Mark Carney, crisis-fighting central banker, to lead Canada through US trade war

David Ljunggren
Updated Sun, March 9, 2025

Mark Carney, crisis-fighting central banker, to lead Canada through US trade war
FILE PHOTO: Liberal Party leadership candidate Carney speaks in Windsor, Ontario


By David Ljunggren

OTTAWA (Reuters) -Mark Carney, soon to become Canada's new prime minister, is a two-time central banker and crisis fighter about to face his biggest challenge of all: steering Canada through Donald Trump's tariffs.

The Liberals announced Carney as Justin Trudeau's successor on Sunday after party members voted in a nominating contest. Trudeau resigned in January, facing low approval ratings after nearly a decade in office.

The 59-year-old Carney is a political outsider who has never held office, which would in normal times have killed his candidacy in Canada. But distance from Trudeau and a high-profile banking career played to his advantage, and Carney argues he is the only person prepared to handle Trump.


"I know how to manage crises ... in a situation like this, you need experience in terms of crisis management, you need negotiating skills," Carney said during a leadership debate late last month.

Carney was born in Fort Smith in the remote Northwest Territories. He attended Harvard where he played college level ice hockey, starring as a goalkeeper.

Carney, who garnered the most party endorsements and the most money raised among the four Liberal candidates, will soon be the first person to become Canadian prime minister without being a legislator and without having had any cabinet experience.

He argues Canada must fight Trump's tariffs with dollar for dollar retaliation and diversify trading relations in the medium term.

In the next election, which must be held by October 20, the Liberals will face off against the official opposition Conservatives, whose leader Pierre Poilievre is a career politician with little international exposure.


By contrast, Carney is a globetrotter who spent 13 years at Goldman Sachs before being named deputy governor of the Bank of Canada in 2003. He left in November 2004 for a top finance ministry job and returned to become governor of the central bank in 2008 at the age of just 42.

POACHED BY THE BANK OF ENGLAND

Carney won praise for his handling of the financial crisis, when he created new emergency loan facilities and gave unusually explicit guidance on keeping rates at record low levels for a specific period of time.

Even at that stage, rumors swirled that he would seek a career in politics with the Liberals, prompting him to respond with a prickliness that is still sometimes evident.

"Why don't I become a circus clown?" he told a reporter in 2012 when asked about possible political ambitions.

The Bank of England was impressed enough though to poach him in 2013, making him the first non-British governor in the central bank's three-century history, and the first person to ever head two G7 central banks. Britain's finance minister at the time, George Osborne, called Carney the "outstanding central bank governor of his generation".

Carney, though, had a challenging time, forced to face zero inflation and the political chaos of Brexit.

He struggled to deploy his trademark policy of signaling the likely path of interest rates. The bank said its guidance came with caveats but media often interpreted it as more of a guarantee, with Labour legislator Pat McFadden dubbing the bank under Carney as an "unreliable boyfriend."

When sterling tumbled in the hours after the Brexit referendum result in 2016, Carney delivered a televised address to reassure markets that the bank would turn on the liquidity taps if needed.

"Mark has a rare ability to combine a central banker's steady hand, with a political reformer's eye to the future," said Ana Botin, Santander's executive chairman, in a written comment to Reuters. She said Carney "steadied the ship" in the UK after Brexit.


'HIGH PRIEST OF PROJECT FEAR'

But he infuriated Brexit supporters by talking about the economic damage that he said was likely to be caused by leaving the European Union. Conservative lawmaker Jacob Rees-Mogg called him the "high priest of project fear" but Carney said it was his duty to talk about such risks.

Carney also showed irritation with his predecessor in the job, Mervyn King, whom he said had not spotted the risks building in the financial sector before the 2007-08 financial crisis.

From 2011 to 2018 Carney also headed the Financial Stability Board, which coordinates financial regulation for the Group of 20 economies.

After leaving the Bank of England in 2020, Carney served as a United Nations envoy on finance and climate change.

After launching the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero in 2021 to act as an umbrella group for financial sector efforts to get to net-zero emissions, Carney oversaw a surge in membership as boards rushed to signal a willingness to act.

As the implications of moving to renewable energy began to filter down to the real economy, though, a political backlash from some Republican states accusing companies of breaching anti-trust rules ultimately led a number of large U.S. companies to drop their membership.

He also served on the board of Brookfield Asset Management and was chair of the Bloomberg board but resigned as the U.N. special envoy and left all commercial posts after he launched his bid for the Liberal leadership on January 16.

Carney's lack of political experience showed when the Conservatives pressed him over a decision by Brookfield to move its headquarters from Canada to the United States. Carney said the move took place after he resigned in January but the Conservatives found a letter he wrote to shareholders in December 2024 recommending the move.

"Sometimes I answer questions that go into details when I should keep it at a higher level. That's part of the problem with not being a politician," he told reporters when asked about Conservative allegations he had lied.

(Additional reporting by William Schomberg, Elisa Martinuzzi and Simon Jessop in London; Editing by Caroline Stauffer and Sandra Maler)




Canada picks a new leader to replace Trump target Justin Trudeau

Josh Fellman
Sun, March 9, 2025 

Photo: Andrej Ivanov (Getty Images)


Donald Trump won’t have Justin Trudeau to kick around any more. Canada’s ruling Liberal party picked Mark Carney — a former central bank governor known as a competent technocrat — as its new leader. He’s likely be sworn in as prime minster within days, replacing Trudeau.

Observers said Carney is expected to call an election almost immediately — one is due no later than October this year — which must be held on a Monday no more than 51 days after being announced. That would mean Parliament, currently suspended, wouldn’t resume sitting on March 24 as scheduled.

The election is likely to turn on a single issue: Who can best battle Trump over tariffs and resist his threats to annex the country as “the 51st state.” So far, Canada’s famously fickle — and now irate — voters have shown more trust in the Liberals, who are leading the opposition Conservatives in opinion polls for the first time since 2021.

“The next federal election is the most important of my lifetime,” said Ravi Kahlon, British Columbia’s housing minister and house leader for the left-of-center New Democratic Party-led government. While he doesn’t care who leads the federal Liberal party, he wants the next PM to be someone who will stand up for Canada. “People want someone in there who will fight for the country and not cave,” he said before Carney’s selection was announced.


Given Trump’s public derision of Trudeau, who he slights by calling “governor,” the selection of a new Canadian PM leader may change the political temperature. Carney, a former head of the Bank of Canada and the Bank of England, is known as a careful operator able to manage difficult political situations.

Main opposition leader Pierre Poilievre will have to battle public perceptions that he’s ideologically too close to the U.S. president and so he wouldn’t take a sufficiently tough stance in talks. A pivot is possible: Premier Doug Ford of Ontario won reelection after flipping from public Trump fan to tariffs foe.

The trade war will probably stay live during the campaign, with Trump only suspending some duties until early April and then on Friday threatening new levies on Canadian softwood lumber and dairy products. S&P Global (SPGI) economists cut their GDP forecast for Canada in the event of a long dispute.

New Canadian PM Mark Carney vows to fight US trade war ‘until Trump shows respect’

Alexander Butler
Sun, March 9, 2025 

Former Bank of England governor Mark Carney has succeeded Justin Trudeau as Canadian PM (REUTERS)


Canada’s new prime minister, Mark Carney, has vowed to take on Donald Trump and urged his country to unite in a defiant acceptance speech during a fierce trade war with the United States.

The former Bank of England governor, who will be sworn in as Justin Trudeau’s successor in the coming days, was on Sunday night elected as Canada’s new prime minister by the country’s governing Liberal Party as tensions escalate over tariffs with its closest neighbour.

