UK
Opinion FROM THE RIGHT
Voices: Why Starmer is running scared of Angela Rayner and Ed Miliband
John Rentoul
Voices: Why Starmer is running scared of Angela Rayner and Ed Miliband
John Rentoul
THE INDEPENDENT
Tue, 22 August 2023
The absence of a reshuffle is a reminder that even the power of an opposition leader on the threshold of government has its limits (PA)
After two years of Tony Blair’s government, Martin Rowson, the cartoonist, identified what he thought was “the fundamental problem with New Labour…” He drew an adviser holding a satchel upside down and saying to the prime minister: “Hey boss! We’ve run out of principles to betray!”
After this week’s latest retreat from the policies on which Keir Starmer was elected Labour leader, Rowson could re-do it, with Starmer as the central figure instead of Blair.
In fact, the U-turn on employment rights took place four weeks ago, at the party’s National Policy Forum in Nottingham. Labour discipline is now so strict that it has taken this long for some of the key text to leak. Instead of promising full employment rights to all workers from the first day in a job, employers will be allowed to put new hires on probation.
This is a switch from the wrong policy to the right one, but it will be seen as yet another betrayal by many party members – not just by Corbyites, but by some of those who see themselves as in the Labour mainstream.
Indeed, Starmer’s hurtle towards the embrace of the Tory-minded swing voter has been so fast, and so little defended and explained, that many Labour right-wingers are suffering from whiplash. So much so that Starmer’s party management problems have nothing to do with the common myth of a Labour government held to ransom by the Socialist Campaign Group, the Corbyite faction of 32 Labour MPs. They have nowhere to go, and will find it hard to make common cause with the Conservative opposition if Labour wins the election.
The real threat to Starmer is noisy resignations by significant members of the shadow cabinet – or, if Labour wins, the cabinet. This is the tension delaying Starmer’s reshuffle. On the one hand, the imminence of the election and the prospect of office exerts a strong restraining force on shadow ministers. On the other, the mix of principle, ambition and pique could explode if pushed too far.
The two main risks are Angela Rayner and Ed Miliband. They both have a standing in the party that is independent of the leader. As Rayner reminded us on Wednesday, she and Starmer were “both elected by the membership differently and independently”.
She is not only the elected deputy leader, but shadow secretary of state for the future of work, and as such she guards Labour’s employment policy jealously. She responded to the leak of the new policy by insisting that, “far from watering it down, we will now set out in detail how we will implement it”. Yet she could not tell Nick Robinson of the BBC that she would be responsible for the policy in government. “The important thing is that I will be the deputy prime minister,” she said.
Miliband’s power is different. As a green champion, he has a status that rests on the urgency of stopping climate change, especially as felt by younger voters. He is not as popular with the youth as is often assumed. Indeed, he is the most unpopular member of the shadow cabinet in YouGov’s likeability ratings, reflecting his high visibility as former leader, but he is less unpopular among young people.
And he has a credibility on green issues as a former leader and a former energy secretary. For different but overlapping groups of admirers, St Edward and St Angela are the guarantors that Labour actually believes in something, and so they have some power to push back against Starmer’s ruthless electoralism.
That said, they are both choosing not to use that power yet. Despite comparing her relationship with Starmer to an arranged marriage, St Angela was strenuously loyal to her political spouse, saying her role was “supporting Keir as the leader”, and “the important job is getting into government”.
St Edward, meanwhile, strongly supported Rachel Reeves, the shadow chancellor, when she postponed plans to borrow £28bn a year for green investment. But it is easy to imagine him resigning, accusing Starmer of willing the ends but not the means in slowing climate change. He is dangerous because he has nothing to lose.
Rayner, on the other hand, is dangerous because she believes she has everything to gain. She thinks that, if Starmer falls, she would win the leadership – and the premiership if that is what followed. I don’t know if she is overreaching herself, but if there were a vacancy, she would stand a good chance in a leadership election among Labour members against Rachel Reeves and Wes Streeting.
These calculations may explain a couple of recent oddities. Rayner’s working-class and trade-union credentials may have something to do with Starmer suddenly adopting the un-Blairite language of class in an article this week. He wrote for The Scotsman on Tuesday that “you cannot seriously take on inequality, or poverty ... without talking about class”. He even said: “My political project is to return Labour to the service of working people and working-class communities.” He wants to head off the charge of betraying the workers.
And the power of St Edward may explain why Starmer was so emphatic about sticking to the 2030 target for decarbonising electricity generation. I suspect this is not going to survive until the election, because it hasn’t been prudently costed yet, but Starmer also wrote: “There has been a lot of noise about this in recent weeks, so let me be crystal clear – we will throw everything at making sure our electricity system is carbon free by 2030.”
