labour – Page 9 – davelevy.info

Labour’s macro-economics, “Back to the Future”

Starmer made another speech on economics on Monday 25^th 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 ...

More consequences of Labour’s cyberbreach

The Labour Party can’t issue the ballots for their internal elections; they claim it’s a consequence of the cyber-breach last October.

The Party seems to have attempted to create a replacement membership database by updating its mail manager system and presumably adjusting the feeds although much of the functionality previously offered is no longer available and the feed from the financial system is now days or weeks out of date. We should note that the membership self administration tool is also now not available. The mail manager is obviously from observation slowly dying. It is known to be inaccurate; there are errors in terms of who it considers to be a member, their addresses, and their payment status.

The Party plans to replace this recovered system with an off the shelf package[1] from Microsoft. At the moment we are advised that it is unlikely that local party role holders will get access to this until next year.

Until then we have to use a known to be inaccurate database. From observing, presumably NEC authorised actions, it seems to be considered accurate enough to select councillor candidates and run trigger ballots. Procedure Secretaries have been told that they may not override the membership system even when variances are well known and provable. I question that this is legal in it breaches the duty to be accurate and not to automatically profile people.

What seems to be forgotten that is data protection rests on seven principles, Lawfulness, fairness and transparency · Purpose limitation · Data minimisation · Accuracy · Storage limitation · Integrity and confidentiality. Often too much or too little attention is paid to integrity and confidentiality and issues such as lawfulness, fairness, transparency and accuracy are forgotten.

They are running selections and triggers on data known to be inaccurate. This isn’t right.

This has taken 9 months to get here. While culpability for the breach may be questionable, not having a recovery plan and or not funding it is the fault of the Labour Party and thus its NEC. CEO’s have been fired for less.

Why was there no recovery plan? Did they do vendor due diligence on the member centre hosting provider, did they keep it up to date? Is there a risk register? Has the NEC or the risk committee approved the mitigations? In fact, what is the NEC doing about IT Risk? Is there a DPIA on reusing the mail system? Is there a DPIA on reusing the SAR Tool? Is there a DPIA on using the social media scanners they use? When will we get a data protection capability that protects members data from bad actors rather than from themselves?

Nine months failing to recover is shameful and unprofessional. NEC members should be asking why it has come to this and determine if they, through their inaction, are in fact culpable.

[1] This I consider to be wise, although they will need additional software modules to support Labour’s unique processes, such as donation monitoring. Although it seems they plan to customise the UI 🙁 …

Labour, me and the Forde Report I

The Forde Report commissioned by Labour’s NEC has been published. I have not read it all yet but have discovered the first quote, on the dangers of continued factionalism as it related to the new proscription rules and had the second on the need to conform to A6 of the ECHR pointed out to me.

§A We are also concerned that the provisions which allow for individuals to have membership removed or denied on the grounds they have committed prohibited acts could be exploited for factional purposes.

§F 3.1 We note the new arrangements, approved by the Party at its Conference in 2021, which make provision for various reforms, including the establishment of an IRB in cases involving accusations of discrimination. The Party will need to be vigilant that those new procedures, when combined with the further reforms we recommend in this report, deliver a system which, as far as is practicable, enshrines the core principles of Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights, ….
The Forde Report

Three things: I’d have preferred a stronger mandate than concern and a need for vigilance, and for me A6 is so last year. I have moved on to A7 “No punishment without law”, which states “ No one shall be held guilty of any criminal offence on account of any act or omission which did not constitute a criminal offence under national or international law at the time when it was committed.” Obviously, the scope needs to be changed to be prohibited under rule or law, but the principal is obvious and the NEC is in flagrant breach of this principle.

Finally, the report seems exclusively focused on discriminatory behaviour, it seems to fail to address bullying and cover-ups whether undertaken by staff or senior role holders. …

Can ‘boring’ win elections and deliver good policy?

I am provoked by Chris Grey’s article, “Making Brexit Boring”; it’s long and covers a number of dimensions of the consequences of Starmer’s speech on Labour’s new approach to the EU. Much of his Brexit blog I agree with and find informative, but I have a couple of things to say on this article.

He writes,

Yet that answer [i.e. Labour’s differences with the Government] is a disappointing one, and in some key respects an ambiguous one. It could hardly have given less to erstwhile remainers without being indistinguishable from the government’s policy. It offered the bare minimum of an alternative, and no one could call it an inspiring vision for Britain’s future. But it wasn’t altogether empty, and its critics should be careful not to fall into the age-old political trap of ‘making the perfect the enemy of the good’.
Chris Grey – Brexit & Beyond

This I feel summarises what Grey thinks of Labour’s position but I hope I don’t fall into the trap he identifies. He also disagrees with those who describe Starmer’s position as cakeism,

It’s also misguided to suggest, as some claimed following the speech, that Starmer’s proposals are ‘cakeist’ (i.e. calling for the benefits of EU membership without belonging).
Chris Grey – Brexit & Beyond

I had not realised that Peston had described the trade barrier proposals as cakeism and I comment on his article below. I believe that arguing for enhanced business visas, mutual recognition of professional qualifications while rejecting free movement of presumably unqualified labour is ‘cakeist’ , unlikely to be agreed by the EU and fails to recognise the UK economy’s labour shortage crisis. It’s pandering to the racism inherent in the objection to free movement and the only way to put this right is to agree to the EU’s freedom of labour and reverse the hostile environment. Many of those who’ve left the UK have done so because they feel unwelcome due to the racism enabled and encouraged by the referendum result.

