft – the boring graft perhaps – of fixing the wider system. But I’m afraid, like so much of what he says these days, it’s magical thinking, a symbol of the unquenchable Tory desire for the shortcut. The easy-fix, the sticking plaster, gimmicks not serious government.
Let me spell it out again. A scheme that will remove less than 1% of arrivals from small boat crossings a year cannot and never will be an effective deterrent. It’s an insult to anyone’s intelligence and the gangs that run this sick trade are not easily fooled.
In fact, by allowing vast numbers of people into the country via this route, running up a perma-backlog of nearly 100,000 people, refusing to process the claims – so that even if they have absolutely no right to be here – they cannot be removed – billing the taxpayer for expensive hotel accommodation – because like Hotel California, there is no prospect of ever leaving. No prospect of a decision for or against – then let me be clear.
The government has achieved the complete opposite of what they claim. A Travelodge amnesty handed out by the Tory Party, that is warmer and safer than spending winter under canvas near a beach in Northern France. If you don’t think that’s what the gangs are telling the people they exploit – you’ve never met one of these gangs.
So, no – we have to restore integrity and rules to our asylum system. We have to clear the backlog so we can return people swiftly. That is the path, the only path, to real deterrence.
That’s why we will hire hundreds of new caseworkers for the Home Office, and we’ll do it straight away. We will create a new fast-track returns and enforcement unit that will make sure the courts can process claims quickly and we will save the taxpayer billions. The £8m we spend every day on hotels, an £8m a day message that Tory chaos has a cost.
Labour will stop the chaos. Labour will bust the backlogs. Labour will rebuild our broken asylum system. Now – these plans will be fiercely resisted, of course they will. That is par for the course on this issue. I have no doubt that the British people fully support a rules-based asylum system. No doubt that the fair-minded majority want a system that can secure Britain’s borders and uphold this country’s fine tradition of providing sanctuary for people fleeing persecution.
But this is a debate that has been captured by polarising voices. And so, every solution must run a gauntlet of bad faith objections just to get a hearing. On one side of the debate, it comes from people who claim they want to reform the asylum system, but in fact want to get rid of it.
People who believe, based on their principles, that people should be able to move across the globe, wherever, whenever, and however they want. No matter that this, in this age of insecurity especially, would lead to a chaos that, quite apart from other objections, does nothing to advance global justice.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the debate, some people pretend they want to reform asylum. When what they really want, is for the British state to act with impunity, to tear-up rules on a whim. Because ultimately, they do not want us to take in any asylum seekers whatsoever. I do not think there are many Tories who truly believe that. But what I do think is that they are too weak to admit that plainly. Too weak to say that this is not and never should be a world we live in.
Because Britain should show leadership on the global issues that drive insecurity and migration. Britain should step up to tackle climate change, famine and conflict. We do have a duty to work with other nations. And the state should not have untrammelled power against minorities or anyone. Our rules-based system should align with global rules that protect individual human rights. That is in our interest and the right thing do.
And so, rebuilding our asylum system has become a test of political strength. A trial of leadership to resist the voices who fundamentally do not want to build a functioning asylum system. A question: can you prioritise, at all times, the politics of practical solutions and can you reject the politics of performative symbols, the gimmicks and gestures.
This is the story of what has happened to the government, the explanation of how a party that cares about illegal migration – there’s no doubt about that – finds itself with a record of failure as total and stark as this.
It isn’t just rank incompetence – though it is that, it’s also about who the Tories are now, and I’m afraid also about our politics as a whole, a culture that is part of the water in Westminster that rewards the grand gesture. The big talk, while disregarding the detailed practical action that over time, moves a nation forward, step by step.
Take Northern Ireland. Because in my lifetime, there is no more powerful example than that, and I was there in the room, helping create a police service that could work for all communities. Trying to move a nation slowly but surely towards the hard work, the long work, the patient work of real change.
Now – I don’t want to stretch the analogy too much. But that is what the hard graft of change means to me, and it is that kind of approach that tackling small boats requires now.
So I say to the British people: if I am elected to serve this country, if I earn that privilege, I will turn the page on Westminster’s ‘talk tough, do nothing’ culture. Not just on small boats. Not just on migration. On everything.
I don’t know if that’s a new politics or whether it’s a return to the bare minimum you should expect. But if you vote Labour – that is what you will get. And if you don’t believe me – after 14 years of broken promises from the Tories, that’s understandable.
But as the country’s chief prosecutor, I smashed the terrorist gangs. And I know we can now smash the people-smuggling gangs. I’ve dragged my party away from the allure of gesture politics, and I will do exactly the same to Westminster.
No more gimmicks. The character of politics will change and through that, we will deliver higher growth, safer streets, an NHS back on its feet, more opportunity in your community, cheaper bills in your home, and secure borders for our nation.b
An asylum system – rebuilt. The criminal gangs – smashed. The exploitation of some of the most vulnerable people in the world – prevented.
An end to the chaos. A turning of the page. A politics returned to service and a careful, patient, determined renewal of our country with Labour. That is the future you can choose. That is what serious government can deliver. Thank you.