MONOPOLY CAPITALI$M

Rio Tinto’s bid for Glencore piles pressure on BHP

Reuters | January 11, 2026 | 

The BHP office building in Houston, Texas. Stock image.

Rio Tinto’s talks to buy Glencore and create a new global industry leader could spur consolidation efforts across the copper-hungry mining sector and heap pressure on BHP, currently the world’s biggest miner, to respond.

If the bid succeeds, and depending on any final value, it could rank among the biggest 10 M&A deals yet and it reflects an appetite for scale that bankers have said could drive mega-deals in 2026.

“This is yet another example that the mining space is consolidating and the big firms are being forced to do corporate action to create value,” Mark Kelly, CEO at advisory firm MKI Global, said.

Last September, London-listed miner Anglo American announced what was then the sector’s second biggest M&A deal, with a plan to merge with Canada’s Teck Resources and forge a new global copper-focused heavyweight. The deal awaits regulatory clearance.

BHP under pressure to act

Half a dozen analysts, investors and bankers told Reuters that BHP, which has a market capitalization of $161 billion, is the most likely spoiler of Rio’s bid talks with Glencore, which could create a company worth almost $207 billion.

If BHP keeps out of the current talks, it may consider another deal to retain its leadership.

One banking source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that was the most likely outcome, given the company views Glencore’s portfolio is too diverse and would benefit from asset sales. Regulatory authorities would almost certainly require some disposals to ease competition concerns.

BHP declined to comment.

“The most likely interloper to this deal is BHP,” said Richard Hatch, analyst at Berenberg. “Essentially, with the deal driven by copper, we think that BHP could look to acquire Glencore with a rival bid, keep copper, and likely divest the balance.”

Talks between Rio and Glencore are at a preliminary stage and Rio has until February 5 to make a formal offer, a deadline that could be extended.

The two sides have held talks in the past that have led nowhere and again they may fail to reach agreement.

George Cheveley, natural resources portfolio manager of Ninety One, which is a shareholder of Glencore, said BHP may feel the need to intervene, but also that it may find it “difficult emotionally” given its repeated failure to buy Anglo American.

To try to reinforce its dwindling dominance in copper, BHP tried to acquire Anglo American in a months-long pursuit in 2024. It briefly revived the effort in November last year.

Adding to the pressure on BHP, sources say the company is preparing to appoint a new CEO, most likely an internal candidate who will be expected to deliver change.

BHP declined to comment on its CEO succession.

Size matters and so does copper

Apart from the quest for scale to increase margins and contain costs, copper is a major reason for tie-ups in the mining sector.

The mass adoption of artificial intelligence and the transition across the world to cleaner energy have driven demand for copper as the most cost-effective metal to conduct electricity.

The advantage of mergers is that they can provide access to producing assets, avoiding the lengthy, costly and uncertain process of hunting for new reserves.

“The real read across from both this and the Anglo-Teck deal is in copper – we know that copper is attractive and that’s what buyers want access to,” said Kelly. If it does not bid successfully for Glencore, there are other possible targets to consider.

“Vale and Freeport are both going to be in focus – but it’s unlikely they’re for sale,” Kelly added.

Equally, BHP may decide it is better to do nothing, some analysts say.

“BHP has a cleaner growth profile in copper than a merged Rio/Glencore so I don’t think they need to do anything,” said Kaan Peker, an analyst at RBC.

“That said, if the transaction is successful, you might get some pressure with shareholders saying: ‘How come Rio pulled this off and you couldn’t with Anglo?’.”

(By Anousha Sakoui, Clara Denina, Melanie Burton and Charlie Conchie; Editing by Veronica Brown and Barbara Lewis)

Rio Tinto and Glencore hold buyout talks to create $207 billion mega-miner

Reuters | January 8, 2026 | 12:04 pm Markets Top Companies Australia Europe Copper Iron Ore 

Glencore currently operates 26 mines in 21 thermal and coking coal mining complexes across Australia, Colombia and South Africa. (Image courtesy of Glencore.)

Glencore and Rio Tinto said late on Thursday they were in early buyout talks that could potentially create the world’s largest mining company with a combined market value of nearly $207 billion.

Global miners are racing to bulk up in metals like copper, set to benefit from the global energy transition, and that has sparked a wave of project expansions and takeover attempts.

London-listed Anglo American and Canada’s Teck Resources are nearing the finish line on a merger to create a $53 billion copper-focused heavyweight.

The discussions between Rio Tinto and Glencore about combining some or all of their businesses are the second round of talks in just over a year between the two companies, after Glencore approached Rio Tinto in late 2024 but a deal did not proceed.

The two companies said one option would include an all-share buyout of Glencore by Rio Tinto. There was no certainty that the terms of any deal or offer would be agreed upon, the miners said after the Financial Times first reported the revived talks.

US-listed shares of Glencore were up 6% after the talks were confirmed. But Rio Tinto’s Australian-listed shares fell as much as 6.4%, the biggest intraday fall since July 2022, against a broader positive market.

“There is a risk (Rio) could overpay. It comes down to price, but if they have to pay a big premium there is a risk that a transaction could destroy some value for shareholders, said Tim Hillier, an analyst at fund manager Allan Gray, which is a Rio Tinto investor.

“Rio has a strong pipeline of internal high-growth projects. It’s not clear why they need to look externally for things to do,” he added.

Under UK takeover rules, Rio Tinto has until February 5 to make a formal offer for Glencore or say it will not proceed.