After winning with with 85.9 per cent of the votes cast by 150,000 members, Mr Carney hit out at Mr Trump for “attacking Canadian families” and wanting to “destroy the Canadian way of life”, describing the US president’s tariffs and threats as the “greatest crisis of our lifetime”.

“There is someone who is trying to weaken our economy. Donald Trump. Donald Trump has put unjustified tariffs on what we build, sell and how we make a living,” he said.

Mark Carney has succeeded Justin Trudeau as Canada’s Liberal Party leader (AP)

After the US last week slapped sweeping 25 per cent tariffs on Canadian goods, Canada retaliated with its own 25 per cent tariffs on up to $155bn in US goods over the course of this month.


Mr Trudeau said in a televised address last week: “It’s not in my habit to agree with the Wall Street Journal, but Donald, they point out that even though you are a very smart guy, this a very dumb thing to do.”

While Mr Trudeau described the neighbouring countries as “two friends fighting”, Mr Carney said the US was a country Canada “could no longer trust”.

Mr Carney, 59, will now have to negotiate with Mr Trump as he threatens additional tariffs that could further cripple Canada’s economy.

During his speech Mr Carney said: “The Canadian government has rightly retaliated with tariffs. We will keep our tariffs on until the Americans show us respect.

“We did not ask for this fight. But Canadians are always ready when someone else drops the gloves. Make no mistake, Canada will win.”

He then turned his attack on Canadian opposition leader Pierre Poilievre, who he said "worships at the altar of Donald Trump”.

Mark Carney hit out at Donald Trump for trying to ‘destroy the Canadian way of life’ (EPA)

While the Conservative party has been gaining ground in recent months, like in other Western democracies, a surge in Canadian nationalism amid aggression from the US over trade and threats to make Canada America's 51st state has bolstered the Liberal Party's chances in the parliamentary election expected within days or weeks.


"We have made this the greatest country in the world and now our neighbours want to take us. No way," Mr Carney added. “We can’t change Donald Trump … [but] because we’re masters in our own home, we can control our economic destiny.”

Mr Carney’s fiery stance marks a dramatic shift in the rhetoric of Western leaders speaking out against Mr Trump, and will be watched closely by those in the UK and Europe, with the US president vowing to put tariffs on the EU, which he said was created to “screw” the United States.

Repeating the phrase “Canada strong”, Mr Carney said Canadians could give themselves “far more than Donald Trump could”.

“We have to look out for ourselves and we have to look out for each other, we need to hold together for the tough days ahead,” he said. “We can and we will get through this crisis.”

Mr Trudeau announced in January that he would step down after more than nine years in power as his approval rating plummeted, forcing the ruling Liberal Party to run a quick contest to replace him.


Mr Carney has said his experience as the first person to serve as the governor of two central banks – Canada and England – meant he was the best candidate to deal with Mr Trump.

He said he supported dollar-for-dollar retaliatory tariffs against the United States and a coordinated strategy to boost investment. He has repeatedly complained that Canada's growth under Mr Trudeau was not good enough.

Mr Carney could legally serve as prime minister without a seat in the House of Commons but tradition dictates he should seek to win one as soon as possible.

He will also have to decide when to call a general election, which must be held on or before 20 October of this year.

Former central banker favored to replace Trudeau as Canada PM

MARK CARNEY WON LANDSLIDE 86%

AFP
March 9, 2025 


Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called plastic pollution a "global challenge," and said Canada had a unique opportunity to take the lead as the country with the world's longest coastline AFP/File / Lars Hagberg

Canada's Liberal Party looked set Sunday to choose a former central banker and political novice as its next leader, replacing Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as it confronts threats from US President Donald Trump.

Mark Carney, who served as the governor of the Bank of Canada and the Bank of England, is widely expected to be named the new Liberal leader when results from a vote of around 400,000 party members are announced later Sunday.

The other main challenger is Trudeau's former deputy prime minister, Chrystia Freeland, who held several senior cabinet positions in the Liberal government that was first elected in 2015.

Whoever wins the vote will take over from Trudeau as prime minister, but will soon face a general election that polls currently show the rival Conservative Party as slight favorites to win.

Carney has racked up endorsements, including from much of Trudeau's cabinet, and a Freeland win would be a shock for the Liberals as they head towards a general election.

Despite dramatically breaking with the prime minister in December, analysts say voters still tie Freeland to Trudeau's unpopular record.


Carney and Freeland have both maintained that they are the best candidate to defend Canada against Trump's attacks.

The US president has repeatedly spoken about annexing Canada and thrown bilateral trade, the lifeblood of the Canadian economy, into chaos with dizzying tariff actions that have veered in various directions since he took office.

- 'Most serious crisis' -

Carney has argued that he is a seasoned economic manager, reminding voters that he led the Bank of Canada through the 2008-2009 financial crisis and steered the Bank of England through the turbulence that followed the 2016 Brexit vote.

Trump "is attacking what we build. He is attacking what we sell. He is attacking how we earn our living," Carney told supporters at a closing campaign rally near Toronto on Friday.

"We are facing the most serious crisis in our lifetime," he added. "Everything in my life has prepared me for this moment."


Data released from the Angus Reid polling firm on Wednesday shows Canadians see Carney as the favorite choice to face off against Trump, a trait that could offer the Liberals a boost over the opposition Conservatives.

Forty-three percent of respondents said they trusted Carney the most to deal with Trump, with 34 percent backing Tory leader Pierre Poilievre.

Most polls, however, still list the Tories as the current favorites to win the election, which must be held by October but could come within weeks.

- Not a politician? -

Carney made a fortune as an investment banker at Goldman Sachs before entering the Canadian civil service.

Since leaving the Bank of England in 2020, he has served as a United Nations envoy working to get the private sector to invest in climate-friendly technology and has held private sector roles.

He has never served in parliament or held an elected public office.

Analysts say his untested campaign skills could prove a liability against a Conservative Party already running attack ads accusing Carney of shifting positions and misrepresenting his experience.

The 59-year-old has positioned himself as a new voice untainted by Trudeau, who he has said did not devote enough attention to building Canada's economy.


On Friday, Carney said Canadians "from coast to coast" wanted change, and referred to himself as a political outsider.

"It's getting to the point where after two months I may have to start calling myself a politician," he joked.

Trudeau has said he would agree on a transition of power once the new Liberal leader is in place, declining to give an exact date.

When ready, the pair will visit Canada's Governor General Mary Simon -- King Charles III's official representative in Canada -- who will task the new Liberal chief with forming a government.


The new prime minister may only hold the position for several weeks, depending on the timing and outcome of the looming election.

Canada Liberal Party to choose new leader to replace Trudeau as PM


By AFP
March 9, 2025


Canada's Liberal Party looks set to choose former central banker and political novice Mark Carney as its next leader - Copyright AFP/File ANDREJ IVANOV

Michel Comte with Ben Simon in Toronto

Canada’s Liberal Party names its next leader Sunday, with a former central banker and political novice favored to replace Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as the country confronts threats from US President Donald Trump.

Mark Carney, who served as the governor of the Bank of Canada and the Bank of England, is the front-runner to be tapped Liberal leader when results from a vote of party members are announced later Sunday.

The other main challenger is Trudeau’s former deputy prime minister, Chrystia Freeland, who held several senior cabinet positions in the Liberal government that was first elected in 2015.

Whoever wins will take over from Trudeau as prime minister, but will soon face an election that polls currently show the rival Conservative Party as slight favorites to win.

Carney has racked up endorsements, including from much of Trudeau’s cabinet and more than half of Liberals in parliament.

