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)
Monday, June 17, 2024
UK
Labour manifesto and Palestine: What is now party policy?
Katie Neame & Cathleen Clarke
14th June, 2024
Creative-Asylum / Shutterstock
Labour has committed to recognising a Palestinian state “as a contribution to a renewed peace process which results in a two-state solution” as part of the policy platform set out in its general election manifesto.
The party has faced scrutiny over its stance on Palestinian statehood amid the ongoing conflict in Gaza, with former shadow minister Richard Burden last year calling on Labour to reinstate the Jeremy Corbyn-era policy of immediately recognising the state of Palestine.
A Labour spokesperson told LabourList at the time the party was committed to recognition alongside international partners as part of efforts to secure a two-state solution, and one insider dubbed the alternative Corbyn-era stance of immediate, unilateral recognition an “unrealistic gesture” that would hinder peace efforts.
The wording in the manifesto sees a slight change from the wording of the final document produced by the party’s National Policy Forum policymaking process, which stated that the party would “work alongside international partners to recognise the state of Palestine alongside the state of Israel”.
Here is a summary of the party’s key manifesto pledges on Palestine and Israel:
Labour has pledged to continue to push for:
An immediate ceasefire.
The release of all hostages.
The upholding of international law.
The rapid increase of aid into Gaza.
The manifesto describes Palestinian statehood as the “inalienable right of the Palestinian people”.
Committed to recognising a Palestinian state as a contribution to a renewed peace process which results in a two-state solution with a safe and secure Israel alongside a viable and sovereign Palestinian state.
“We call on the incoming government to stop using our members as political fodder to appease the right-wing media and treat them with the respect they deserve – and that starts with giving them a fair pay rise.”
Fran Heathcote, PCS General Secretary
By the PCS Union
PCS has launched its charter for an incoming government highlighting nine key demands.
PCS members will ultimately deliver the policy objectives of the future government, therefore it is vital during this period of election campaigning that potential candidates, and parties, are aware of our demands. We urge PCS members who wish to lobby their local candidates to focus on the following asks:
Pay – return to national collective bargaining for civil service, pay restoration and inflation proofed pay rise
Jobs – investment in the civil service including a properly staffed civil service helps every community in the country and ensure successful day to day functionality of government.
Pensions – commitment that civil servants will secure pensions justice and an immediate review of state pension age.
Hybrid working – civil servants have continued to fulfil their roles to an incredibly high standard, with increased productivity, when given access to hybrid working. Future Government must acknowledge the changing world of work and the need for flexibility.
Insourcing – PCS has led campaigning efforts to bring workers back into the public sector, supporting members employed in facilities management across government departments to challenge poor private employers. Insourcing should be a key commitment of any future government, giving these valued workers the same rights and opportunities as their civil service colleagues.
Social Security – a system with support at its heart. Universal Credit is a dangerously flawed system, the most vulnerable continue to slip through its cracks and our members are the scapegoats for over a decade of social security failures. We need a system which supports the individual and does not demonise those who cannot work.
Tax Justice – With the current tax gap estimated to be over £40bn it is time for a future government to invest in HMRC and ensure those who can pay more, do. Big business and the top 1% must pay their fair share and HMRC must be adequately resourced to ensure that the gap is reduced, and the public finances are restored off the backs of those who can and should pay more.
Safe Passage – a policy which has broad support and will help to stop the boats in a humane and safe manner. Investment in the Home Office to ensure adequate support is given to those who are entering the UK, allowing them to contribute to society quickly. Working with our European partners to establish the policy and protect the most vulnerable. A future government must build on this policy, work with PCS, Care4Calais, and others to ensure the asylum system is reformed.
Trade Union Rights – repeal all anti trade union laws in the UK. Working with trade unions to ensure democracy, fairness and access to a union is paramount in the world of work. Implement electronic balloting for trade unions and a return to adequate facility time for trade union activists.
PCS General Secretary, Fran Heathcote said: “The previous government has consistently attacked civil servants, making our members scapegoats for ministers’ own failed policies.
“We call on the incoming government to stop using our members as political fodder to appease the right-wing media and treat them with the respect they deserve – and that starts with giving them a fair pay rise.”
