In order to prop up the markets, Kier Starmer wrote an article in the FT, once again extolling the need for public sector reform. His article covers more than that, it seeks to address innovation & growth, and public sector reform, yet misses the implications on industrial policy, university investment and local authority services. I explore these themes in more detail overleaf ...
Even the press and some commentators noticed that Kier Starmer visited Berlin and repeated his Brexit red-lines and yet claimed to want to reduce trade frictions between the two countries.
Germany is not in a position to negotiate this. Trade with 3rd countries is an EU competency. Starmer’s growth mission will be easier if the UK were to rejoin the single market [and customs union]. This involves him changing his mind, and talking to the Commission [FT] to the Commission in Brussels.
The British people would seem to want to rejoin the EU but the Labour Government and too many experts would seem to be still pursuing the chimera of a mercantilist patchwork trade deal which must be called “Cakeism” in the UK and will be called cherry-picking or extrawurst in the EU. This is not available, neither is a swiss style multi-treaty deal.
Starmer’s government seems to think that revamped Anglo-German military treaty will help the cause of reduced friction trade. There are three problems with this. Just as one shouldn’t start trade negotiations in Berlin but in Brussels, military co-operation needs to involve Poland which now has one of the largest armies in the EU. Since the British ambitions are broader i.e. beyond military co-operation and to include intelligence sharing and cybersecurity but since the UK was kicked out of Europol as part of Brexit because it no longer recognised the EU’s Charter of Fundamental rights, intelligence sharing will need a common recognition of privacy and judicial rights of citizens. The children and grandchildren of fascist and Stalinist societies will not permit their governments to outsource surveillance to an unrestricted and and unaccountable body. The third problem is that suspicious member states will characterise the UK position as wanting freedom of movement for weapons and ammunition, but not of people, and a single market for guns but not for anything else.
As a counterpoint, Richard Bentall writes in a thread where he states that “the only way to slow it [rejoining the EU] is by saying it’s too difficult”, to which I add that holding out for better opt-outs is merely delaying rejoining. As a reinforcement, Blade of the Sun argues that rejoining is simple,
And it is that simple, no opt-outs, no special deals but I fear that this Government are not yet ready to drop their dreams of a swiss-style/cakeist deal supported by too-clever academics and journalists, who are looking to ‘hack the treaties’. They need to make their mind up, do they want to be seen to be clever, or change the world; too often this is a choice and one that many academics and journalists fail to address or get wrong. …
An article reviewing the politics behind the Starmer and Reeves’s speech to #lab23 and pointing at the arguments of some of the critics of their line on macroeconomics. I also look at the supply side initiatives they propose and question if it’ll be enough. I note that even funding these supply side measures will remain difficult while they maintain the harshest aspects of their fiscal responsibility rules and their promises on tax i.e. no increases in VAT, income tax and no new wealth taxes. I comment that the growth target is a necessary goal but they don’t specify a credible means of achieving it. This could easily be corrected even if one thinks that these fiscal rules are necessary. Conference also passed a union backed motion on critical infrastructure calling for the renationalisation of energy and railways. For the full article, use the read more button …
Tony Blair hosted an interview at a “Tony Blair institute” event with Keir Starmer. Some have announced this as his anointment of Sir Keir. Of much interest, has been the companion interview, published (£) in the New Statesman, in which Tony Blair talks of the UK rejoining EU. The Independent reflect on this article and are joined by several youtubers, and John Crace, again in the Guardian.
In the New Statesman article, which is signed by Andrew Marr, it says, ‘Does he see any realistic prospect of going back into the EU, or even the customs union or single market? “Well, I believe at some point a future generation will take Britain back into Europe, and, you know, you just have to look at what’s happened.”’