A Freeland win remains possible but would be a surprise for the party as it heads towards an election that must be held by October, but could come within weeks.

Both Freeland and Carney have maintained that they are the best candidate to defend Canada against Trump’s attacks.

The US president has repeatedly spoken about annexing Canada and thrown bilateral trade, the lifeblood of the Canadian economy, into chaos with dizzying tariff actions that have veered in various directions since he took office.

– ‘Most serious crisis’ –

Party supporters were gathering Sunday at an Ottawa hall draped in red where the winner will be announced.

Luciana Bordignon, a 59-year-old sales representative from Vancouver, told AFP she was backing Carney but was confident the party would be emboldened after the vote.

“I expect to have a good, new, strong leader,” she said.

Lozminda Longkines told AFP that Trump’s repeated musings about making Canada the 51st US state were “a blessing in disguise.”

“We are so united… We have a common enemy,” the 71-year old said.

Carney has argued that he is the ideal counter to Trump’s disruptions, reminding voters that he led the Bank of Canada through the 2008-2009 financial crisis and steered the Bank of England through the turbulence that followed the 2016 Brexit vote.

Trump “is attacking what we build. He is attacking what we sell. He is attacking how we earn our living,” Carney told supporters at a closing campaign rally near Toronto on Friday.

“We are facing the most serious crisis in our lifetime,” he added. “Everything in my life has prepared me for this moment.”

Data released from the Angus Reid polling firm on Wednesday shows Canadians see Carney as the favorite choice to face off against Trump, potentially offering the Liberals a boost over the opposition Conservatives.

Forty-three percent of respondents said they trusted Carney the most to deal with Trump, with 34 percent backing Tory leader Pierre Poilievre.

Before Trudeau announced his plans to resign in January, the Liberals were headed for an electoral wipeout, but the leadership change and Trump’s influence have dramatically tightened the race.

– Not a politician? –

Carney made a fortune as an investment banker at Goldman Sachs before entering the Canadian civil service.

Since leaving the Bank of England in 2020, he has served as a United Nations envoy working to get the private sector to invest in climate-friendly technology and has held private sector roles.

He has never served in parliament or held an elected public office.

Analysts say his untested campaign skills could prove a liability against a Conservative Party already running attack ads accusing Carney of shifting positions and misrepresenting his experience.

The 59-year-old has positioned himself as a new voice untainted by Trudeau, who he has said did not devote enough attention to building Canada’s economy.

On Friday, Carney said Canadians “from coast to coast” wanted change, and referred to himself as a political outsider.

“It’s getting to the point where after two months I may have to start calling myself a politician,” he joked.

In the coming days, Trudeau and the new Liberal chief will visit Canada’s Governor General Mary Simon — King Charles III’s official representative in Canada — who will task the leader with forming a government.

Justin Trudeau delivers farewell speech as Canadian Prime Minister

Copyright Sean Kilpatrick/AP

By Malek Fouda

Published on  10/03/2025 - 

Trudeau gives his final speech as Canadian Prime Minister.

Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau delivered an emotional farewell speech to a conference of his Liberal Party on Sunday.

The Canadian leader served in his post for almost a decade, assuming the top job on 4 November, 2015.

Trudeau resigned from his post on 6 January after months of domestic problems which saw his popularity plummet. The declining economic conditions and the country’s direction resulted in dismal polls for Trudeau, who fell in popularity by a significant two digit margin to his main rival Pierre Poilievre of the Conservative Party.

Trudeau was also under growing pressure from his own party who lost confidence in him. Trudeau however decided to remain in power until his successor is named.

But all of that was forgotten in Sunday’s conference, as Trudeau spoke to a crowd who cheered and clapped for him, thanking him for his nine-year tenure.

The outgoing prime minister expressed his gratitude to his party and the Canadian people, saying he was “damn proud” of his time in office, which he said was filled with successes and great accomplishments.

Trudeau also warned the Liberal Party crowd that Canada needs them now more than ever, referencing the growing international crises that threaten to tear down the international rules-based order, and the growing uncertainty in the face of US President Donald Trump’s economic threat on the country.

The Liberal Party will announce a replacement for Trudeau on Sunday to lead the country until a general election is held this year.

Liberal Party members look set to pick former central bank governor Mark Carney as the new party leader and Canada's next prime minister in a vote to be announced on Sunday evening.

Carney, 59, navigated crises when he was the head of the Bank of Canada and when in 2013 he became the first noncitizen to run the Bank of England since it was founded in 1694. His appointment won bipartisan praise in the U.K. after Canada recovered from the 2008 financial crisis faster than many other countries.

A general election must be held on or before 20 October. Either the new Liberal party leader will call one, or the opposition parties in Parliament could force one with a no-confidence vote later this month.

How the Tories crashed – but could recover

FEBRUARY 20, 2025

Mike Phipps reviews Collapse of the Conservatives: Volatile Voters, Broken Britain and a Punishment Election, by Steve Rayson, published by Bavant.

In March 2020, support for the Conservative government was running at 54%, 26 points ahead of the Labour Party. It was the highest Conservative poll share ever in government and its biggest lead over Labour since the Falklands War in 1982. And in the first few weeks of the Covid pandemic, Boris Johnson’s popularity would increase even further.

In May 2021, the Conservatives capitalised on their ‘vaccine bounce’ by winning 235 new seats in the local elections, as well as the Hartlepool by-election, taking it from Labour on a remarkable 23% swing, the biggest for an incumbent governing party in a by-election in the post-war period. The talk was of a decade-long Johnson premiership.

Three years and two Prime Ministers later, almost half of the Conservative Party’s 2019 voters deserted them. In the 2024 general election, they lost 251 seats, more than any party had ever lost at a general election, and their vote share slumped to just 23.7%, their lowest ever. For the first time in over 100 years, they did not win a majority of southern seats.

Things get volatile

How did it happen? Beyond the specific ‘incidents’ in the Johnson, Truss and Sunak premierships that led to this collapse, Steve Rayson’s book looks at more fundamental trends. The first is increased distrust in politicians – now at a forty-year low – which has fuelled voter volatility.

This has been developing for a while. In 2015, an estimated 43% of people voted for a different party than they had voted for in 2010. Party and class dealignment among voters have been taking place for decades, so that by 2019 Professor John Curtice could say there was no longer much of a link between party support and social class.

When people are less attached to political parties, they are more likely to vote on a short-term transactional, rather than an ideological, basis. In retrospect, t’s now clear – in fact, it has been for nearly three years – that Johnson’s big win in ‘red wall’ seats in 2019 was down to such factors, such as Brexit and distrust of Jeremy Corbyn, rather than any long-term conversion. The coalition of support this victory rested on was also inherently unstable.

“When Jeremy Corbyn was replaced by Keir Starmer and the Brexit deal was finally signed, two of the core motivations for the 2019 first-time Conservative voters supporting the party were removed,” notes Rayson. To retain their backing, the government would have to tread carefully and deliver on its ‘levelling up’ agenda. It did neither.

The money allocated to levelling up was swallowed up in the Covid crisis, But this, the public felt, was being increasingly poorly handled as it wore on – the double standard for top ministers, such as Matt Hancock,  and advisors, like Dominic Cummings, who appeared to break the rules with impunity; the ‘cancellation of Christmas’ in December 2020 at four days’ notice, blamed on Johnson’s dithering; Cummings’ departure from the government and his declaration that Johnson was unfit to be Prime Minister.