Rio Tinto, the world’s biggest iron ore miner, has a market capitalization of about $142 billion. Glencore, one of the world’s largest base metal producers, is valued at $65 billion as of its last close.

The transaction would be the world’s largest-ever mining deal if completed, according to LSEG data, and the market value of the combined company would top Australia’s BHP Group at $161 billion. BHP shares were up 0.6% in early Australian trade on Friday.

Cultural questions

Rio Tinto and Glencore restarted deal talks at the end of 2025, according to a source with knowledge of the matter.

Rio Tinto has undergone significant changes since the 2024 approach by Glencore. New Rio Tinto CEO Simon Trott was selected after the company’s chairman expressed a preference for a leader more open to large-scale deals than his predecessor, Jakob Stausholm, who was in charge when the miner turned down Glencore’s approach in late 2024.

Under Trott, who took over in August, Rio Tinto is focused on becoming leaner with fewer non-core assets.

Andy Forster, senior investment officer at Rio Tinto shareholder Argo Investments, said the deal made sense if the terms were right for both companies.

“The biggest question mark would be the culture of the two companies as Glencore clearly has trading background, is very opportunistic and results-focused, some of those aspects of their culture could actually be good for Rio,” he said. “I hope Rio stays disciplined but it makes sense to look at deals where value can be extracted by both parties.”

Rio Tinto and Glencore are both shifting their focus towards copper, a commodity expected to be in high demand as the world adopts greener forms of energy and the take-up of power-hungry artificial intelligence gains ground.

Before the deal talks were announced, Rio Tinto’s London-listed shares had risen 35% since Trott took over in August, while Glencore’s shares were up 41% over the same period in line with price increases for the materials they produce, particularly copper.

Growth in the artificial intelligence and defence sectors will boost global copper demand 50% by 2040, but supplies are expected to fall short by more than 10 million metric tons annually without more recycling and mining, consultancy S&P Global said on Thursday.

(By Clara Denina, Scott Murdoch and Shivani Tanna; Editing by Veronica Brown and Jamie Freed)

Rio-Glencore deal closer than ever with premium and CEO in focus

Bloomberg News | January 9, 2026 |

Gary Nagle. Credit: Glencore

Glencore Plc boss Gary Nagle has called it the most obvious deal in mining. His predecessor and mentor Ivan Glasenberg has been trying to pull it off for nearly two decades. And yet the merger of Glencore with Rio Tinto Group has proven elusive – until now.

People familiar with the matter say that the current round of talks to create the world’s largest miner, which the two companies confirmed on Thursday night, are the most serious they have ever been, while emphasizing they are still at an early stage. At the heart of the shift is a concern within Rio that its iron ore-heavy portfolio could be left behind as copper M&A frenzy sweeps the sector, as well as a configuration of personalities on both sides who are better able to come to an agreement, the people said.

When the deal was last seriously discussed in late 2024, the talks foundered over Rio’s unwillingness to pay a big premium, as well as differences in the cultures fostered by Rio’s then-CEO and the Glencore leadership. At the time, Glencore pushed for Nagle to run the combined company.

Now Rio has a new boss and both sides appear more willing to compromise. Rio may ultimately consider paying a takeover premium, some of the people said, while other people suggested that the Glencore side is open to being pragmatic on the subject of management — recognizing that a larger firm paying a takeover premium would most likely seek to install its leadership in the new company.

What’s more, a shift in investors’ attitudes toward coal mining means that Rio could buy Glencore outright with less fear of a backlash. Bloomberg earlier reported that Rio was open to retaining Glencore’s vast coal business.

Still, talks are at a very early stage and the people cautioned that the two sides are still some way from reaching a deal. Even if they can, any combination would be highly complex and require the approval of numerous regulators at a time of heightened government scrutiny of natural resources.

“It does feel like these two sides want a deal,” said George Cheveley, a portfolio manager at asset manager Ninety One, who owns Glencore shares. “Glencore have a lot of brownfield and greenfield copper projects and Rio don’t, but Rio have the expertise to build them and run them.”

Representatives for Rio and Glencore both declined to comment.

In the 2024 talks, Glencore had asked for a merger ratio that would leave its shareholders with about 40% of the combined company, according to several of the people. If the same level remained a benchmark for Glencore’s negotiations, that would represent a premium of just over 25% relative to the two companies’ undisturbed share prices.

Two people familiar with Rio thinking said it may be willing to consider paying a takeover premium, although other people cautioned it was too early in the process to assess.

The idea of a combination of the two companies has been discussed several times over more than a decade. It was first floated before the global financial crisis of 2008, and then revived in 2014 – when Rio quickly rejected an informal approach from Glencore – before conversations resumed in earnest in 2024.

While those talks ended without a deal, the idea of combining the two companies never went away. Bloomberg reported last September that Glencore had continued to work behind the scenes with its bankers on the contours of a potential deal.

This time, it was Rio that re-initiated the most recent conversations, according to some of the people.

The miner had undergone a key change since the failed 2024 discussions: it had a new chief executive. Jakob Stausholm, a sober Dane with no background in the cut-and-thrust world of mining, had been asked by the board to step down, with his replacement announced as long-time Rio executive Simon Trott in July.

Equity markets have also moved in the larger miner’s favor as it mulls a possible all-share transaction, with Rio shares up about 26% between Bloomberg’s report on the 2024 talks and the close of trading on Thursday, compared with a 12% gain for Glencore. Rio closed down 3% in London on Friday, while Glencore jumped 9.6%.