Visit our general election page and ensure you are registered to vote, secure free voter ID, and take part in your democratic rights on 4 July.
“On the left, we can’t let a new consensus for “permanent austerity” be formed by the ruling class. It is the route to economic and social catastrophe, and a further rise of far-right politics in the years to come.”
By Matt Willgress, Labour Assembly Against Austerity
The upcoming general election takes place in the middle of the deepest cost-of-living crisis in generations, which has become a permanent cost-of-living emergency for millions.
Councils are going bust. Poverty and inequality are spiralling. Homelessness is out of control. There are regular warnings that unemployment could be set to jump dramatically. And people’s living costs just keep going up and up while wages and benefits fail to follow.
Yet there seems to be a collective denial of the depth of this social and humanitarian crisis across the front benches in Westminster.
This is extended to much of the so-called “mainstream media” which is more interested in stirring up division and hatred than shining a light on the misery suffered by the 18 per cent of our population in absolute poverty, for example.
In this increasingly desperate social context, it has been widely noted and realised by millions in recent years that the Tories are more interested in doing the bidding of their rich backers than our jobs and livelihoods — but what is becoming clearer by the week is also that the whole political Establishment seems intent on never-ending austerity.
On the Labour side of Parliament, this is reflected by shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves’s increasingly conservative “fiscal framework,” which is working through to the abandonment or watering-down of policy after policy that could start tackling the cost-of-living crisis, from public ownership of energy and water to the ditching of popular green investment policies, and much more besides.
In a recent BBC interview Reeves committed to an injection of cash into public services that would see an extra 40,000 NHS appointments a week, and an additional 6,500 teachers in state schools and 13,000 police and community support officers.
This will be welcomed by teachers, health workers and others, especially after 14 years of Tory misrule.
In the same interview she said: “There is not going to be a return to austerity under a Labour government.”
But an objective assessment of how deep the crises we face are shows that the approach she spoke of is not even a sticking plaster to what damage austerity has done to public services across the board.
We need to look at, for example, how both Labour and the Tories have absolutely no plans to even start in any serious way to reverse the vicious starving of local government funding since 2010.
And when discussing whether austerity and the cuts this means will in reality continue under Labour’s current agenda, context — and what is not being mentioned or committed to — also matters.
Just days into the campaign, Keir Starmer talked of how abolishing the two-child benefit cap “is not our policy for a reason [as] we are not going to be able to afford to scrap it because of the damage the Tories have done.”
In other words, Labour will maintain a flagship Tory austerity policy that condemns millions to the poverty.
And the day before Reeves’s aforementioned interview, Unite felt compelled to issue a press release warning people of the latest watering-down of the new deal for workers.
In it, general secretary Sharon Graham said that “the again revised New Deal for Working People has more holes in it than Swiss cheese. The number of caveats and get-outs means it is in danger of becoming a bad bosses’ charter.”
She added: “Working people expect Labour to be their voice. They need to know that Labour will not back down to corporate profiteers determined to maintain the status quo of colossal profits at the expense of everyone else. The country desperately needs a Labour government, but the party must show it will stick to its guns on improving workers’ rights.”
The reason that this key policy area is a continual point of contention between the unions and party leadership was summed up recently by John McDonnell when he wrote that “still standing at the moment, one policy that is genuinely transformative is the New Deal for Workers, in that it does shift an element of power away from the powerful.”
It is because of this that “there continues an intense lobbying campaign from elements inside and outside the party to water it down.”
On all other key issues so far, Labour’s leadership has moved to the position of the bosses and away from that of the unions.
It’s good then — and significant — to see unions resisting these efforts from the ruling class, and what is needed is further resistance on other issues where Labour’s conservative approach will mean continued misery for millions, including on the need to scrap the two-child benefit cap and introduce free school meals, to give just two examples.
On the left, we can’t let a new consensus for “permanent austerity” be formed by the ruling class. It is the route to economic and social catastrophe, and a further rise of far-right politics in the years to come.
We therefore need to urgently put forward — and mobilise now for — policies that could both actually address the depth of the crises we face, and provide the basis for action in our workplaces and communities in the months and years ahead.
• Britain needs a pay rise — National Minimum Wage raised to at least £15 an hour for all; the pay rise public-sector workers are asking for; increase statutory sick pay to a real living wage for all from day one.