To me, a future generation is 20 years away, optimistically, from 2016, and I wonder if the UK’s democracy and economy can wait that long. The conference and interview coincided with the first time polls report that a majority of the UK want to rejoin the EU and not just its single market. This point is made in the Independent article. The reason is two fold, some communities that believed the lies of the Leave campaigns, such as fishing and farming, have now experienced the impact of those lies in less jobs and higher prices and weaker export markets. The second reason is that as young people grow older and get the vote and older mainly leave voters die, again the majority opinion changes.
Of course, the usual Brexit cheerleaders interpret Blair’s comments as in contradiction to Starmer’s but the clue is in the phrase, a future generation.
Labour’s leadership claim that it’s settled, I say, it’s not. Starmer’s terms for “Fixing Brexit” are a variation of cakeism, he only proposes what he thinks benefits the UK: student exchange, creative workers tours and professional services. To them it remains solely about money, a continuation of our reputation as a nation of shop keepers. It’s not good enough!
In later articles, Blair suggests that the UK can trade non-competent issue co-operation for part membership of the single market. I doubt this will fly, no co-operation on the criminal justice system without the Charter of Fundamental Rights and the Court. …
The Congress Political Speaker this year, was Sir Kier Starmer. The text of his speech is available from the Labour Press Office; like Corbyn he is not a great orator but that skill is exceptionally rare in today’s parliament. I feel the speech was tuned for a GMB audience, but no harm in that, provided the commitments offered are genuine, and not part of “I’ll say what it takes to win” strategy, although you’d have look very hard to find any new promises.
The video of his speech starts here, on YouTube. After the speech, GMB Congress asked each region to pose a question to Sir Kier. This year questions were posed on, the new deal for workers, the minimum wage specifically in social care industry, plans for energy industry infrastructure manufacture, plans for in-sourcing, public procurement and anti union firms, the blocking of new offshore mining licences, and finally, the regulation off hire & fire especially by firms in dispute with their union, but interestingly, despite a CEC special report on pubic sector pay, nothing on public sector pay nor on the public sector disputes,
The issue of the politics of energy supply and the GMB was fore-shadowed in an article in the Guardian, where Gary Smith, the GS, strongly criticised Labour’s plans to ban new North Sea drilling licences, in what might be called a “shot across the bows”.
Smith is quoted in the article as saying,
“We are critical friends of the Labour party and I think this is just a lack of intellectual rigour and thinking about where they have got to on oil and gas,” he said on Sophie Ridge On Sunday on Sky News. “They are focusing on what they think is popular rather than doing the proper thinking to understand what is right for the country.”
Below/overleaf I have posted the video of the Q&A session, and written a précis of the session. … …
Earlier today, Kier Starmer spoke to the TUC, they have the words and a video on their site.
This is available on youtube and as text, it is to my mind one of the best he’s given; he’s clearly more comfortable with the role than previously. The last 11 months of a polling lead which was to leap the following day will have helped, but I hope they don’t believe their propaganda that the May 22 elections were a validation of Starmer’s Labour, there were victories and also losses.
I welcome the promise of a sovereign wealth find, made by Rachel Reeves earlier in the week, and on the surface the promise of GB Energy seemed to be a significant step towards state participation in the energy market and would explain, but not excuse, why the delegates supporting the ‘Green New Deal’ were excluded from the composite meeting; it would have been embarrassing if conference had called for the wholesale nationalisation of the energy industry while the Leader announced a half-way house, or as later commentators note suggests a waypoint. Starmer repeated Louise Haigh’s promise made yesterday to nationalise the railways again.
Back carbon capture. Commit to green steel production. New renewable ports. New gigafactories. And insulate 19 million homes.
Sir Kier Starmer – lab22
I am disappointed at the absence of sensible position on the EU and Trade Friction, interestingly, Cooper was allowed to grandstand on cancelling the Rwanda programme, but left it to Kier to announce that Labour would introduce a points based immigration system. Neither mentioned repealing the hostile environment.