For Rio, the fundamental case for buying Glencore boils down to copper. While the miner is a significant player in markets from aluminum and copper to lithium, iron ore still accounted for more than half of its earnings in its most recent financial report.

The medium-term outlook for iron ore is downbeat, with China’s cooling property market sapping demand while Rio’s huge new project in Guinea is poised to flood the market with supply. Copper, meanwhile, has long been the most coveted metal for mining executives who see a bright future for the metal as the trend to electrification supercharges demand.

Rio has a relative dearth of copper development prospects as its vast Oyu Tolgoi mine in Mongolia reaches capacity. Glencore, on the other hand, spent an investor day last month highlighting its array of copper development options in Argentina, Peru and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The merger deal struck by Anglo American Plc and Teck Resources Ltd. in September and the recent surge in copper prices to record highs above $13,000 a ton only heightened the pressure on Rio to act.

The company’s executives recognized that its own relative reliance on iron ore, together with Glencore’s growth plans if it is able to achieve them, meant that waiting would likely only make the deal more expensive, according to some of the people.

There remain many complexities to navigate, even if the two companies are able to agree terms. Glencore’s coal business is still problematic for some large Rio shareholders because of sustainability concerns. And other parts of its business – from its trading unit, which in 2022 admitted to widespread historical corruption, to its assets in countries like Congo and Kazakhstan – could prove unattractive to some.

The transaction structure is also likely to be complicated by Rio’s dual UK and Australian listings, while a successful deal would be scrutinized by antitrust regulators everywhere from China to Canada.

Still, speaking to Bloomberg on Friday, large shareholders of both companies were tentatively supportive of a potential deal.

“We’re not pushing for a deal, but we’re open to any and all options that create and highlight value for Glencore shareholders,” said Justin Hance, a partner at Chicago-based Harris Associates LP, which is Glencore’s 11th-largest shareholder, according to Bloomberg data. “The attractiveness of any deal would depend not only on the shareholder ratio, but also on the structure, terms, and finer details of the transaction.”

(By Thomas Biesheuvel, Dinesh Nair, Jack Farchy and Leonard Kehnscherper)

  

Rio Tinto flags uncertain future at Australia’s largest aluminum smelter

Reuters | October 27, 2025 | 

Credit: Rio Tinto

Rio Tinto warned on Tuesday that Australia’s largest aluminum smelter, Tomago, may be forced to shut down as it struggles to source power at commercially viable rates beyond 2028 when its current power deal expires.

Tomago Aluminium is the biggest power user in New South Wales state, and like a slew of Australian smelters that are struggling with high energy prices as the country transitions to renewables, it was built last century to take advantage of Australia’s plentiful and cheap coal.

Power makes up more than 40% of Tomago’s operating costs, and both coal-fired and renewable options are expected to rise sharply in price once its existing contract expires, jeopardizing the smelter’s commercial future, Rio Tinto said.

“Finding competitively priced energy remains the central challenge,” Rio Tinto said.

Despite months of consultations, and with its electricity supply contract with AGL Energy expiring in December 2028, Tomago has been unable to lock in an economically viable electricity deal beyond 2028, Rio Tinto said. AGL did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The warning underscores the growing strain high energy costs are placing on Australia’s heavy industries, particularly those that rely on large, steady power supplies.

Australia’s metals processing sector has been squeezed by rising energy and labour costs. Earlier this month, the country announced a A$600 million ($390 million) bailout over three years for Glencore’s Mount Isa copper smelter and Townsville refinery. Trafigura’s Nyrstar lead and zinc operations and the Whyalla steel plant have also received government support.

“Unfortunately, all market proposals received so far show future energy prices are not commercially viable, and there is significant uncertainty about when renewable projects will be available at the scale we need,” Tomago Aluminium CEO Jerome Dozol said in a statement.

Rio Tinto has said that decarbonizing the assets needs solutions supported by state and federal governments.

Rio Tinto has started consulting with employees on the potential future of its operations, but has yet to reach a decision. Tomago has more than 1,000 full-time staff and 200 contractors.

The process is open until November 21 and will allow employees and union representatives to provide feedback on the proposal before making a final decision.

In February, former Rio chief Jakob Stausholm said he could not provide assurance on the future of Tomago due to high power prices and was aiming for clarity at mid-year.

Tomago is majority owned by Rio Tinto with a 51.55% stake, while Gove Aluminium holds 36.05% and Norsk Hydro has 12.4%.

AGL Energy and Norsk Hydro did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Gove Aluminium could not immediately be reached.

($1 = 1.5389 Australian dollars)

(By Shivangi Lahiri, Rishav Chatterjee and Melanie Burton; Editing by Anil D’Silva, Alan Barona and Richard Chang)

Rio Tinto launches corruption inquiry at Oyu Tolgoi

Bloomberg News | October 27, 2025 | 10 

The underground expansion of Oyu Tolgoi is Rio’s most important growth project. (Image courtesy of Turquoise Hill.)

Rio Tinto Group subsidiary Oyu Tolgoi LLC is conducting an internal investigation into allegations of corruption and unethical conduct at its copper operations in Mongolia and has sought help from law enforcement.

“We are aware of allegations involving procurement-related activities, and conducting a comprehensive internal investigation, and have sought cooperation of law enforcement authorities,” Oyu Tolgoi said in a statement on social media. “As the investigation is ongoing, we are unable to provide further comment at this time.”

Rio owns 66% of Oyu Tolgoi LLC and operates the underground deposit, which it plans to make the world’s fourth-largest copper mine by 2030, with the Mongolian government holding the remainder. The site is one of Rio’s biggest and most valuable growth assets and while production soared 78% over the last quarter, development has been marred by year’s of political turbulence, cost overruns and delays.