• A social security system to end poverty — scrap the two-child benefit cap, reverse the universal credit cut and extend the uplift to legacy benefits; boost and inflation-proof benefits; for a minimum income guarantee.
• Control costs — energy price freezes now at April 2022 rates, cap rents and basic food costs.
• Stop the corporate rip-off — public ownership of energy, water, transport, broadband and mail to bring bills down and end fuel poverty. Lower public transport costs. Higher taxes on profits and the super-rich. Open the books — back the workers’ commission on profiteering.
• Extra resources to create universal, comprehensive public services — stop cuts and privatisation; save our NHS — for a national care service; properly fund local government. Tax wealth to fund our public services.
• Homes for all — no evictions or repossessions; tackle the homelessness emergency; fix the housing crisis with a mass council housebuilding programme.
• For the right to food — enshrine the right to food in law; universal free school meals all year; for a national food service.
• Decent jobs for all — for full employment; end insecure working and ban zero-hours contracts; for the right to flexible work on workers’ not bosses’ terms.
• Defend and extend our right to organise — reverse anti-trade union laws and repeal the draconian anti-protest laws; ban fire and rehire; for full union rights to bargain for better pay and conditions.
• End austerity for good — invest in our future with a Green New Deal; end the dependency on fossil fuels and soaring oil and gas prices; for a massive investment in renewables, green infrastructure and jobs; insulate buildings to bring bills down.
As a whole, these provide a clear, popular and radical framework that genuinely could tackle the depth of the crises we face and would shift power from the few to the many.
Alongside building support for these demands, moving forward, we also need a an urgent discussion on how to co-ordinate, renew and strengthen all those initiatives that seek to address the cost-of-living emergency and support struggles for an end to austerity for good. This will become all the more important under the likely Starmer-led government from July.
Please add your name in support of Workers Can’t Wait, take the policies to labour movements and community groups for endorsement and discussion, and keep mobilising against austerity — and for investment, not cuts.
Matt Willgress is the national organiser for the Labour Assembly Against Austerity.
“Many people in this country are closer to homelessness than homeownership. If political parties are serious about giving people ‘security’ in their homes, there’s only one way to do it.”
Polly Neate, Shelter
By the Labour Campaign for Council Housing (LCCH)
Angela Rayner has announced Labour’s “Freedom to Buy” policy. This is a mortgage guarantee to encourage mortgage providers to offer low deposits; a revamped version of the Tories’ Mortgage Guarantee Scheme.
We haven’t seen any detail (including costs) but the guarantee is to the mortgage provider should the buyer be unable to continue paying. However, it is only on offer to 80,000 over five years. According to the ONS there are 6.7 million people aged 15-34 living with their parents in 2022. As Polly Neate of Shelter has said another home ownership scheme “that helps only a small minority and ignores the core of the problem isn’t going to cut it”.
“Many people in this country are closer to homelessness than homeownership. If political parties are serious about giving people ‘security’ in their homes, there’s only one way to do it. With 1.3 million households stuck on social housing waiting lists and the country haemorrhaging social homes through sales and demolitions – we need to build 90,000 social homes a year with rents tied to local incomes. And politicians must get on with renting reform – no-fault evictions must be abolished, and renting made safer, secure and more affordable.”
This is right. A large scale building/acquisitions programme of social rent housing will provide secure and more affordable homes for people imprisoned in the private sector: in the case of council housing the ‘secure tenancy’. Taking hundreds of thousands of people out of the market it would be likely to drag down prices for those who want to buy.
Unfortunately, Shadow Housing Minister Matthew Pennycook, has said that a Labour government will not increase the parsimonious amount of grant currently available under the Tories. Interviewed recently he talked of “sweating grants”. In other words getting more building out of the existing grants. But what is needed is more grant. Matthew is saying there is no more money because of Rachel Reeves self-imposed economic straight-jacket. “We have no more money” is only true if you leave the regressive taxation system in place. But there are plenty of ways to raise the funding needed.