While Grey welcomes Starmer’s embrace of a Security deal, both he and Stramer fail to recognise that this will entail agreeing to CJEU supervision/jurisdiction of wide areas of our administration of justice. While I have no problem with this, if he is prepared to have the CJEU rule on civil liberties, what’s the problem with having them adjudicate trade issues. Starmer’s line on security co-operation is thus also arguably ‘cakeist’, although the number of people on top of this seems very limited. Although yesterday, the government published its plans for the Data Reform Bill which ORG describes as gutting the GDPR and if so may jeopardise the UK’s ‘adequacy agreement which was another point in Starmer’s plan to retain regulatory alignment with he EU on data and financial services.

Peston in his article also accuses Starmer of cakeism, albeit before I did. His article focuses on the trade aspects of Starmer’s five point plan, I take the alleviation of trade friction as a given in any policy, although I am less sanguine that easing trade friction between NI and Great Britain will have any benefit in calming the political friction in Northern Ireland and Starmer’s plan focuses on that specific trade flow and not cross-channel trade.

Peston avoids looking at how Labour’s remainers/rejoiners will react to the brutal policy outlined by Starmer and Lammy. As I note elsewhere, the tide is flowing against them. …

Sensibleness postponed

Having let David Lammy, and to some extent Rachel Reeves trial a new Brexit line, Kier Starmer is planning a speech with a five point plan, which has been previewed (£) in the FT.

Trade is down the plughole (£), as is inward investment and our GDP is set to flatline for the next 18 months and we have labour shortages which are crippling various industries but most obviously agriculture and inflation is now running at 11%. The economy is not in a good state (£). All of this is caused by Brexit, When studying macroeconomics in the ’70s, we thought these dimensions of the economy were choices and a trade off, and while popular theory has changed, it’s quite an achievement for them all to be wrong and yet another not to want to fix it.

Meanwhile the FT article (£) states,

Starmer will insist that a Labour government would not seek to rejoin the EU’s single market or customs union or reintroduce freedom of movement — let alone seek to reverse the 2016 Leave vote.

I say “why not?”. All three of these measures are obvious and growingly popular solutions to the macroeconomic problems we face today.

The five point plan is important, but leaves glaring holes, does Labour propose to put import checks on products not included in the new agreement, will it try and ease the Labour shortage by allowing workers from Europe to return, why would the EU agree to freedom of movement for the professionally qualified only?. Does any of this help jobs and the environment in the east coast and southern port cities?

Meanwhile, Redfield Wilton report that a majority of voters would vote to rejoin the EU although just as with the original referendum the terms of entry are not clear. Starmer and kitchen cabinet are going to be left behind and are in danger of driving their own core votes into the hands of other parties. RW show that the majority of working age people (at least those under 55) support rejoining.

Image: the port is from unsplash, the plughole is public domain …

Lammy on the EU/FTC

Two days ago, David Lammy, Labour’s Spokesperson on Foreign Affairs made a speech (mirrored) to a seminar hosted by “UK in a changing Europe”, in which he makes a searing attack on Johnson’s Govt, highlighting the myopia of the defence white papers, and the sectarianism of their approach towards Northern Ireland, and towards the EU. He concludes by stating that Brexit is over, we’re out but that a Labour Government will seek to improve the terms of the Trade & Co-operation agreement, albeit without renegotiating the deal, and without rejoining either the customs union or the single market.

Overleaf, the article includes my statement that Brexit is not over, it also talks of Labour's five points and its inherent 'cakeism' on freedom of movement, it notes the cowardice still within the Labour Front bench and it also looks at the security implications of Brexit, I conclude, 'It looks as if the right of the Labour Party have not read this and are still playing triangulation within the Overton window. There is an uber-Remainer vote to win, it’s young, it works and is often not white. The policy goals are insufficient and they are chasing the wrong votes.' I link to a video of the speech. ...

Another fine hole!

So it appears that Sir Keir Starmer is going to return to his comfort zone on immigration. Ruling out that a Labour Government, led by him, will agree a freedom of movement of workers with the EU, except of course, Eire, Malta and Cyprus, although given some of his comments in the Union, he may well be willing to sacrifice the UK/Eire Common Travel Area.