Copper is pivotal to the Rio’s goal of reducing its reliance on iron ore while increasing exposure to the red metal used in electrification — demand for which is set to soar due to the energy transition and rise of data centers.

UK

Labour Conference to debate Israel’s genocide and a full arms embargo

HubMP2012

 September 28, 2025

Labour Conference will tomorrow debate an emergency motion supported by UNISON, TSSA, ASLEF and many CLPs which acknowledges Israel is committing a genocide. It calls for the Government to “employ all means reasonably available to them to prevent the commission of genocide in the Gaza Strip” including a full arms embargo.

There will also be another emergency motion which is compatible with the Government’s current position of not describing Israel’s actions as genocide and continuing arms sales.

Sasha das Gupta, Momentum Co-Chair, responded: “We welcome the news that Labour Conference will debate a full arms embargo of Israel for the first time since Israel began its genocide in October of 2023. It is thanks to the committed work of pro-Palestine campaigners, CLP activists, and trade unionists that this vital debate will happen.

“The labour movement is clear: Israel’s genocide must end and the Government must do everything it can to stop it. That means a full arms embargo and sanctions.”

Labour’s Conference Arrangements Committee last night allowed the Gaza situation to be debated as an emergency motion. Earlier, it had blocked discussion on Palestine in the contemporary motions category – along with any discussion on council housing and trans rights.

A debate on the two-child benefit cap was ruled in order by the CAC following an appeal – but the topic failed to get enough support from CLP delegates in the Priorities Ballot. It therefore fell off the agenda – a sign of the domination of the Conference by the Party’s right wing.

It’s estimated that only 101 CLP motions have been accepted at this year’s Conference. 146 CLP were ruled out as not “contemporary resolutions”, either referred to the National Executive Committee or the National Policy Forum. Four motions on housing were accepted, but were placed in four separate categories, rather than housing!

As in years past, when the Conference agenda is stitched up, attention moves to the fringe. Yesterday, former Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell MP spoke to a packed fringe meeting about the genocide in Gaza and the government’s legal responsibilities.

One day earlier John finally had the Labour whip restored after voting last year against the two-child benefit cap. Apsana Begum also had the whip restored and issued a defiant statement, saying: “I want to be clear: I will continue to oppose the two-child limit at every opportunity.”

She added: “I will continue to oppose austerity, welfare cuts, and the ongoing dispossession and oppression of the Palestinian people. I will continue to stand for investment in our public services, the strengthening of workers’ rights, trade union freedoms, and human rights and civil liberties – as my constituents elected me to do.

“It is unconscionable that other colleagues remain suspended for voting with their conscience against cuts to disability benefits, along with the longest serving Black MP Diane Abbott, while others retain the whip, like Lord Mandelson.”

While Starmer loyalists pretended to be upbeat and dismissive of a potential leadership challenge, there is no doubt that Labour’s leader is facing a deep crisis. A new poll has placed him as the most unpopular Prime Minister in history, with a lower approval rating than even Liz Truss.

Labour Conference 2025: The John McDonnell Interview

SEPTEMBER 27, 2025

In the Labour Conference 2025 Labour Left Podcast edition, Bryn Griffiths speaks to the Labour left leader John McDonnell of the Socialist Campaign Group.

The in-depth interview with John explores what thinking lies behind his decades of socialist activity. It arguably gives us the deepest understanding yet of John’s political practice as a truly organic intellectual.

We start by talking about his podcast A People’s History which echoes the themes of a previous Labour Left Podcast with Prof Harvey J Kaye. We then discuss a range of socialist authors such as Karl Marx, Antonio Gramsci, Ernest Mandel and Ralph Miliband.

The figure that keeps coming up again and again in the interview is the Italian Marxist, Antonio Gramsci. It’s fascinating to hear how John’s political practice draws upon concepts such as the war of position and the organic intellectual.  I think you’ll conclude that Fergal Kinney, the Tribune culture editor, was spot on when he dubbed John the “Gramscian back-bencher”.

John McDonnell is known for his excellent work on Ireland.  So, we talk about his role in the dialogue with Sinn Fein in the 1980s and he takes up Geoff Bell’s call for truth and conciliation based on the actions of the British state in the Troubles.

Keeping on the subject of the British state, we have a fascinating discussion about George Osborne’s recent podcast where he referred to Chris Mullin’s 1980s book A Very British Coup. We find out what light the left’s erstwhile ally Reg Race threw upon the murky goings on in the Parliamentary Labour Party. What would the British establishment and Parliamentary Labour Party have done if Jeremy Corbyn had got those few extra votes and got us over the line in 2017? John has the answers.

As you would expect, the interview then gets contemporary.  John talks about Gaza and Atlanticism; considers the kind of Left we need; expands upon his argument that Labour faces an existential threat; gives his view on PR; pronounces on the Mandelson scandal;  and, laments the paucity of choice in the Deputy Leadership campaign.

Finally, John comes up with an inspirational Class Hero of the Month and leaves us with a great reading list to get stuck into.