For instance at the 2021 Labour conference, none other than Rachel Reeves said that Labour would equalise capital gains tax with income tax. In her speech she said:
“How can it be right that the police constable on £27k a year should be taxed at 32p in the pound but someone making many times more from buying & selling stocks & shares should pay just 20p in the pound? That will not stand under Labour.”
Alas, it now will stand under Labour because equalising cgt has been abandoned.
In his comments in relation to ‘freedom to buy’ Keir Starmer said that “a generation face becoming renters for life”. The implication is that renting is a lesser thing than home ownership. Council tenants are often happy becoming “renters for life” because it offers them security of tenure and rent far lower than the private sector. There is nothing wrong with being a “renter for life” so long as it’s not in the expensive and often poor quality private sector. In any case home ownership does not offer security. It can become a burden which becomes unmanageable.
With 1.3 million households on housing waiting lists and 112,000 households in temporary accommodation, including 145,000 children, what is required is a focus on social rent homes.
To shift the Labour leadership it will be necessary to build the widest possible campaign to pressure the government to provide the funding needed to build the 90,000 plus social rent homes that are necessary to begin to resolve the housing crisis. Without that millions of people will remain imprisoned in the expensive and insecure private rented sector.
“A forward-looking approach must involve refusing to get involved in a costly new arms race – and see Labour seek to engage with the majority of the world to advance the causes of peace, self-determination and social progress.”
By Matt Willgress
A column today on what approach the new Government should take to foreign policy must lead with Palestine – and recognise Britain has been increasingly isolated on Gaza, in terms of both the Government and Labour leadership responses, at a time when UK weapons are making possible what the International Court of Justice (ICJ) regards as potentially a plausible case of genocide.
The priority must then be to seek to shift the new Government’s approach, not only to support an immediate and lasting ceasefire – but also to address the fact that Israel continually flouts international law.
The reality is it will continue to do so, unless there are consequences for its actions. ‘Labour & Palestine’ argues that consequences concretely “means an immediate arms embargo, leading to a full cessation of arms trade if Israel fails to comply with international law”
It also means joining the majority of countries internationally – including Ireland, Spain and Norway recently– in immediately recognising a Palestinian state, as voted for by the UN Assembly.
This is the response needed based on putting people, their rights and international justice first – rather than slavish adherence to the US’ agenda.
It is widely known Labour’s leadership has consulted with US government figures over their stance on Gaza and, as a former Shadow Minister said in response, “We don’t have an independent foreign policy, a Labour policy… We have outsourced it to the US administration.”
But this is also the case way beyond the issue of Palestine, and this ‘Atlantacist’ approach refuses to recognise the world is a very different place to 25 years ago.
We live in a time of multiple crises globally, and the foreign policy agenda of a Government needs to address these seriously and in a different way to the the US position, recognising that numerous economies and economic blocs are growing to be both more independent of the US and weightier in the global economy.
In response to this, the US Empire – which remains in comparative decline economically – is lashing out through permanent interventions to try and re-assert dominance in different parts of the world. But it is failing – as Latin America shifting to the Left again and the isolation of Israel at the UN illustrate.
It is because, they are desperate to continue subordination to the US’ agenda, that the ruling-class has sought to lock-in Britain’s high and rising levels of military spending for years – and the current Labour leadership has backed this, whilst avoiding any serious discussion internally on the issue.
Yet spending levels in this area are incredibly high already, with 2021 figures making the UK the fourth highest spending country globally, and highest in Western Europe. Then in 2022, Liz Truss pledged to spend 3 per cent of GDP on this area by 2030. Since then, both Labour and the Tories have committed to increasing it to 2.5%.
Furthermore, renewing Trident nuclear weapons will cost at least £205 billion but Labour’s leadership has signed-up to this even though they regularly say the money available in Government will be extremely limited.
With the climate catastrophe, the starving of resources for public services and the cost-of-living emergency needing to be addressed, these militarist public spending priorities will be a disaster both electorally and in human terms.
Instead, a forward-looking approach must involve refusing to get involved in a costly new arms race – and see Labour seek to engage with the majority of the world to advance the causes of peace, self-determination and social progress.
The disastrous alternative is to continue to slavishly follow the US – at a time when Trump may return to the Presidency – at great cost to people, planet and peace.
This article was originally published by Labour Briefing.