Wariness of the power of Rayner and Miliband may be one reason Starmer has not yet reshuffled his shadow cabinet, six months after Rishi Sunak created four new departments. Some of those around the Labour leader say this is because he wants a shadow cabinet that reflects his five “missions” rather than just copying the government’s reorganisation. But what does that mean? The five missions are growth, clean energy, NHS, crime, and opportunity (childcare and education). If anything, that suggests leaving things as they are – and Labour still doesn’t have a shadow science secretary.
Starmer is in a period of maximum power, as election victory edges tantalisingly closer, and yet the absence of a reshuffle is a reminder that even the power of an opposition leader on the threshold of government has its limits.
Tue, 22 August 2023
The absence of a reshuffle is a reminder that even the power of an opposition leader on the threshold of government has its limits (PA)
After two years of Tony Blair’s government, Martin Rowson, the cartoonist, identified what he thought was “the fundamental problem with New Labour…” He drew an adviser holding a satchel upside down and saying to the prime minister: “Hey boss! We’ve run out of principles to betray!”
After this week’s latest retreat from the policies on which Keir Starmer was elected Labour leader, Rowson could re-do it, with Starmer as the central figure instead of Blair.
In fact, the U-turn on employment rights took place four weeks ago, at the party’s National Policy Forum in Nottingham. Labour discipline is now so strict that it has taken this long for some of the key text to leak. Instead of promising full employment rights to all workers from the first day in a job, employers will be allowed to put new hires on probation.
This is a switch from the wrong policy to the right one, but it will be seen as yet another betrayal by many party members – not just by Corbyites, but by some of those who see themselves as in the Labour mainstream.
Indeed, Starmer’s hurtle towards the embrace of the Tory-minded swing voter has been so fast, and so little defended and explained, that many Labour right-wingers are suffering from whiplash. So much so that Starmer’s party management problems have nothing to do with the common myth of a Labour government held to ransom by the Socialist Campaign Group, the Corbyite faction of 32 Labour MPs. They have nowhere to go, and will find it hard to make common cause with the Conservative opposition if Labour wins the election.
The real threat to Starmer is noisy resignations by significant members of the shadow cabinet – or, if Labour wins, the cabinet. This is the tension delaying Starmer’s reshuffle. On the one hand, the imminence of the election and the prospect of office exerts a strong restraining force on shadow ministers. On the other, the mix of principle, ambition and pique could explode if pushed too far.
The two main risks are Angela Rayner and Ed Miliband. They both have a standing in the party that is independent of the leader. As Rayner reminded us on Wednesday, she and Starmer were “both elected by the membership differently and independently”.
She is not only the elected deputy leader, but shadow secretary of state for the future of work, and as such she guards Labour’s employment policy jealously. She responded to the leak of the new policy by insisting that, “far from watering it down, we will now set out in detail how we will implement it”. Yet she could not tell Nick Robinson of the BBC that she would be responsible for the policy in government. “The important thing is that I will be the deputy prime minister,” she said.
Miliband’s power is different. As a green champion, he has a status that rests on the urgency of stopping climate change, especially as felt by younger voters. He is not as popular with the youth as is often assumed. Indeed, he is the most unpopular member of the shadow cabinet in YouGov’s likeability ratings, reflecting his high visibility as former leader, but he is less unpopular among young people.
And he has a credibility on green issues as a former leader and a former energy secretary. For different but overlapping groups of admirers, St Edward and St Angela are the guarantors that Labour actually believes in something, and so they have some power to push back against Starmer’s ruthless electoralism.
That said, they are both choosing not to use that power yet. Despite comparing her relationship with Starmer to an arranged marriage, St Angela was strenuously loyal to her political spouse, saying her role was “supporting Keir as the leader”, and “the important job is getting into government”.
St Edward, meanwhile, strongly supported Rachel Reeves, the shadow chancellor, when she postponed plans to borrow £28bn a year for green investment. But it is easy to imagine him resigning, accusing Starmer of willing the ends but not the means in slowing climate change. He is dangerous because he has nothing to lose.
Rayner, on the other hand, is dangerous because she believes she has everything to gain. She thinks that, if Starmer falls, she would win the leadership – and the premiership if that is what followed. I don’t know if she is overreaching herself, but if there were a vacancy, she would stand a good chance in a leadership election among Labour members against Rachel Reeves and Wes Streeting.