If you’re new to the Labour Left Podcast, please take a good look at our back catalogue as nearly all the episodes were designed to be timeless contributions to debates on the left.  The last episode was with socialist feminist Lynne Segal of Beyond the Fragments; a recent episode interviewed John’s comrade Richard Burgon of the Socialist Campaign Group; previous episodes have looked at the fight for a United Ireland with historian Geoff Bell; a conversation with Compass’s Neal Lawson; Rachel Shabi talking about her book The Truth About Antisemitism;  Bernard Regan of the Palestinian Solidarity Campaign;  Prof Harvey J Kaye on the legacy of the Communist Historians; Prof Corinne Fowler, talking about her book Our Island Stories: Country Walks Through Colonial Britain; Andrew Fisher telling the story behind For the Many Not the Few Labour’s 2017 manifesto; Jeremy Gilbert, a Professor of Cultural and Political Theory, a champion of Gramsci, talking about Thatcherism; episodes with Mish Rahman, Rachel Godfrey Wood and Hilary Schan on the contemporary Labour Left; Mike Phipps, author of Don’t Stop Thinking About Tomorrow, taking a long term look at the Labour Left;  Mike Jackson, co-founder of Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners, on the Great 1984-85 Miners’ Strike; political activist Liz Davies telling her story as the dissenter within Blair’s New Labour; Rachel Garnham, a current co-Chair of the Campaign for Labour Party Democracy looking back at the history of the fight for democracy in the British Labour Party; and finally myself telling the story of Brighton Labour Briefing, a local Bennite magazine in the 1980s.

Next up in our October episode will be Mark Perryman the editor of the excellent new book The Starmer Symptom. Hit subscribe on YouTube, Substack or your favourite podcast platform.

You can watch the podcast on YouTube, Apple Podcasts here, Audible here, Substack here and listen to it on Spotify here.  You can even ask Alexa to play the Labour Left Podcast. If your favourite podcast site isn’t listed, just search for the Labour Left Podcast. 

Bryn Griffiths is an activist in Colchester Labour Party and North Essex World Transformed. He is the Vice-Chair of Momentum and sits on the Campaign for Labour Party Democracy’s Executive. 

Bryn hosts Labour Hub’s spin off – the Labour Left Podcast.  You can find all the episodes of the podcast here  or if you prefer audio platforms (for example Amazon, Audible Spotify, Apple etc,) go to your favourite podcast provider and just search for the Labour Left Podcast.

To make it easier for you to find the Labour Left Podcast here are some links:

You Tube

Ten Books to Understand Labour Conference

SEPTEMBER 27, 2025

Mark Perryman selects his top ten reads to make sense of a Party in trouble.

The landslide of July 4th 2024 seems like a lifetime ago in the lived experience of this Labour government and attendant party.  A Prime Minister elected on a record-breaking low share of the vote, 33.7%. A victory secured by the split in the right’s vote between the Conservatives and Reform UK. Further aided by the unwritten pact that meant Labour effectively withdrew from seats where the Liberal Democrats were best placed to oust the incumbent Tory MP, and where Labour were best placed, the Lib-Dems doing likewise.

Once victory was secured however, what has been dubbed the ‘loveless landslide’ could – should – have been turned into an era to inspire and give hope. But nothing of the sort has appeared; instead Keir Starmer is achieving record lows in polls measuring favourability. Meanwhile Reform UK has such a big and consistent lead in the polls that Nigel Farage as the next Prime Minister has moved from a nightmare to realistic possibility.

As Labour meets for its annual Party Conference, how might we make sense of a party in such trouble?

The Starmer Symptom: Mark Perryman

OK I have to declare an interest here… Nevertheless, The Starmer Symptom, written in the year since the landslide, is the first book to account for how those twelve months have shaped Labour’s prospects. This is a collection of essays, edited by me, with a foreword by Clive Lewis MP, the collective thoughts infinitely more incisive than anything I could have come up with on my own. It’s comprehensive too, mapping the 2024 vote, measuring the fallout for the parties, a critique of Labour’s response to the key issues facing it in government, and an outline of the alternatives to a Party at an impasse.

The Starmer Symptom from here

The Most Dangerous Man in Britain?: Tony Benn

Labourism has a terrible habit of always looking backwards rather than forwards. But a modernisation so intent on appearing forward-looking at the expense of learning everything from the past is every bit as bad, if not worse. In the early to mid-1980s ‘Bennism’ was a hugely popular movement in and around the Labour Party. It was never dominant and its rise was bitterly contested by the Labour right, but it was nevertheless part and parcel of Labour, and a wider left. Benn however wasn’t just a leader, but a thinker too. This new collection of his political writings is testament to that. Whether you agree or disagree with Benn’s thinking, there are few Labour figures who have matched him since for his boldness and originality, including the one figure from that Bennite left to lead the Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn.

The Most Dangerous Man in Britain? from here

Run Zohran Run!: Theodore Hamm

Looking for a sign of present-day hope? While the Green Party under Zack Polanski show all the signs of a party with the potential to repeat their successes winning inner-city seats from Labour in Brighton and Bristol and the civic-nationalism of the SNP and Plaid Cymru continue their revival, those who have promised a left alternative to Labour, Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana, offer only that well-worn experience of the internecine and the warfare. Hopeless? Theodore Hamm’s book is a gripping account of how Zohran Mamdani defeated his party’s machine from within to win the Democratic nomination for November’s New York Mayoral Election. If he proves victorious in the election itself, it’s an addition for Andy Burnham’s bookshelf, and all who’d back him to win the Labour leadership.