Then came the Owen Paterson affair, where Johnosn imposed a three-line whip to prevent the House of Commons from punishing a minister who broke lobbying rules; ‘Partygate’; the fraud that flowed from the government’s Bounce Back Loan Scheme and its chummy and partly unlawful allocation of contracts for Covid equipment; a rising cost of living crisis; and the final straw, Johnson’s appointment to government of a man he knew had been accused of sexual assault.

By the time Johnson resigned in July 2022, public trust in government was in freefall: just   21% of people thought the Conservative Party was fit to govern. In the ensuing leadership contest, rival candidates tore lumps out of each other – Truss dubbed Sunak the “socialist” chancellor – and Labour opened up a fifteen-point lead.

The rapid demise of Truss, arguably the worst Prime Minister ever, has been explored in detail elsewhere. By the time she left office, fewer than fifty days later, more than twice as many people thought that Labour would be better at handling the economy than the Tories. Only 8% thought the Conservatives trustworthy.

The big books have yet to be written about Rishi Sunak’s premiership. Could he have rescued the Tories’ reputation? It seems unlikely, and appointing so many Cabinet members from the Johnson-Truss era did not help his cause. Nor did bringing back Suella Braverman as Home Secretary, just six days after she had been sacked for leaking restricted material – part of a grubby deal to head off a challenge from her for the leadership.

A year later, as Britian tipped into recession, three-quarters of the public thought the Tory government was handling the economy badly. But politicians of all stripes were on notice: “Almost half of people said they would ‘almost never’ trust British governments of any party to place the needs of the country above the interests of their own political party, more than ever before.”

The incompetent Conservatives broke Britain and must be punished

Another underlying trend that sealed the Conservatives’ fate was the convergence of three narrative strands about the party. The first was that ‘nothing works anymore’ – a view shared by 62% of people in June 2024 and further illustrated by polling which showed that 84% felt public services had deteriorated under the Tories. Rayson drills down into the multiple crises engulfing local authority services, health, housing, the criminal justice system, the water industry, education and even defence.

The second thread was that the Tories were incompetent – constantly changing leaders, unable to control immigration (which matters to Tory voters), economically reckless under Truss.

The central, perhaps the only, reason why the Conservatives have been re-elected to govern so often over the years is their reputation, merited or not, for competence. Once that goes – as in the 1990s under John Major – they are kicked out. By June 2024, only 8% of 2019 Tory voters, said they were satisfied with the current Conservative government.

The third strand was ‘the Conservatives should be punished’. “It was the result of growing public anger at the collapse of public services, rising levels of poverty, and the behaviour of the Conservative government, which had been marked by allegations of impropriety, misconduct, corruption, fraud, and lying,” suggests Rayson.  

Partygate in particular created a powerful sense of grievance about government dishonesty and hypocrisy at a time when ordinary people were banned even from attending the funerals of close relatives. By 2024, public anger was palpable. The Economist called the summer general election “an episode of mob justice.”

2024: maximising the Tory wipeout                 

The final cause of the Tory wipeout can be located in the general election campaign itself. Opposition parties leveraged the public’s willingness to engage in intense tactical voting to eject the Tories, while Reform UK’s decision to run over 600 candidates split the right wing vote.

Keir Starmer is often credited with implementing a winning strategy. He turned his back on the ten pledges he had made when running to be Labour’s leader in 2020, suspended his predecessor, Jeremy Corbyn, from the parliamentary Party and bureaucratically blocked a host of left wing candidates from standing, in order to emphasise his rejection of what Labou had once stood for. Supporters of the Starmer leadership have talked up the success of Labour’s electoral strategy, which focused on winning Conservative votes in marginal seats, while offering little to the Party’s traditional urban voters.

However, a price was paid for this approach, in two ways. Firstly, the scale of the defection of Labour voters to the Party’s left – including in Starmer’s own constituency, where a socialist Independent was runner-up – took Party strategists by surprise. Four Greens and five Independents, including Jeremy Corbyn, were elected, while others came impressively close, for instance in Wes Streeting’s Ilford North constituency, which the now Secretary of State for Heath won by just 528 votes. Secondly, Starmer’s “ruthless” U-turn towards the centre ground resulted in a big leap in levels of public distrust towards him.

Opinion polls shifted little in the final weeks: voters had already made up their minds. Nonetheless, Rishi Sunak’s apparent snub to D-Day veterans – he left the commemoration early to go electioneering – did nothing to help his cause. Nor did reports of his aides using their insider knowledge to place lucrative bets on a July election.

The Labour leadership too made all the wrong headlines due to its factional attempts – ultimately unsuccessful – to stop Diane Abbott from running as its Hackney North candidate. Still, the Party captured the public mood by emphasising “change”, but as Rayson notes, it “explicitly ruled out changes to income tax, National Insurance, corporation tax, and VAT, which constituted 71% of all tax income in 2022/23.” This would make change much harder to deliver when in office.

When the results came in, it was a disaster for the Conservatives – some of the seats they lost they had held for over a century. They were the preferred party only of people over age 65, while securing a mere 5% of the votes of 18 to 24-year-olds and only 10% of the votes of 25 to 34-year-olds. On competence, fitness to govern, empathy and integrity, the party’s ratings collapsed.

But Labour only marginally improved on their 2019 vote share, thanks largely to gains in Scotland from the SNP. The Party won back the ‘red wall’, but its landslide was based on just 34% of the vote. The polls had massively overestimated Labour’s support, which ended up at just ten points ahead of the Tories. Labour had fewer votes than they had achieved in both 2017 and 2019 – and it was the second lowest turnout since 1885. It’s further estimated that Labour lost a third of its support from Black and Asian communities in this election.

No honeymoon for Labour

The satisfaction rating for the new Labour government when it was elected, was -21, better than Sunak’s, but a long way from Tony Blair’s +37 in 1997. It underlined the high level of political distrust in UK politics and the erosion of traditional voting blocs in favour of more transactional voting.

In short, people voted for change. If Labour fail to deliver it, their electoral support will evaporate.

Which is precisely what is happening. Two months in, Keir Starmer’s government had a 23% approval rating, which fell precipitously after it announced a decision to means-test the winter fuel allowance. By October 2024, Starmer’s personal favourability rating had fallen to -36, the lowest since he became Labour leader.

 As for the Tories, they are profoundly damaged. In November 2024, Kemi Badenoch was elected as the new leader with 53,000 votes, fewer than Rishi Sunak managed when he lost to Liz Truss. That itself is a sign of falling membership. Rayson identifies four challenges facing the party: the threat from Reform, its lost reputation for competence, its lack of narrative vision going forward and the demographic challenge that it is utterly unappealing to younger voters.

These are enormous challenges, but not insurmountable. Rayson’s book went to the publishers just as the utterly unexpected began to happen: the Tories gained twenty seats in local council by-elections in the last quarter of 2024. One analyst commented: “No party has won such a huge parliamentary victory and seen their fortunes reverse as quickly. No party that has suffered an historic defeat has rebounded as rapidly.”

Reform UK are also making gains. There is a lot of chatter in the media about whether the party might replace the Tories as the main right wing force, whether a merger of the two parties is feasible, what role Nigel Farage might play in a future right wing government and so on – but the most important point is that, on current poll ratings, all that is needed for Labour to lose office is an electoral non-aggression pact between Reform and the Conservatives.

Current poll numbers are a stark warning to Keir Starmer’s government. Its huge parliamentary majority could be a one-term wonder. As the government abandon the WASPI women, scrap hospital building programmes, allow huge water bill rises and commit to a third runway at Heathrow airport, voters who wanted change are already looking elsewhere. There was even talk earlier this year of Keir Starmer being replaced as Labour leader ahead of the next general election.