These calculations may explain a couple of recent oddities. Rayner’s working-class and trade-union credentials may have something to do with Starmer suddenly adopting the un-Blairite language of class in an article this week. He wrote for The Scotsman on Tuesday that “you cannot seriously take on inequality, or poverty ... without talking about class”. He even said: “My political project is to return Labour to the service of working people and working-class communities.” He wants to head off the charge of betraying the workers.
And the power of St Edward may explain why Starmer was so emphatic about sticking to the 2030 target for decarbonising electricity generation. I suspect this is not going to survive until the election, because it hasn’t been prudently costed yet, but Starmer also wrote: “There has been a lot of noise about this in recent weeks, so let me be crystal clear – we will throw everything at making sure our electricity system is carbon free by 2030.”
Wariness of the power of Rayner and Miliband may be one reason Starmer has not yet reshuffled his shadow cabinet, six months after Rishi Sunak created four new departments. Some of those around the Labour leader say this is because he wants a shadow cabinet that reflects his five “missions” rather than just copying the government’s reorganisation. But what does that mean? The five missions are growth, clean energy, NHS, crime, and opportunity (childcare and education). If anything, that suggests leaving things as they are – and Labour still doesn’t have a shadow science secretary.
Starmer is in a period of maximum power, as election victory edges tantalisingly closer, and yet the absence of a reshuffle is a reminder that even the power of an opposition leader on the threshold of government has its limits.
Opinion
FROM THE LEFT
Labour is parading its true leftwing credentials in the byelection fight against the SNP
Polly Toynbee
FROM THE LEFT
Labour is parading its true leftwing credentials in the byelection fight against the SNP
Polly Toynbee
THE GUARDIAN
Mon, 21 August 2023
Angela Rayner was in Rutherglen
Mon, 21 August 2023
Angela Rayner was in Rutherglen
Photograph: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images
In the upcoming byelection in Rutherglen and Hamilton West, Labour faces an altogether different battle from those fought recently in three English constituencies. Here, it confronts incoming on its exposed left flank in a firefight with the Scottish National party. Far from engaging in daily combat with English Tories and their press, Labour leaders parade their leftwing credentials in Scotland, without giving ammunition to the old blue enemy south of the border.
Both the SNP and Labour desperately need a win. It would only take a 5% swing for Labour to unseat the SNP here; if it can’t, with all the brouhaha surrounding Nicola Sturgeon, her husband and police investigating party finances, hopes of capturing a tranche of crucial SNP seats at the general election will fade. But the first minister, Humza Yousaf, with low ratings and a quarrelsome party, will be urgently looking to shore up the SNP after 15 long years in power.
Knuckle-dusters are out already. SNP leaflets in the constituency target Keir Starmer’s decision not to scrap the two-child benefit cap, suggesting there’s no difference between Starmer and Rishi Sunak. Labour ripostes that Rutherglen has been “failed by two sleaze-ridden governments and a shameless MP”: the former SNP MP, Margaret Ferrier, was ousted by a recall petition for travelling with Covid to London to speak in the Commons. The SNP boasts of its Scottish child payment, giving all families on universal credit an extra £25 a week per child. That’s in contrast to Starmer’s less-than-agile BBC interview in which, on the spur of the moment, he chose to prove Labour’s fiscal discipline rather than cancel the two-child cap affecting 1.5 million children.
The two sides will fight over the recent claim that Labour has softened its radical workers’ rights plan. Angela Rayner was in Rutherglen with a forceful rebuttal: it’s just not so. Meeting apprentices in Glasgow, she promised that Labour’s new deal for working people would be law within 100 days of the party coming to power: “the biggest levelling up of workers’ rights in decades”. And so it is.
It bans zero-hours contracts, and fire-and-rehire policies, makes the presumption of flexible working a day-one right, and strengthens parental leave and pregnancy protection. “We’ll make sure work actually pays with a genuine living wage that covers the cost of living,” Rayner has said. Ending bogus self-employment is “a key priority”. Pledging fair pay agreements that vary according to sector means some sectors that can afford it will have to pay a higher minimum. Trade unions will see their membership rise steeply when they are given access to recruit in every workplace.
The issue that blew up last week concerned whether everyone would get rights from day one in a new job. Rayner said Labour would be “ending qualifying periods for basic rights, which currently leave working people waiting up to two years for basic protections”, with “stronger protections against unfair dismissal”. The claim is that Labour’s national policy forum weakened this with some permissible probationary periods for new employees: it caused a furore, with Unite and Momentum accusing Labour of kowtowing to employers, but Labour says a probationary period was always there. The GMB, Unison and all other affiliated unions have backed the policy.