Run Zohran Run! from here   

Gaza: The Story of a Genocide:  Fatima Bhutto and Sonia Faleiro

Beyond the looking-glass world of Westminster politics and the ups, or mainly downs, of Labour’s poll ratings, Gaza has provided the basis for a generational shift. In much the same way as Hungary in 1956, Vietnam in 1968 and Iraq in 2003, Gaza, since the murderous Hamas attack in 2023 followed by Israel’s deadly assault which is now internationally recognised as genocidal, is a conflict that has come to define the current era. 1956 had dire consequences for the Communist Party but was hardly an issue to affect Labour. On Vietnam, despite the huge pressure to do so, Harold Wilson refused to send British troops. Iraq damaged Blair, deservedly so, yet his 1997 landslide recorded a huge 43.2% of the vote,  which meant unlike Starmer he had a sufficient cushion to ride the declining support for Labour in 2001 and 2005 to victory. Fatima Bhutto and Sonia Faleiro’s collection is a wide-range of cultural responses to Gaza –  a hugely imaginative breadth of anger, and hope. A testimony to a shift that a tin-eared Starmer seems almost entirely oblivious of – and Labour will pay the price for.               

Gaza: The Story of a Genocide from here

The Next Crisis: What We Think About the Future: Danny Dorling

The latest from the extraordinarily prolific Danny Dorling, and like all his other writings this book doesn’t disappoint, anything but. Combining empirical analysis with originality of insight is Danny’s style: together they make for a convincing argument, but does he have the ear of a government minister, or two?  He should! Across key issues, including the cost of living, immigration and the climate crisis, the book digests polling data to uncover a range of universally powerful anxieties that don’t fit either the conventional picture we have of voters or the limited range politicians choose their responses from. An essential read to map out any kind of Labour recovery.

The Next Crisis from here

Eviction: A Social History of Rent: Jessica Field

For many voters the number one issue will be housing – the lack of, rising cost to rent, treatment by landlords. Labour’s response is build, build, build! Yet almost entirely absent from that project is the issue of ownership. It’s a Party more identified than any other with council housing, where ownership lies with the local state instead of the weasel-word language of ‘affordable housing’ and ‘social ownership’. Jessica Field mixes the historical with the personal to document the central social conflict in contemporary Britain, tenant versus landlord. Council housing was never perfect, but it remains the only way to inject a democratisation founded on accountability into that relationship because it isn’t founded on the profit motive but a social objective. This is the book on which to found such a switch.

Eviction from here 

Radical Abundance: How To Win a Green Democratic Future: Kai Heron, Keir Milburn and Bertie Russell

Ed Miliband is one of the Cabinet Ministers who it could be said doesn’t fit the Starmerite yes-man, or yes-woman, mould. He has made arguments around energy and climate change  very much his own as the ‘Green New Deal’ morphed into ‘Great British Energy’. But despite those best efforts, none of this can amount to much so long as the government’s one-word response to all matters economic is: growth. And never mind the consequences for the climate. Radical Abundance is the answer the authors of this wonderfully engrossing book offer – not hair-shirted socialism but a flourishing of pleasurable possibility via the democratic control of the green means. Framed by actually-existing examples of how, this is a handbook for a new economy and society.

Radical Abundance from here

Between the Waves: The Hidden History of a Very British Revolution 1945-2016: Tom McTague

Keir Starmer was elected as an MP only in 2015. Prior to that, with his responsibilities as Director of Public Prosecutions, any involvement in the Labour Party would have been minimal. Despite this, and not being a ‘Corbynite’, he was trusted by Jeremy Corbyn after the 2016 Referendum with steering Labour’s response to Brexit. It was a ‘steer’ which he successfully directed in the direction of Remain, to be enabled by a second referendum. Alongside positioning himself as the Corbyn continuity candidate, it was this which helped him win the 2020 Labour Leadership Election.  The break with the Corbynite pledges has been widely noticed. Much less so is the breach with Remain, a far more awkward switch for many of his supporters. Tom McTague’s book is a brilliantly-written explanation of why despite Keir Starmer’s worst efforts, and the ‘Lexit brigade’, this is an issue that won’t disappear, nor should it. A history of a present the Prime Minister would prefer didn’t exist.

Between the Waves from here  

Friends in Common: Radical Friendship and Everyday Solidarities: Laura C. Foster and Joel White  

Freed from the limits of Labourism, outside the Conference hall’s stage-managed politicking, in nooks and crannies of civil society, there are disparate forces seeking to re-imagine how we ‘do’ politics. The late-1970s book Beyond the Fragments: Feminism and the Making of Socialism remains the key text for those engaged in this almighty endeavour. It is superbly fitting that one of the book’s authors, Lynne Segal, is quoted on the back cover welcoming this latest addition to the literature towards that end. How can friendships framed by political co-operation become the foundation for ever-expanding and dynamically inclusive communities – and in the process reinventing an old value ‘solidarity’? Friends in Common is a most welcome handbook of audacious ideas.

Friends in Common from here

FIVE STAR CHOICE

How to Defeat the Far Right: Nick Lowles

Whatever happens at Labour Conference, however good the speeches, wherever the votes end up (not that these have any impact on Labour policy whatsoever nowadays), one thing is certain. Reform UK will still lead the opinion polls, Nigel Farage will remain a credible contender to lead his party to winning the next General Election and ‘Tommy Robinson’ will continue to whip up a tidal wave of popular racism.

Nick Lowles has form in stopping all of this.  It’s a combination of undercover work exposing the murderous intent of neo-Nazi grouplets, the huge effort to defeat Nick Griffin’s credible effort to win Barking at the 2010 General Election, research, surveys and community-based initiatives to challenge the far right in the localities they would seek to lead. ‘Hope not Hate’ is a campaign like no other, and all the better for that, free of the placard-waving and name-calling in order to make a difference. This book should have been given to every Labour Conference delegate, with Keir giving up his Party leader’s slot for Nick to address Conference, campaign workshops replacing the rituals of resolutionary labourism. For this is an emergency.