In the 80s we had a point system for people coming to the UK for work. you got one point for speaking English, one point if you had a job offer, one point if that job offer was competitively paid, one point if the job was highly skilled and one point if there was no local labour to do the job. if you had five points you could enter the country. The Tories have replaced highly skilled with highly paid, and the inconvenient truth is that British labour shortages or not restricted to highly skilled, highly paid work. The economy needs hospitality workers, agricultural workers, and care and health service workers. The UK’s exclusion from Horizon Europe is another policy failure that limits UK science’s access to highly skilled research scientists. Any point system will need to ensure that workers across the full range vacancies can enter the country. Any other system will be a barrier to growth. It is clear that many skilled workers originally from Europe have returned to the home countries because they feel unwelcome after the Brexit vote and harassed by the hostile environment which seeks to turn landlords and banks and the NHS into border guards. It needs to go!
I annotated the text speech on diigo and made a copy of those notes on my wiki; I attempted to extract the specific policy promises from the anti-tory and feel-good rhetoric. …
Lucy Powell interviewed Gary Neville who is it seems an important footballer and manager, and Kier Starmer who is an aspirant prime minister and Arsenal Fan. The video is here, and here are some noted I made,
“In a football team, we need to align personal goals with those of the team and it’s the same in politics” It’s a shame that the PLP four years ago weren’t able to operate according to that dictum.
My notes say, that Banker’s bonuses were capped at 100% of salary unless approved by shareholders in which case 200% bonus can be paid, taking most of them into the disputed supertax bracket. What I find astonishing is that banks would want to pay more than 200% of salary as a bonus. As others have said, it encourages risk not business building investment.
Starmer says we are the party of fiscal responsibility and aspiration; the Tories don’t talk of aspiration. One thing I would say about Starmer, is that he is one of the few British politicians that understand the anger felt by people who work hard and yet still can’t pay their way. Strangely the only other one I have heard attempt this is Rebecca Long Bailey and neither do anger well. It’s important that that anger and sense of justice is articulated. Starmer’s right, the Tories have walked away from this; it’s something that Thatcher had, but Rees-Mogg’s Party can’t. …
Starmer made another speech on economics on Monday 25th July. It is reported in the Guardian.
Starmer has been trying to pitch Labour as the party of fiscal prudence and will say: “With me and with Rachel Reeves [the shadow chancellor], you will always get sound finances; careful spending; strong, secure and fair growth. There will be no magic-money-tree economics with us.”
From the Guardian,
This article looks at growth and debt, Starmer and Reeves flirtation with Osbornomics and Reeves' rejection of nationalisation on the grounds of cost, I note countervailing views from Murray and Long Bailey and note that Reeves places herself in the sad queue of shadow chancellors undermining Labour's election chances by 'telling the truth'. There's more overleaf ...
Over the last 24 hours, possibly longer after I actually publish this piece, Sean Jones QC, has published two longish twitter threads on Labour and Brexit. He was inspired or provoked by an interview on Cambell & Stewart’s “The Rest is Politics” of Kier Starmer.
Jones’s 1st thread asks how ‘leaning into’ the Tories Hard Brexit can possibly be a policy success when it’s clear that it’s failed and asks how it can be an electoral success given that so many Remainers have not changed their mind. There are few, if any words wasted in the thread, so have a look yourself, but I am particularly taken with this tweet,
The 2nd thread, addresses the pro-Starmer argument that this is a long game. Jones argues that Starmer’s Brexit line is a foolish thing to say because it fails to differentiate him and Labour from the Tories, Starmer’s assuming that remainers/rejoiners who seem to be growing in number will put up with it. Starmer’s policy needs to be effective politically before the election and the basis for effective policy after. The first proposition is questionable, and the second wrong.
I’ll finish with a quote from Rory Stewart from the podcast, they were talking about the loss of trust that people have with politicians, and Stewart argues, that it’s not about virtue.
Overleaf, I include some quotes from the thread and the show and examine Starmer's record as such a man of virtue.