UK
Labour’s manifesto – bowing to the false gods of social liberalism
“Another myth is that the Tories have made such a mess of the economy that nothing significant can be changed… Imagine if Atlee in 1945 had thrown up his hands & said the debt was too big to do anything. Instead, he led the most radical social democratic government Britain has seen.”
David Kellaway
David Kellaway, at Anticapitalist Resistance, examines how the Labour manifesto is underpinned by an ideology that slavishly accepts the status quo as a model for organising the economy, the welfare state, and the government.
Rather than generating hope for real change, Labour’s manifesto is imbued with pessimism about what we as working people can achieve, assuming the gods of the market and capital cannot be even minimally challenged. It even rejects a traditional social democratic vision of public ownership, taxation, and redistribution.
Let us examine these 10 false gods or myths in turn.
1. Tax and Spend Governments are Wrong
“It’s always tempting for a government to go to tax and spend, but I’m not going to pull those levers. We don’t intend to pull those levers. We want to go to the lever marked growth.”
Keir Starmer
Wes Streeting on Newsnight recently signalled Labour’s rejection of old-style social democracy when he stated that the new Labour government does not believe in traditional tax and spend policies. Instead, Labour proposes a new partnership with business to generate growth that will provide the funds for progressive change.
Think about this for a minute. An historic Labour minister like Herbert Morrison, who was no leftist, would be turning in his grave. He believed in taxing and spending to build houses for working people, supported local councils running transport, and led the nationalisation of key industries after the war. Only with New Labour and Tony Blair did we begin to see a decisive break with traditional social democracy, and even then, Blair never completely dismissed ‘tax and spend’ as Streeting does today. How can any government function without a process of taxing and spending?
Streeting is not being honest, as he selectively condemns tax and spend policies. There is no criticism of taxing and spending to increase military expenditure or buy new Trident nuclear submarines. His take on tax and spend concerns the false trade-off between more public or social spending and increased taxation. One of Thatcher’s greatest contributions to the ruling class was to get Labour’s leadership to accept this narrative, leading to both main parties competing to show how strongly they will not increase tax. The mass media has greatly contributed to this notion of taxation being negative.
2. Respecting Fiscal Rules
Labour agrees with Rishi Sunak about keeping debt to a certain proportion of gross domestic product. Who decides this proportion? It is essentially the unelected financial establishment – the Office for Budget Responsibility, the Bank of England, and the City of London. Such rigid rules obviously constrain government spending to improve the living conditions of working people, for example, financing the NHS. Different economists and capitalist countries in Europe today have varying estimates, which is often ignored in public debate.
Gordon Brown previously accepted the rigid spending limits imposed by the Tory government for several years after Blair’s 1997 victory, limiting redistribution under Blair. Grace Blakely has produced an excellent five-minute video explaining the myth of these fiscal rules.
3. There is No Money, the Credit Card is Maxed Out
Labour shadow ministers often claim they cannot abandon the two-child benefit cap and immediately lift hundreds of thousands of children out of poverty because “there is no money.” Britain is the sixth richest economy in the world and the ninth most unequal among 38 OECD countries. Wealth is evident in London’s Mayfair apartments, £220 Covent Garden Opera seats, £80k Wimbledon centre court debentures, and £200-a-head menus at Darroze’s at the Connaught restaurant.
Given the social background of most of the current Labour leadership, they know this as much as we do. Governments have myriad ways of raising tax revenue. Labour perpetuates the same myth as the Tories that raising tax must hit working people on average or below-average incomes. The Greens have proposed a tax plan to raise over £50 billion to sort out the NHS through equalising capital gains and income tax rates, removing the upper limit on national insurance contributions, and introducing a wealth tax of 1% on the first million, 2% on the second million, and so on. Tax specialists have called it credible, even if it is politically explosive in today’s climate. Thomas Piketty has developed a detailed wealth tax along these lines in France, and it is taken seriously. Labour refuses to consider it.
Another myth is that the Tories have made such a mess of the economy that nothing significant can be changed, or at least not in the short term. Imagine if Atlee in 1945 had thrown up his hands and said the debt was too big to do anything. Instead, he led the most radical social democratic government Britain has seen. Yes, Starmer will inherit a worse situation than Blair did, but let us not exaggerate.