In the absence of any of that, grab yourself a copy, it might just be our last chance to stop a nightmare becoming a reality.

How to Defeat the Far Right from here

Note No links in this review are to Amazon; when purchasing, if you can, avoid giving money  to billionaire tax-dodgers.

SPECIAL OFFER FOR LABOUR HUB:  30% off The Starmer Symptom – quote Starmer 30 here 

Mark Perryman is the editor of The Starmer Symptom.

What does Keir Starmer stand for?

On the eve of Labour’s Conference, Mike Phipps reviews The Starmer Symptom, edited by Mark Perryman, published by Pluto.

SEPTEMBER 26, 2025

What does Keir Starmer represent? Does his wing of the Labour Party stand for anything beyond an unrelenting hostility to the left and a ruthless determination to acquire and wield power? It may be too early to say, but many people have already made up their minds.

Starmer defined by a contempt for the left

Clive Lewis sets the scene in his Foreword to this new collection: “The Jeremy Corbyn wave that swept Labour in 2015… represented a demand for genuine democracy, pluralism and transformative change… For many, it was the first time in living memory that Labour had felt like a movement rather than a machine. Yet even amidst the promise, a clear tension existed between traditional Labourist centralism and a more expansive, pluralistic politics. Today, Keir Starmer’s absolute determination to distance Labour from that era speaks volumes.”

For Lewis, “Starmer’s relentless drive to move on from the Corbyn era reflects Labour’s enduring aversion to genuine pluralism.” He notes “the pathologising of dissent while conformity is rewarded.”

This conformity is expressed in the political choices made: the rejection of public ownership, the government’s closeness to corporations, its timidity on climate change, its support for Israel’s war on Gaza.

Lewis is not the only contributor to see the essence of Starmer in his desire to distance himself as far as possible from his predecessor – notwithstanding the continuity pitch he made when running to replace him – and to resort to an unprecedented authoritarianism to do so.

Emma Burnell is no fan of Jeremy Corbyn, as is clear from her chapter – and her track record: she penned a Guardian piece a few years ago headlined “Rachel Reeves was right – Labour must reduce people’s reliance on benefits”. But she too is willing to call out Starmer Chief of Staff Morgan McSweeney’s fanatical obsession with witch-hunting the left. She gives several examples of this factionalism as self-harm, particularly during the 2024 general election – the ousting of Chingford and Woodford Green Labour candidate Faiza Shaheen mid-campaign and the failed attempt to do the same to Hackney North’s Diane Abbott. The fundamental culture of the Party has been damaged, she argues, with rules enforced selectively and factional allegiance trumping basic fairness.

Burnell highlights the limitations of these manoeuvres, even if supporters of McSweeney credit him with masterminding the 2024 election victory, something which not everyone would concede. She warns: “If it turns out that McSweeney’s clarity of vision began and ended with his changing the Labour Party, it may well be that his usefulness to Starmer and the party will run out.”

Starmer’s war against the left of his Party has caused considerable disillusionment among the grassroots and contributed to Labour’s current dire poll ratings. None of this might matter beyond the confines of Labour’s ranks, except that, as Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, points out, that contempt spills over into Starmer’s approach to many causes and movements in wider society: “Starmer sees anti-racist, left-wing, pro-human rights and pro-Palestine Labour supporters as pesky, out-of-touch saddos he can well do without. The approach is mad, bad and dangerous.”

Starmer the vacuum

Gargi Bhattacharyya identifies this attitude as a product of political impotence. She sees the Starmer leadership as a “government blown around, painfully, by a world in which previous levers of influence have all but disappeared.” And they know it: “Not until Starmer have we seen a government say so openly how little could be done.” What is distinctive about the government is their attempt to blame asylum seekers for their powerlessness, although arguably this does not break new ground as far as previous Labour administrations are concerned.

Joe Kennedy sees the vacuum of Starmerism being filled by other divisive strategies, such as his quest for “authentocracy”, an attempt to leverage claims about class identity against the left. This was born from the right’s efforts to attempt to neutralise the radical egalitarianism of Corbynism by portraying it as out-of-touch with the hopes and needs of ordinary people. This too has McSweeney’s fingerprints all over it.

The lack of a coherent vision to the Starmer project is deliberate, argues Eunice Goes. The Prime Minister wants to project himself as a practical problem-solver, rather than an inflexible ideologue. The danger of course is that if a conscious political narrative is rejected, then unconscious prejudices, often rooted in social conservatism, will occupy the space. This is exactly what has happened – even to the extent of echoing Enoch Powell in keynote speeches.

Starmer goes for growth

Jeremy Gilbert also tries to pin down the essence of Starmerism. He writes: “The Labour government’s overarching ambition is to signal to the voting public and business community that Labour is serious about its commitment to economic growth: a monomaniacal obsession that has become the only thing resembling a strategy.”

He contrasts Tony Blair and Keir Starmer: “Blair had the full support of his party, the left having been exhausted and defeated… Starmer, by contrast, deceived and tricked his way into leading Labour in an entirely different direction from that endorsed by most of its members, and a large section of the voting public. Both Blair and Starmer came into office with huge parliamentary majorities, but Starmer’s… is entirely an effect of the right-wing vote having been split.”