I don’t know how many times I and others need to say this. We need foreigners, particularly young foreigners to come to this country to work and pay taxes. If they don’t come, the work doesn’t get done, which is one reason there’s a labour shortage. The search for a ‘fair immigration’ policy that restricts incoming workers is like looking for a chimera. We now have an earnings limit that means that teachers and nurses cannot enter the country to work. It’s an economic act of self harm and panders to racism.

Starmer isn’t very good at economics and this is trolling his base. He assumes they have nowhere else to go; the last people to think this were wrong and he is too. …

An old idea, whose time has come

Has the single market pendulum swung? Tobias Ellwood MP, a Tory, lifted the lid? The GMB voted to recognise that we could do better than the terms agreed; it seems I was preceded (or maybe not) by Ann McMorrin MP, who was rebuked by a courageous un-named Labour spokesperson. McMorrin was followed today, by an article from Stella Creasy, arguing that Labour’s silence on the crapness of the Brexit deal leaves the whole of the narrative to the Tories, although crapness is not the word used by Creasy. This is compounded in my mind by Starmer’s decision to vote for the withdrawal deal! The Creasy article is to my mind very good, and here are two quotes,

For fear of saying the wrong thing, many in Labour claim it is better to say nothing at all about Brexit. But such reticence does not honour those who voted Leave – or Remain. Each wanted their vote to mean something better than chaos at the borders or businesses in peril. Post-Brexit, there are many ways forward for the UK and the EU – and most don’t end in a trade war as a distraction from a prime minister’s personal misconduct
…
Aneurin Bevan once argued that “silent pain evokes no response”. The same is true of silent politics. It will damage our national interest for generations if hostility about the UK working with the EU seeps into public life without dissent. To be able to do business with the biggest trading block in the world, stand shoulder to shoulder against Russian aggression and tackle climate change, terrorism and social injustice, Britain needs us to speak up now. Keeping stumm is not in anyone’s interest except Johnson’s.
Stella creasy – The Observer 19 June 2022

She’s right, we need to talk about the post Brexit deal and the single market; and if the Chair of the Labour Movement for Europe won’t then there’s little reason to expect others to do so as the treatment of McMorrin shows. …

Was there “Remainer Sabotage”?

Launching 2019 General Election campaign

Some in Labour continue to fight over the history of Brexit; the so-called Lexiters seem keen to pin the Tories’ Hard Brexit on Sir Kier Starmer. This latest round was sparked by Eagleton’s “The Starmer Project” with replies by me, Andrew Fisher and now Michael Chessum.

Some are keen to smear Starmer as the architect of “Remainer Sabotage”. He was not! Firstly, the idea of Remainer sabotage is a fantasy and secondly, if such a person exists, it is not Starmer, although I am clear there are some senior Labour parliamentarians who used the issue of Brexit to undermine Corbyn. Fisher, who was there, argues that Corbyn’s shadow cabinet followed Conference 18 policy where Starmer delivered the Shadow Cabinet line from the composite meeting, much to the chagrin of many who wanted an explicit reference to “Remain” in the words of the motion.

The reality is that the saboteurs of Corbyn’s leadership over Brexit were the MPs that like their extra-parliamentary fan club wanted a hard Brexit on any terms, some because of ideological commitment some from careerist motives; they voted against each of the options in the 2^nd round of meaningful votes, three of which would have passed if they’d votes yes, including an EEA membership. They wanted a Corbyn led Labour Government which negotiated to leave the EU and rhe single market. Sadly for them neither Corbyn nor the Labour Party wanted to leave on poor terms, which they will not admit, and that is all that was left after they sank the options offered in the meaningful votes.

The Lexiter conspiracists also ignore both the tradition and enduring presence of a right wing labour opposition to Europe, and their Tory and foreign allies, in the seventies Enoch Powell, and in the 21^st century Nigel Farage & Vladimir Putin. This attempted distancing of their unpleasant allies and their racism is endemic in the political practice of Lexit.

The fact is, that the Lexiters particularly in Parliament, allied with the European Reform Group and the UKIP entryists and sabotaged the choice of anything between Remain and the Tories’ Hard Brexit; they legitimised the working class vote for Brexit, colluded with the argument that a metropolitan elite were trying to steal it from them rather than ask for confirmation that the Govt had got it right and gave them permission to vote for Johnson. It’s not Remainers who should be apologising. …

Labour Party rules, women and youth administration autonomy.

Another Rule change for Labour Conference; this moves the right of access to the membership list from Appendix 2, to Chapter 2. It clarifies that Women's branch secretaries and secretaries of young labour branches/sections are to be given access to their appropriate membership lists. The guidelines as written state these branch officials should have access to the membership list. These words make it clear that this should be so.

Written for a friend; and the rule text is now below/overleaf ...