These are volatile times. Trump’s re-election in the US, the entry of billionaire oligarchs into frontline politics and the rise of the far right in Europe throw more uncertainty into the mix. This book is about the collapse of the Conservatives, but right now Labour have just as much to worry about.

Mike Phipps’ book Don’t Stop Thinking About Tomorrow: The Labour Party after Jeremy Corbyn (OR Books, 2022) can be ordered here.

HEATHROW

“Economically bad, environmentally bad and socially bad”

HubMP2012

FEBRUARY 1, 2025

Reactions are pouring in to Rachel Reeves’ ‘growth’ speech – and her commitment to a third Heathrow runway in particular.

Chancellor Rachel Reeves has backed a third runway at London’s Heathrow Airport as part of a new effort to get the UK’s economy growing. “In a wide-ranging speech to business leaders, she also backed expansions at Luton and Gatwick airports, as well as a ‘growth corridor’ between Oxford and Cambridge,” the BBC reports.

New powers in the Planning and Infrastructure Bill would cut the length of time it takes to get infrastructure projects off the ground, according to Reeves, who announced a range of new infrastructural projects.

Keir Starmer has vowed to get rid of a “thicket of red tape” that he claimed was deterring foreign investment, and the Government also plans to relax restrictions on big pension funds to encourage them to invest more in UK businesses.

Labour opposition

The third runway at Heathrow has yet to receive planning permission, but puts the Party leadership on collision course with many senior Labour figures who oppose it. London Mayor Sadiq Khan responded: “I’m simply not convinced that you can have hundreds of thousands of additional flights at Heathrow every year without a hugely damaging impact on our environment.”

Former Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell MP said: “This is such a huge political, economic & especially environmental mistake that sadly I fear it will inflict an irreparable scale of damage on the government.” He promised to convene a public meeting in the Heathrow Villages to discuss the situation.

Labour’s former Director of Policy under Jeremy Corbyn, Andrew Fisher, said a third Heathrow runway was “economically bad, environmentally bad and socially bad.” There were better things we could be building, he suggested, including a mass programme of council house building and home insulation.

Nadia Whittome MP suggested a forest twice the size of London would be required just to offset the Heathrow, Gatwick and Luton expansions. Zarah Sultana MP called  the decision a “complete U-turn at the expense of local communities and the planet –  reckless, short-sighted and indefensible.” Former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn MP also voiced his opposition.

Labour’s former Parliamentary candidate in Uxbridge and South Ruislip, Ali Milani, said: “It will act as a signal to all those watching around the world that we are not serious in meeting our climate obligations and critically, for those of us in the surrounding areas and in London, it means further deterioration of  our health and environment. Heathrow is already the single biggest source of carbon emissions in the entire United Kingdom.”

Northern MPs were critical of the Chancellor’s focus on the South east. Former Shadow Business Secretary Jon Trickett MP said: “Money has been sucked out of the Regions and into the South East for decades.  Long term cuts to transport spending in the North are effectively being used to increase investment in the South East and London…

“In order to reconnect with working class communities and rebuild trust in politics, the Labour government must avoid buying into the economic orthodoxy of the Treasury, whose restricted vision never seems to extend far beyond the M25. We need massive investment in the regions. The new Labour Government cannot simply be managers of an unjust and unfair economic system which has left so many people behind.”

A Momentum spokesperson criticised the Chancellor’s entire approach: “By relaxing planning constraints, pursuing Heathrow expansion at all cost, and enacting policies favouring private developers, asset managers and industry lobbyists, Reeves’s speech was deservedly praised by right-wing think tanks. Starmer became Prime Minister promising ‘change’ but in fact is continuing the same climate-trashing, pro-developer policies as the Tories.”

Unite General Secretary Sharon Graham was blunt: “The fact is that bending the knee to global billionaires, ‘unleashing’ corporate greed, has not delivered investment. We have historically low investment rates, the lowest in the G7. A different direction is needed.”

Pressure groups sceptical

Think tanks and pressure groups were also sceptical. Shaun Spiers, executive director at Green Alliance, said: “The economic case for bigger airports and new roads is highly questionable, and it’s crystal clear that pushing ahead with these will fly in the face of the UK’s climate targets.”

Beccy Speight, Royal Society for the Protection of Birds chief executive, agreed: “Some of today’s announcements put our climate targets at risk.”

Green New Deal Rising picketed the event and held up placards showing social media posts of Cabinet members explaining why they had opposed Heathrow expansion just a few years ago – including the Prime Minister himself. In 2020 he opposed a third runway at Heathrow because “there is no more important challenge than the climate emergency.”

The group said: “Even in the short-term, expanding airports will do nothing to boost our sluggish economy. Business passenger numbers have been falling for 20 years as business has moved online. All this decision will do is ensure a small number of frequent leisure flyers leave and spend their money outside the UK economy more regularly. That’s why previous expansions in airport capacity haven’t led to increased productivity or GDP.”

It added: “We just can’t have economic prosperity if we don’t get control of the climate emergency.”

“Rash, short-sighted” – Friends of the Earth

Rosie Downes, head of campaigns at Friends of the Earth, savaged the Chancellor’s vision, describing it as “the kind of dangerously short-sighted thinking that has helped cause the climate crisis and left the UK one of the most nature-depleted countries in the world. Giving the go-ahead to airport expansion by depending on new, unreliable technologies, like ‘sustainable aviation fuels’ would be a reckless gamble with our future and risks the UK missing critical climate reduction targets even if we rapidly expand renewable energy.

“Similarly, allowing developers to bulldoze their way through crucial nature protections and safeguards will further diminish our seriously under-threat wildlife and natural environment.

“The net zero economy is the UK’s fastest growing sector. The government should seize the huge benefits that building a greener future will bring through cheap homegrown renewable energy and warm well-insulated homes, not back damaging projects like airports and the Lower Thames Crossing.

“Sacrificing nature and our climate isn’t leadership: it’s rash, short-sighted and a sure-fire way to lose the trust of those who believed Labour’s election promises on the environment. Instead the Chancellor must embrace green growth.”

“Tax the super-rich” – Women’s Budget Group

Dr Mary-Ann Stephenson, director at the Women’s Budget Group, said that prioritising physical infrastructure alone missed a critical barrier to a thriving economy.

“Our economy is being held back because people can’t access social care, get the right medical treatment when they need it, or because they cannot afford or secure a nursery place for their child. These services – our social infrastructure – are on their knees. Waiting for the economy to grow before investing in these services overlooks a critical point: public services are the backbone of a strong economy, not a consequence of it. 

“What’s more, the care sector is an inherently green sector: our analysis has shown that investment in the care sector could create 2.7 times as many jobs as the same investment in construction and produce 30% less greenhouse gas emissions. 

“We need to invest and grow our social infrastructure, and decarbonise our physical infrastructure. Expanding Heathrow airport is a worrying move from the Government, and flies in the face of our climate commitments. New research from the New Economics Foundation reveals such expansions would erase the climate benefits of the Government’s Clean Power Plan by 2050, with limited financial returns. We have long argued against the expansion of air travel.”

She concluded: “We urge the Government to honour their commitment to net zero, and their promise to call on those with the broadest shoulders. Easing the regulations around the non-dom tax regime – as recently announced by the Chancellor in Davos – is a step backwards. Last week, Oxfam’s latest inequality report showed that the total wealth of UK billionaires increased by £35m per day in 2024. Patriotic Millionaires’ recent G20 survey found 72% of millionaires support higher taxes on the super-rich to reduce inequality and strengthen public services. Taxing the super-rich would not only help fund the services and social security that women disproportionately rely on, it would also help close the gender wealth gap.” 