And unlike Blair, Starmer has no clear project for government, for two simple reasons. Firstly, “Starmerism was never an answer to the question ‘How could Labour govern?’ It was only ever an answer to the question ‘How can Corbynism be expunged from the Labour Party?’”

Secondly, as Gilbert, says, “There simply is no possible project available to a British government that does not involve either allowing life to get worse for a majority of Britons or making a genuine challenge to the privileges of certain powerful social groups.”

These factors explain Starmer’s unpopularity. And if you wonder how this will play out, look no further than the US and the rise of Trump. “Disillusion with democratic politics is at an all-time high among the under-30s,” Gilbert tells us. “Young people know they live in a country governed by a political class that, for more than a decade, has shown nothing but contempt for them.”

Yet most people remain progressive: they voted for change, in particular a comprehensive curtailment of corporate power, including public ownership. Starmer hopes to avoid these challenges by delivering growth, which will lead to a trickle-down of affluence. It’s a misplaced gamble.

James Meadway agrees: “Whatever the question, Reeves has only one answer: growth. Which in terms of substance has more often than not meant simply grabbing the Treasury’s off-the-shelf big projects and presenting them as if new and decisive: Heathrow and other airports’ expansion on one side, a new ‘Silicon Valley’ between Oxford and Cambridge on the other. These are stale in the extreme as proposals, and do nothing whatsoever for Labour’s supposed heartlands – where, one presumes, a diet of migrant-bashing and occasional culture war jabs are supposed to keep the locals at least reasonably content – and are unlikely even to do much for growth.”

He points out that Starmer and Reeves’ economic strategy is in stark contrast to Germany’s, which has rediscovered the apparent virtues of government spending and debt funding. “In Britain, meanwhile, political economy is now tightly locked into attempting to maintain the primacy of finance and a growing military commitment. The losers in all this, whatever Starmer’s half-baked claims about jobs and investment via defence – research has consistently shown that military spending is extraordinarily inefficient in creating jobs – will be wider society.”

But growth has problems…

The dash for growth comes with a raft of problems. Danny Dorling suggests that it would be relatively easy for Keir Starmer to reduce economic inequalities by a greater amount than previous Labour Prime Ministers going back to James Callaghan. “But to do so means breaking with their, and his, fixation on a model of economic growth that contributes next to nothing toward such a reduction. More often than not, it does the reverse.”

In Dorling’s view, “Economic income inequality is the driver of more social ills than any other single factor.” What’s more, if people do not see their living standards rise, they will not vote Labour at the next general election. Already, three million fewer people chose to vote in 2024 than in 2019. “If a Labour government tackles inequality on the scale required, and that has a lived impact, it will galvanise a large proportion of the currently apathetic electorate to vote.”

Labour’s focus on growth brings further negative implications, argues Andrew Simms, from reneging on its pledge to reinstate a cap on bankers’ bonuses and relaxing rules on bank lending, to, more fundamentally, deprioritising the protection of nature. Fuel duty is frozen while the cost of cleaner, public transport is allowed to rise. Unwilling to take even minimal action against the major polluters, the Starmer government has at the same time abandoned its  pledge to invest £28 billion annually on green economic initiatives, leaving the country increasingly unprepared for the already impacting effects of climate change.

Challenges

What are the prospects of the Starmer government being forced to move in a more positive direction by outside forces? The trade unions might be in the best position to lead this, given their organisational and financial relationship with Labour. The 2022-3 fightback against the cost-of-living crisis saw the highest level of strike action for forty years. Yet, as Gregor Gall points out here, union membership fell by 200,000 in 2022 and now stands at just over 22% of the workforce.

“Ironically, this profound weakness has not necessarily made all in the leadership of the union movement more moderate,” Gall writes. “Some, like Unite’s Sharon Graham, have become more militant so that they have become trenchant critics of Starmer.”

But that verbal criticism rarely translates into action that could confront Starmer’s trajectory. The attempt, initiated by the RMT and CWU, to provide unions with an effective left-wing political voice, called ‘Enough is Enough’, quickly ended up being wound up. Even Unite has failed to fully use its influence inside the Party to work for greater democracy and a stronger policy agenda.

Public opinion, however, wants a more progressive approach. Hilary Wainwright contributes a hopeful chapter on the need for an independent left. But arguably the more immediate threat to Starmer’s government comes from the right.

There’s some useful material here on Labour’s opponents – the Conservatives from Phil Burton Cartledge and Reform from Joe Mulhall, who looks at the “emergence of an increasingly influential radical right ecosystem, comprised of think tanks, conferences, academics and media outlets, which has laid the groundwork for Reform’s rapid growth.”

While attitudes towards immigration, Islam and multiculturalism unite Reform voters most, anger at a perceived sense of national decline is another driver. “There is a clear correlation between economic pessimism and support for far-right alternatives,” writes Mulhall. “These insights into Reform voters suggest that the most productive tactic to stop Reform’s growth is, in the words of Hope not Hate’s founder Nick Lowles, to ‘identify softer Reform voters, for whom concerns about immigration might stem from economic insecurity and pessimism.’”

There is a lot to chew over here. As in the widely attended political discussions that he organises in his capacity as Political Education Officer of Lewes Labour Party, editor Mark Perryman, who contributes a thought-provoking keynote essay of his own, has deliberately cast the net wide in commissioning this collection. The result is a refreshing breadth of perspectives that makes this book probably the best assessment of Keir Starmer’s politics so far.

Special Offer: just £11.89 via Labour Hub instead of the usual price £16.99. Use coupon code ‘STARMER 30’ at Pluto Press here

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