That’s because the rights that Rayner spelled out in Scotland are indeed radical. Labour expects this policy to come under the same relentless Tory attack at the election as introducing a minimum wage did in the 1997 campaign. Tory HQ has drawn up a list of 20 “anti-business” Labour policies, which it calls a job-killing “Trades Union Congress wish list”. Indeed, these rights were drawn up with strong backing from Frances O’Grady, the former TUC leader, and as Rayner told Glasgow apprentices, they would “raise living standards for all”, tilting power back towards employees.
Is it because of a clumsy mishandling of messaging that Labour’s two most radical policies of recent years have now been tarred as “retreats”? Or is it Labour’s own ambivalence on whether to present them as radical or moderate? The £28bn pledged for Labour’s green investments – for jobs in clean energy, battery factories and home insulation – is enormous and popular. Tony Blair and Gordon Brown never dared make such a spending promise in 1997, even when the economy was growing, not stagflating, as it is now. It’s more money per capita than Joe Biden’s mighty green infrastructure fund. Taking two years to build up to this huge spend is reasonable: how do you get £28bn worth of spades in the ground, without waste, on day one? Yet Labour has let this delay enter the political lexicon as a green retreat.
There are always doomsters eager to get disillusion with Labour in early, forever expecting betrayal. But Angela Rayner herself stands as guarantor for workers’ rights: it’s unlikely she would stand by and see those pledges seriously diminished. In the same way, Ed Miliband stands guard over Labour’s green credentials. But nor do I think Keir Starmer or Rachel Reeves has any less commitment to the radicalism of policies they drew up.
Nerves and lack of self-confidence seem to make Labour hesitate to issue loud rebuttals when these “retreat” stories appear. They know the Tories’ well-oiled campaign machine (and its foghorn press) hasn’t yet got out its knife sharpener to begin assaulting Labour with utterly mendacious distortions of its policies. They know, despite an 18-point lead, that 55% of voters say they might still change their mind. They know that the party scoring best on the economy always wins. Labour has shifted that dial: entering No 10 last year, Sunak was most “trusted to run the economy” by 33% to Starmer’s 29%, according to Opinium. Though Labour now leads on the economy by six percentage points, that still feels precarious.
Fighting to win Rutherglen against an SNP foe purporting to be more leftwing is doing Labour good. As he travels up and down to Scotland almost monthly, do read Starmer’s thundering essay in the Scotsman, full of words Blair and Brown feared to use. “In the recent past,” he wrote, “Labour was afraid to speak the language of class at all – but not my Labour party. No, for me, smashing the ‘class ceiling’ that holds working people back is our defining purpose … Because you cannot seriously take on inequality or poverty … without talking about class. This is personal.” On poverty, he wrote, “This isn’t the trickle-down Tory nonsense that, for working-class communities, means jobs trickle out and power trickles up … I don’t look at our current social security system and think tinkering at the edges will be good enough.” And he repeats Rayner’s list of “a new deal that will strengthen workers’ rights and finally make work pay”.
Expect this to be the mood of Labour’s October conference: messages get clearer as elections approach. As ever, Labour will do more in office than would be wise to promise in advance, but that requires some trust and patience from its natural supporters.
Polly Toynbee is a Guardian columnist
In the upcoming byelection in Rutherglen and Hamilton West, Labour faces an altogether different battle from those fought recently in three English constituencies. Here, it confronts incoming on its exposed left flank in a firefight with the Scottish National party. Far from engaging in daily combat with English Tories and their press, Labour leaders parade their leftwing credentials in Scotland, without giving ammunition to the old blue enemy south of the border.
Both the SNP and Labour desperately need a win. It would only take a 5% swing for Labour to unseat the SNP here; if it can’t, with all the brouhaha surrounding Nicola Sturgeon, her husband and police investigating party finances, hopes of capturing a tranche of crucial SNP seats at the general election will fade. But the first minister, Humza Yousaf, with low ratings and a quarrelsome party, will be urgently looking to shore up the SNP after 15 long years in power.
Knuckle-dusters are out already. SNP leaflets in the constituency target Keir Starmer’s decision not to scrap the two-child benefit cap, suggesting there’s no difference between Starmer and Rishi Sunak. Labour ripostes that Rutherglen has been “failed by two sleaze-ridden governments and a shameless MP”: the former SNP MP, Margaret Ferrier, was ousted by a recall petition for travelling with Covid to London to speak in the Commons. The SNP boasts of its Scottish child payment, giving all families on universal credit an extra £25 a week per child. That’s in contrast to Starmer’s less-than-agile BBC interview in which, on the spur of the moment, he chose to prove Labour’s fiscal discipline rather than cancel the two-child cap affecting 1.5 million children.