Growth won’t fix poverty

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation agreed that the Government’s dash for growth would not fix the UK’s underlying problems, tweeting that there would not be “progress on child poverty by 2029 even with high economic growth.”

Only in Scotland, it argued, were child poverty rates expected to fall by 2029, largely thanks to the Scottish Child Payment and efforts to mitigate the two-child benefit limit. It concluded: “Any respectable child poverty strategy must include action on social security including to abolish the two-child limit and introduce a protected minimum amount of support to Universal Credit.”

Its new report UK Poverty 2025 is published today. It finds that more than one in five people in the UK (21%) were in poverty in 2022/23 – 14.3 million people. Of these, 8.1 million were working-age adults, 4.3 million were children and 1.9 million were pensioners. Poverty is deepening, the report finds.

Sign the petition against Heathrow expansion here.

Image: Heathrow Airport. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Heathrow_Airport_(7006948360).jpg Source: Heathrow Airport Author: Ed Webster, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.

Brits regret Brexit: majority now say UK was wrong to leave the EU

Olivia Barber 

 1 February, 2025 
Left Foot Forward

More than half of voters support rejoining the EU, according to a new YouGov poll

More than half of Brits (55%) believe the country was wrong to vote to leave the EU in 2016, while 30% say it was the right decision, according to a new YouGov poll.

This means public support for Brexit has now fallen to its lowest level since YouGov began asking this question after the referendum.

On 31 January 2020, Britain left the EU, putting into action the 52% to 48% vote to ‘Leave’ the EU at the 2016 referendum.

Five years on, one in six Leave voters (18%) now say that it was wrong for Britain to choose to leave the EU, however, 66% still say Britain made the right decision.

Younger voters are particularly critical of Brexit, with three-quarters of 18-24 year olds saying Britain was wrong to leave, compared with just one in ten who believe it was the right decision.

When assessing Brexit’s impact, more than six in ten Brits view it as more of a failure, while just 11% see it as a success.

Another 20% take a neutral stance, considering it neither a success nor a failure.

In terms of the UK’s future relationship with the EU, nearly two-thirds (64%) of Brits support a closer relationship with the EU without formally rejoining any of its institutions.

This view is shared by 60% of Leave voters and 53% of Reform UK voters.

Support for reversing Brexit is also high, with 55% of Brits in favour of rejoining the EU.

The poll, conducted between 20 and 21 January, surveyed a sample of 2,225 adults.

Olivia Barber is a reporter at Left Foot Forward

Brexit lies: How the cheerleaders prospered while the country paid the price

Gabrielle Pickard-Whitehead

1 February, 2025 
Right-Wing Watch

The delusions of mystic Mogg and other Brexit diehards that the rewards will eventually come, are no longer tenable. Not only can we now measure the pitiful results and consequences, but they're impossible to ignore.

Five years ago on January 31, 2020, the UK officially severed ties with the European Union. The promises spun by the Leave campaign were bold and far-reaching. Greater control of our borders, lucrative global trade deals, a better-funded NHS, and a stronger, more independent Britain. Yet half a decade of post-Brexit Britain, and it’s clear that while some of the chief proponents of the Leave campaign have prospered, the nation as a whole has paid a painful price.

The delusions of mystic Mogg and other Brexit diehards that the rewards will eventually come, are no longer tenable. Not only can we now measure the pitiful results and consequences, but they’re impossible to ignore.

NHS

Take the NHS. One of the most striking promises was the £350 million a week that would supposedly be freed up for the health service, emblazoned on Boris Johnson’s battle bus. Instead, the impact of Brexit has compounded the strain on an already overburdened NHS, affecting everything from staffing and supply chains to funding and public health policy.

A slowdown in recruitment from the EU and EFTA countries has led to shortages in essential healthcare staff, from doctors and nurses to dentists and care workers.

“The economic hit of Brexit combined with the worst cost of living crisis for a generation is reducing living standards creating additional need for health and care,” said Mark Dayan, Nuffield Trust’s Brexit programme lead, in a damning report about Brexit and the NHS.

Trade

Then there’s the issue of trade. We were promised frictionless trade and new, lucrative deals around the world. But in reality, the majority of the trade agreements signed post-Brexit are mere “rollovers” of deals that the UK already had as an EU member, with little new economic benefit to show. Many of these agreements are with nations with which the UK has minimal trade, offering little relief for the disruption caused by Brexit with supposed trading opportunities mired in bureaucracy and red tape.

Immigration

Brexit was also sold as a way to take back control over immigration. But since Brexit, immigration has soared to record levels. Net immigration, which hovered around 200,000 people annually pre-Brexit, skyrocketed to an unprecedented 745,000 in 2022. The points-based system introduced in 2021 removed the automatic right of EU citizens to come to the UK without a visa, yet the result has been severe worker shortages across a range of sectors. A joint report by the UK in a Changing Europe and the Centre for European Reform shows that the end of free movement has significantly contributed to labour shortages, particularly in low-skilled sectors like hospitality, retail, construction, and transportation.

Northern Ireland

Then there’s the unresolved issue of Northern Ireland, a constant shadow over Brexit. The Northern Ireland Protocol was designed to avoid a hard border with the Republic of Ireland, ensuring that the peace process would not be jeopardised. But a report out this week warns that the ramifications of Brexit will become increasingly evident on the island of Ireland, as the UK diverges from the EU in areas not covered by the Protocol.

According to the think tank UK in a Changing Europe, areas not covered by the Northern Ireland Protocol, such as certain environmental protection standards or recognition of professional qualifications, will mean that the Northern Ireland border will become increasingly pronounced.

Rising ‘Bregret’

As the consequences of Brexit become impossible to ignore, the national mood has become one of ‘Bregret.’ The number of Britons who think Brexit was the right decision has hit a new low, as a new YouGov poll shows. Just three in 10 Britons (30 percent) say that it was right for the UK to vote to leave the EU, compared to 55 percent who say it was wrong.

Also speaking volumes about the growing doubts over the wisdom of the decision, was the news this week that all UK constituencies, including Nigel Farage’s Clacton, would prefer a trade deal with the EU over the US.

While the people are left to contend with the consequences, as the years pass, it’s increasingly evident that the primary beneficiaries of Brexit have been the political elites who championed it.

It seems there is no punishment for arguably betraying your country, or at the very least, committing a policy blunder on such a scale that it will reverberate for years to come.

Boris Johnson became PM

In his memoir published in 2019, former PM David Cameron argued that Johnson didn’t genuinely believe in Brexit. Instead, he backed the Leave campaign to boost his own political career.

Cameron criticised Johnson’s motivations, noting that he was eager to lead the Brexit charge to secure the party’s top spot, especially to prevent rival Michael Gove from seizing the crown.

Cameron also referred to Michael Gove, who was a cabinet minister at the time, as “a foam-flecked Faragist.”

The pair were “ambassadors for the expert-trashing, truth-twisting age of populism,” he wrote.

“Whichever senior Tory politician took the lead on the Brexit side – so loaded with images of patriotism, independence and romance – would become the darling of the party.”

Cameron also criticised Johnson’s use of the Vote Leave campaign bus adorned with the claim that leaving would mean £350m a week extra for the NHS.

“Boris rode the bus round the country, he left the truth at home,” wrote the former PM.

Despite his “Get Brexit Done” campaign mantra in 2019 and defeating Jeremy Corbyn in a landslide, Johnson failed to fulfil the promise.

As political scientist Brendon O’Leary wrote in an essay about Johnson’s downfall:

“Johnson did not get Brexit done. It is a continuing wound, a senseless collective act of self-harm which he encouraged; indeed, he directed the cutting.”