4. Growth Will Finance Progressive Policies
Recent figures show GDP was flat in April, and we have been in a long wave of low growth. Economists and think tanks do not project the kind of growth needed for minor redistribution through increased government spending. Talking about growth in general is dangerous. As ecosocialists, we understand the need for sustainable, not capitalist, growth. Increasing capitalist commodity consumption and energy use will accelerate the ecological crisis. We need to stop growth in some areas, like fossil fuel extraction and fast fashion, and increase it in others, like social care and public transport.
Starmer assumes his policies on infrastructure and streamlining planning regulations will bring enough growth to avoid austerity. On this issue, there is little difference between the Tories and Labour. Sunak talks about growth all the time – the word is meaningless in their mouths. What growth, how much, and in whose interests?
5. There Will Be No Austerity
Starmer has stated, “Read my lips, there will be no austerity under Labour.” The Resolution Foundation and the Institute for Government acknowledge the positive impact of Labour’s manifesto policies but point out there is no contingency for the £18 billion public spending deficit built into current Tory spending plans. Even if Labour generates growth, it will not come quickly enough to fill that gap. Historically, growth periods do not fundamentally change social inequality without government redistributive measures or victorious wage struggles. Blair’s government saw more growth than currently forecast, yet social inequality worsened.
6. Our Policies Will Be Good for Workers and Business
There was a relatively short period in the 20th century – the post-war boom from the early 50s to the early 1970s – when capitalist profits and living standards rose together. Reagan and Thatcher marked the end of this period as capitalists ensured their politicians organised society to maintain profit rates. Unions were shackled, and wages and conditions were cut. There is no sign of a new boom.
Who is Labour going to partner with? Amazon, which organises against union representation? Big tech, which moves jurisdictions to avoid taxes? Tata, which is sacking thousands of workers in Port Talbot? Companies have a prime responsibility to their shareholders. Water companies pay millions to shareholders while polluting rivers and seas. How do their interests coincide with working people? Will Labour ensure proper wages and environmental standards in business partnerships? Labour has already abandoned fair sector pay bargaining from its programme.
Reeves’ belief in the goodness of capitalist business is more utopian and naïve than the left’s protest-oriented approach. Labour could generate revenue for social and environmental programmes by keeping its 2017/19 manifesto of taking energy, water, and utility companies into common ownership. The public loses money from dividends paid to shareholders over the decades. Big companies provide advisory staff to the shadow cabinet and attend Labour conferences if they know a Labour government will not threaten their profits.
In the La La Land inhabited by Starmer and his team, business is always there to help, and its interests are seen as aligned with those of workers. The government is just there to hold everybody’s hands. Do not expect Starmer to support any workers who go on strike against their employers. Sharon Graham’s reluctance to underwrite the manifesto shows that this partnership with business might create conflict with Labour’s affiliated unions.
7. Sunak’s Manifesto is as Bad as Corbyn’s – A Wheelbarrow of Uncosted Demands (Starmer)
A key part of Starmer’s strategy is to win Tory voters. He believes Labour lost in 2017/19 because the policies were too radical. Unlike more coherent right-wing Labour figures who refused to serve with Corbyn, he did not argue this at the time. His reading of history is one-sided and simplistic. In 2017, Labour won more votes than in previous elections under Miliband and Blair (apart from 1997). It had begun to mobilise and extend its base with popular and radical policies. Polling still shows majority support for common ownership of utilities and progressive taxation.
Brexit and the role of UKIP in supporting Johnson were huge factors in Labour’s failure in 2019 to convert the advances made in 2017. You can argue that the 2019 manifesto became a bit unwieldy, but everything got drowned out by the clamour to get Brexit done. Labour’s split on Brexit was always the Achilles’ heel of the Corbyn project. Nevertheless, for Starmer to claim that the manifestos at that time were uncosted is shameless and demeaning. Andrew Fisher, who was involved in writing many of the policies, tweeted almost immediately that Starmer was rewriting history. The costings were on the official Labour website (probably removed by now).