The two sides will fight over the recent claim that Labour has softened its radical workers’ rights plan. Angela Rayner was in Rutherglen with a forceful rebuttal: it’s just not so. Meeting apprentices in Glasgow, she promised that Labour’s new deal for working people would be law within 100 days of the party coming to power: “the biggest levelling up of workers’ rights in decades”. And so it is.
It bans zero-hours contracts, and fire-and-rehire policies, makes the presumption of flexible working a day-one right, and strengthens parental leave and pregnancy protection. “We’ll make sure work actually pays with a genuine living wage that covers the cost of living,” Rayner has said. Ending bogus self-employment is “a key priority”. Pledging fair pay agreements that vary according to sector means some sectors that can afford it will have to pay a higher minimum. Trade unions will see their membership rise steeply when they are given access to recruit in every workplace.
The issue that blew up last week concerned whether everyone would get rights from day one in a new job. Rayner said Labour would be “ending qualifying periods for basic rights, which currently leave working people waiting up to two years for basic protections”, with “stronger protections against unfair dismissal”. The claim is that Labour’s national policy forum weakened this with some permissible probationary periods for new employees: it caused a furore, with Unite and Momentum accusing Labour of kowtowing to employers, but Labour says a probationary period was always there. The GMB, Unison and all other affiliated unions have backed the policy.
That’s because the rights that Rayner spelled out in Scotland are indeed radical. Labour expects this policy to come under the same relentless Tory attack at the election as introducing a minimum wage did in the 1997 campaign. Tory HQ has drawn up a list of 20 “anti-business” Labour policies, which it calls a job-killing “Trades Union Congress wish list”. Indeed, these rights were drawn up with strong backing from Frances O’Grady, the former TUC leader, and as Rayner told Glasgow apprentices, they would “raise living standards for all”, tilting power back towards employees.
Is it because of a clumsy mishandling of messaging that Labour’s two most radical policies of recent years have now been tarred as “retreats”? Or is it Labour’s own ambivalence on whether to present them as radical or moderate? The £28bn pledged for Labour’s green investments – for jobs in clean energy, battery factories and home insulation – is enormous and popular. Tony Blair and Gordon Brown never dared make such a spending promise in 1997, even when the economy was growing, not stagflating, as it is now. It’s more money per capita than Joe Biden’s mighty green infrastructure fund. Taking two years to build up to this huge spend is reasonable: how do you get £28bn worth of spades in the ground, without waste, on day one? Yet Labour has let this delay enter the political lexicon as a green retreat.
There are always doomsters eager to get disillusion with Labour in early, forever expecting betrayal. But Angela Rayner herself stands as guarantor for workers’ rights: it’s unlikely she would stand by and see those pledges seriously diminished. In the same way, Ed Miliband stands guard over Labour’s green credentials. But nor do I think Keir Starmer or Rachel Reeves has any less commitment to the radicalism of policies they drew up.
Nerves and lack of self-confidence seem to make Labour hesitate to issue loud rebuttals when these “retreat” stories appear. They know the Tories’ well-oiled campaign machine (and its foghorn press) hasn’t yet got out its knife sharpener to begin assaulting Labour with utterly mendacious distortions of its policies. They know, despite an 18-point lead, that 55% of voters say they might still change their mind. They know that the party scoring best on the economy always wins. Labour has shifted that dial: entering No 10 last year, Sunak was most “trusted to run the economy” by 33% to Starmer’s 29%, according to Opinium. Though Labour now leads on the economy by six percentage points, that still feels precarious.
Fighting to win Rutherglen against an SNP foe purporting to be more leftwing is doing Labour good. As he travels up and down to Scotland almost monthly, do read Starmer’s thundering essay in the Scotsman, full of words Blair and Brown feared to use. “In the recent past,” he wrote, “Labour was afraid to speak the language of class at all – but not my Labour party. No, for me, smashing the ‘class ceiling’ that holds working people back is our defining purpose … Because you cannot seriously take on inequality or poverty … without talking about class. This is personal.” On poverty, he wrote, “This isn’t the trickle-down Tory nonsense that, for working-class communities, means jobs trickle out and power trickles up … I don’t look at our current social security system and think tinkering at the edges will be good enough.” And he repeats Rayner’s list of “a new deal that will strengthen workers’ rights and finally make work pay”.
Expect this to be the mood of Labour’s October conference: messages get clearer as elections approach. As ever, Labour will do more in office than would be wise to promise in advance, but that requires some trust and patience from its natural supporters.
Polly Toynbee is a Guardian columnist
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