Michael Gove becomes Spectator editor

Michael Gove, a central figure in the governments of David Cameron, Theresa May, Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak, stepped down from parliament at the 2024 general election. But instead of shunning the limelight and retiring quietly, Gove was named the new editor of the Spectator, just weeks after GB News backer Paul Marshall completed a £100m takeover of the right-wing magazine.

Despite gaining a reputation for enemy-making (even Liz Truss referred to him as a “snake” after he undermined her 45-day tenure by saying he would not vote for her budget), it emerged this week that Gove has been offered a peerage in Rishi Sunak’s resignation honours list. Then again, Gove did always stay faithful to Sunak, remaining one of his most staunch supporters during the final weeks of his premiership, so perhaps it’s not that surprising

.

Rishi Sunak lands lucrative ‘side’ jobs

Talking of Rishi Sunak, another ardent Brexiteer, who said it pained him to go against the David Cameron and his ‘illustrious predecessor’ Lord Hague, by campaigning to leave the EU, but said he believed the country will be ‘freer, fairer and more prosperous’ if the public voted ‘out,’ has landed a job at Oxford and Stanford universities (yes both!)

Just last week, the former prime minister announced he would be joining the University of Oxford’s Blavatnik School of Government as a member of its World Leaders Circle.

He will also take up a visiting fellowship at the Hoover Institution, a think tank based at Stanford University in California.

This is as well as being MP for Richmond and Northallerton. Wow, what a remarkable trajectory, balancing academic roles with political life.

Jacob Rees-Mogg becomes a ‘sir’

Jacob Rees-Mogg, another ardent Brexiteer, who was accused of hypocrisy after encouraging investors to move to London when his City firm, Somerset Capitol Management, set up an investment fund in Ireland ahead of Britain’s EU exit, was given a knighthood by his old pal, Boris Johnson.

The former cabinet minister became a ‘Sir’ in the former prime minister’s 2023 birthday honours list.

Priti Patel and Andrea Jenkyns, both Johnson allies and Eurosceptics who supported the Leave campaign, also received gongs, becoming dames.

Nigel Farage our future PM?

But the most worrying of the lot is Nigel Farage. Now leading Reform UK, the self-styled Brexit architect, is so confident in himself that he told a packed party in Washington DC thrown in his honour, that he will become Britain’s next prime minister, and before 2030. He told the room overlooking the White House that Donald Trump’s victory isn’t just a victory for America but for the free world and expressed confidence that Reform’s rise would lead to a future in power.

His prediction marks a new goalpost from Farage for his own political ambitions. Then again, his refusal to retire from politics despite declaring that with Brexit he had completed his “life’s work,” a mission that had consumed “the best part of three decades,” suggests that the post-Brexit Britain Farage envisioned isn’t the utopia he promised.

Meanwhile, his party continues to climb in the polls. The first YouGov poll of 2025 found Reform is now in second place, just one point behind the Labour Party, while the Tories, under Kemi Badenoch, have been pushed into third place on 22 percent.

Kemi Badenoch

Then there’s Kemi Badenoch herself. An “anti-woke warrior” and fervent Brexiteer, Badenoch made waves within the party with her support for controversial policies like the Rwanda deportation plan.

But, as the party’s fourth leader in just over two years, it remains to be seen whether Badenoch will still be leader of the Tories heading into the next general election. One of her toughest tasks is avoiding further division between her own MPs – let alone the electorate.

Of course, there’s a long tradition of the Establishment not punishing failure. In 2015, a raft of failed former MPs was handed seats in the House of Lords, including the controversial Tory grandee Douglas Hogg. Viscount Hogg sparked outrage during an expenses scandal after it emerged, he had claimed £2,200 from taxpayers to clean his moat.

Even the former health secretary Andrew Lansley, whose Health and Social Care Act 2012 was described as maybe the most disastrous attempt of any Conservative government to decentralise and to allow local individual enterprise and autonomy, was handed a peerage, following a recommendation by David Cameron.

In politics, failure, it seems, is often rewarded with power and prestige rather than being penalised. And nowhere is this more evident than with Brexit, where the advocates prospered while the nation was brought to its knees.


Gabrielle Pickard-Whitehead is author of Right-Wing Watch

Women’s Marches across Britain rally against sexism

The marches show that there is a mood to fight sexism in society

UK Women’s March on Saturday

By Judy Cox
Saturday 18 January 2025

SOCIALIST WORKER Issue

Thousands of people joined Women’s Marches in towns and cities across Britain to rage against sexism.

The marches, organised by new group UK Women’s March 2025, came just two days before sexist abuser Donald Trump’s inauguration.

Up to 3,000 people joined the march in London from Waterloo to Old Palace Yard opposite parliament.

Serafina, who came from Ramsgate, told Socialist Worker, “Women need abortion rights. Abortion rights are human rights. It’s healthcare.

“We shouldn’t have to fight to be treated like human beings. We get treated like we can’t do our jobs when we have babies.”

Another protester said that she had marched for abortion rights in 1970s—and was furious that she had to get back on the streets.

Abbie from Southend said, “I’m marching because I’m angry about everything women have to deal with—and for abortion rights. People give bullshit reasons to oppose abortion, but foetuses are not babies and the same people don’t care about bombing babies in Palestine.”

Megan had come from Stevenage to join her first march with her daughter. Like many marchers, Megan had experienced domestic violence. “I feel so angry—but coming here makes me feel part of something bigger,” she said.

“I want things to change for the next generation and I want to show solidarity with women around the world.”

The Women’s Marches saw around 600 in Manchester, over 500 in Edinburgh, around 400 in Nottingham and 200 in Brighton.

Jade, who helped to organise the Sheffield march, said, “We are thrilled. It was absolutely incredible—500 women and allies. Now let’s keep up the momentum!”

In London, marchers chanted, “Women’s rights, trans rights,” as they made their way across Westminster Bridge.

At a rally, UK Women’s March London co-lead Elisa said, “A sexist abuser, Donald Trump, is back in the White House on Monday. He wants to roll back abortion rights, and enact mass deportations, which will affect millions of women.

“What happens in the United States affects everyone. A member of Trump’s administration, billionaire Elon Musk, has seized on the horrors of child abuse to push racist lies and a far right agenda in Britain. And he’s supported by Nigel Farage, who also wants to roll back abortion rights.

“Across the world, states are attacking women’s rights whether it’s in Hungary, Iran or Afghanistan. International solidarity is vital—and that’s why I stand with the women of Palestine who fight against colonial, racist and sexist violence.”

She told Socialist Worker a “united movement that challenges sexism, racism and all forms of oppression” and “says trans women are women” is vital to winning.

Sophia Beach, a Jewish socialist and Palestine activist, told the crowd, “I stand with every Palestinian woman who has been resisting Israeli apartheid—not just for a year but for the last 76 years.”

Bell Ribeiro-Addy MP said, “When one woman is oppressed, we are all oppressed. Oppression is interconnected so our feminism has to be intersectional too.

“Feminism which doesn’t challenge racism and imperialism is no feminism. Women are not not free until all women are free.”

Janet Maiden, a nurse and member of the Unison union, got a big cheer when she said, “Women’s rights, trans rights!”

She continued, “It was great to see Gisele Pelicot standing up for herself. And let’s not forget Sarah Everard—we are opposing a sexist system that kills women.”

Janet added, “Women’s place in the trade union. When a young doctor was murdered in Calcutta, millions of health workers went on strike.”

Other speakers included campaigner Pasty Stevenson and barrister Dr Charlotte Proudman, who spoke about her recent battle against sexism from the Bar Standards Board.