Behind this dishonest factionalism is Starmer’s strategic project. He thinks it is impossible to win an electoral victory with popular radical policies and that the Tories have a stranglehold over a certain sector of voters. Therefore, Labour has to adjust everything to win this layer by adapting to their concerns. Hence the ditching of all the pledges made during his leadership campaign. We really do have two different ways of looking at the world: “for the many, not the few” versus growth through a partnership between business, working people, and the government.
8. More Police Will Stop Anti-Social Behaviour
Diane Abbott’s election leaflet redefines some of Starmer’s six first steps. Starmer talks about recruiting more police to deal with anti-social behaviour. Diane says, “reform policing, restore social supports to tackle crime at its root including expanded mental health provision and a new network of youth hubs.” Solving anti-social behaviour requires social intervention, not just more police, particularly as the police do not operate fairly among the black community. Starmer condemns the left for focusing on protest, but Diane’s policy is more realistic and addresses the real problems. However, “more police” is what Tory voters want to hear.
9. We Will Stop the Boats with Anti-Terrorist Methods
Apart from opposing Rwanda and not threatening to leave the European Court of Human Rights, Labour’s policy on the boats is similar to the Tories. The quickest way to stop the boats is to provide safe routes for asylum seekers to board a flight or ferry and request asylum as their right under international law. But Starmer fears being seen as soft on migrants. He added “stop the boats” to his five pledges. There are currently 120 million displaced people worldwide, with 8 million joining this flow this year. Resources from the West need to address the sources of conflicts, some of which stem from imperialist interventions. Labour never defends migrant or asylum seekers’ rights.
10. Creating 100,000 New Nursery Places in Empty Classrooms Without Extra Spending and Resolving the NHS Crisis by Working with Private Medical Companies
Everyone supports the proposal for 100,000 new nursery places, but it is uncosted. The idea that you can just use current primary classrooms as nursery areas is unrealistic. Adapting classrooms for babies and toddlers can cost up to £40k each. Then there is the staffing issue. Without improving pay and conditions, it will be difficult to find people to fill these positions. This proposal ignores the fragmentation and privatisation of most nursery care. Creating a coherent, coordinated system requires a national, state-financed, accountable nursery system, which necessitates investment. Labour claims there is no money for this.
Some advisor must have seen the empty classrooms in places like London because of the housing crisis and thought we could just place the toddlers in these spaces. Even the Lib Dems are more serious about the care crisis, proposing significant funds to fix it.
The health unions were angered to see the temporary aspect of the NHS/private sector partnership policy removed. Instead of investing in NHS staff and facilities, this policy will make the private sector richer and more viable as destructive competitors for the NHS. Private medical companies do not provide a proper health service but take the lucrative parts. NHS staff still train those who end up working for the private sector, effectively subsidising private health companies.
The labour movement has failed to counter the myth that private business is more efficient than the public sector. Blair was responsible for much of this mythmaking, which ended up costing the public sector significantly in Private Finance Initiative Contracts. Hospitals are still repaying private companies today. These companies were always very efficient at setting up lucrative contracts. The refrain we started to hear under Blair and repeated today is that standards, not structures, matter. As long as the service is provided in a timely manner, it does not matter if a private provider does it. The long-term transfer of public money to private shareholders was never properly calculated.
Pessimism of the Intellect, Pessimism of the Will
Labour’s social liberalism today – a retreat even from moderate social democracy – is a culmination of the labour bureaucracy’s integration into capitalist structures and political institutions. Partly it reflects a sociological distancing from working-class communities – despite Starmer’s being the son of a toolmaker, there are very few working-class or trade unionist MPs today. There is also an ideological justification – Labour leaders theorise this is all they can do – progressive realism, as some of Labour’s house-trained academics dub it. They believe working people in this country will never adopt radical Corbynist policies and think this is really a Tory country, so they need to work with that. This approach makes for a more comfortable political life, with big business and the capitalist press being friendlier.
Starmer’s claim that it was a great battle to take back the Labour party from Corbyn is cheeky. He had the majority of the Parliamentary Labour Party, the media, the well-funded Campaign against Antisemitism, and the establishment on his side. His government will continue to ride that current. We need to keep organising against that tide. Farage is already looking to command the opposition. Today there are disparate forms of resistance to Starmer from within and outside his party. The left needs to unite, lead that opposition, and develop an optimistic eco-socialist alternative.
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