Many other speakers encouraged support for the migrant support movement, the anti-racist movement, and the reproductive justice movement.

The Women’s Marches show the mood to fight sexism in society.

We will be updating this article with more reports.

Labour Women Leading – tackling racism in hard times

JANUARY 19, 2025

Ruth Clarke reports on the recent AGM of Labour Women Leading.

The Labour Women Leading AGM in December was preceded by a discussion on how women can tackle racism in the current climate.  The session began with a presentation from Sue Lukes,who has worked with migrants since the 1970s, and is now a freelance specialist in housing and migration law. She is currently part of an academic study of migrant communities’ access to services.  Between 2018 and 2022 she was a Labour councillor in Islington, where she had the community safety brief and where she helped to initiate a network of local authority migrant champions (now co-ordinated by the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants).

Sue observed that under the Tories, hostility towards migrants increased; but Labour was also found lacking.  Ten years ago, Labour was the natural place for migrants, but this is no longer the case. The current Party leadership believe that voters want security and, mimicking the attack lines of the far right, that this means securing our borders.  In the summer riots, the most insecure people were the migrants, and the new government should focus on addressing the real issues that make voters insecure (inadequate housing, poor employment practices, etc.).

In the recent US elections, 48% of Latino men under 40 and 32% of Latino women voted for Trump.  Even the views of people previously on the left are changing. How should socialists respond to those who define working class in cultural and not economic terms?  We need to listen, to be flexible and to engage with people where they are.  There is much that can be done at local level.  Local councils can establish structures to support migrants; for instance Bologna is working to house migrants despite the rhetoric of the far right Italian government.  In the UK, the City of Sanctuary movement is building networks of councils, universities and community groups to support people seeking refuge.  The migrant champions programme brings together local councillors to champion the rights of migrants in their areas and beyond.

Current issues that we should challenge include: a) the introduction of eVisas, which disadvantage people without access to the internet; the exploitation of care workers from abroad  -Unison is campaigning on this; the private provision of (unsafe and unhealthy) hotel places for asylum seekers; and inadequate move-on support for those who are granted refugee status.

Bell Ribeiro Addy, a Member of Parliament since 2019, currently represents the new constituency of Clapham & Brixton Hill.  She served briefly as Shadow Minister for Immigration in 2020, and she currently chairs the All Party Parliamentary Group on Afrikan Reparations.  She thinks that women can play a vital role in dismantling and addressing intersecting areas of oppression.  For instance, Black women are more likely to die in childbirth or to be ignored when they complain.  Bell has chaired the APPG on Black Maternal Health since 2021, campaigning for improved data, training and funding for culturally tailored services.  There is evidence too that the police profile black women as unworthy of support, and that reports of domestic violence are disregarded. 

Since the murder of her daughters in 2020, Mina Smallman has campaigned with enormous dignity and helped to change attitudes and practices in the Met.  In workplaces, women from ethnic minorities tend to be concentrated in low-status, low-paid jobs; and sisters in trade unions continue to challenge discrimination.  In education, black pupils are more likely to face exclusion from school, while barriers to higher education persist for black students.  Black and white women are stronger when they work together to fight misogyny, racism and other oppressions.

Bell concluded by insisting that the Equality Act 2010 should be applied to all legislation.  Black women need better representation; communities need better support; and there needs to be improved advocacy and accountability, supported by the collection of data.  Finally, Bell paid tribute to Diane Abbott, the Mother of the House, for her courageous and steadfast campaigning over many decades for equality and justice.

Aisha Malik-Smith, a Labour councillor in Lewisham, campaigns on issues such as housing, mental health and social care.  An active trade unionist, she currently serves as Unite’s London & Eastern Women’s & Equalities Officer (though at this meeting she spoke in a personal capacity).  Aisha noted that three Reform MPs were elected in East Anglia, and there have been protests outside hotels housing asylum seekers. Union members have responded by working with food justice groups and running political education campaigns in football grounds to bring people together. 

People have legitimate concerns about inadequate infrastructure and resources but this is the fault of the Tories, not migrants.  Sadly a group of Labour MPs, the so-called Red Wall caucus, are warning the leadership that they risk losing their seats to Reform if the Party fails to be tough on immigration.  Unite’s response is that concerns about immigration need to be addressed from the bottom up, by talking to people in workplaces, canteens, etc.  CLPs could also take this approach.

Other contributors agreed that, although it is alarming that some trade unionists share views with Reform, we need to understand where they are coming from and provide opportunities for debate.  In the US, the Trump campaign cleverly appealed to second generation migrants, whipping up their opposition to newcomers – something we need to head off here in the UK.  There are still concerns about policing.  For instance the recent heavy-handed raid by counter-terrorism police on the Kurdish Community Centre in Haringey, North London, created fear and anger amongst members of Kurdish communities across the capital.  The police also tend to engender the perception that women are more at risk from migrant men than from white men.  Concern was expressed about the recording of hate crime against black and minority ethnic women, and especially those with disabilities.

One trade union activist suggested that the issues faced by migrant communities should be highlighted when campaigning for improved public services; for instance migrants seeking healthcare may be asked to prove their status.  Stand Up to Racism defended asylum hotels during the summer riots, but we need to remain vigilant and ensure that migrants remain safe on an ongoing basis.  Another sister, who has been heartened by the generosity of donations for Care4Calais, observed that affordable legal advice is unobtainable for many; legal aid has been cut and law centres are overwhelmed.  She added that, in a hardening of the government’s immigration stance, over 600 Brazilian nationals were quietly deported in a series of secret flights in August/September 2024.  She nevertheless believes that the trade unions, and also socialists and feminists, have a huge role to play in supporting asylum seekers, Windrush campaigners, and those affected by the change to eVisas.

Aisha Malik-Smith concluded by reporting that her region of Unite have recently formed an anti-racism task force, which is mapping areas and workplaces in need of help, such as the buses and the Ford Dagenham factory.  To address ingrained racism, they plan to mobilise in the streets with the aim of making groups like the newly-formed Turning Point UK appear unpatriotic.  They also plan to engage with more open-minded individuals, in person and via social media, to highlight the flaws in racist thinking.

International solidarity is vital at a time when conflict and climate change are producing increasing numbers of refugees.  We need to oppose the myth that women are more at risk from immigrant men, or that black claimants are less deserving of benefits.  Unite has a confidential list of asylum hotels, and has been bringing local union branches together to challenge racist rhetoric and offer support.

Sue Lukes added that we need to insist that politicians be better, challenging racism and creating a more welcoming environment, as Pedro Sánchez has done in Spain.  It seems strange that there has been no UK refugee programme for Palestinians.  At a local level, we need to ensure that migrants can access services without unnecessary status checks.  We need to encourage councils to divest their pension funds from institutions that collude with racist regimes.  Local authorities need to understand and engage with their communities and speak out against heavy-handed treatment.

Finally, Labour Women Leading’s chairnoted that times are not easy for the Labour left, with seven MPs suspended for voting to scrap the two-child benefit cap.  Even so, there have been small victories, with three left women re-elected by CLPs to the National Executive Committee.  LWL will continue, with relatively limited resources, to campaign on matters of importance to socialist feminists.  Within Labour we shall continue to press for democratic equalities structures, including a two-day standalone annual Women’s Conference.  There is much to do, and in hard times much to be gained by working with others in broad alliances.

Ruth Clarke is Secretary of Labour Women Leading. To get in contact, email laourwomenleading@gmail.com

Image: Migrants welcome here GJN banner. Author: Global Justice Now, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.