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The Independent
04-07-2025
- Business
- The Independent
One year on, is Starmer still the best man Labour has for the job?
Keir Starmer has had the worst first year of any Labour prime minister since 1945 – less impressive, even, than Harold Wilson in his turbulent year back in power in 1974–75. Starmer's team will dismiss that judgement. But that is precisely the problem: self-denial, defensiveness and an ignorance of history – not least of their own party. It points also to his ongoing inability to pick the right people to surround himself with in No 10 – people who know how to do their jobs, what the prime minister should do, and how the system works. Let's start with the positives. In the first year, he's shown that he is very bright, hard-working, much better at foreign policy than most anticipated, and almost preternaturally calm under pressure. There have been some achievements – cuts in NHS waiting lists, school breakfast clubs and three trade deals among them. Not a long list, and some more promises than bankable achievements. But not insignificant. But then look at the downsides. Economic recovery? Non-existent. Improvements in public services and illegal immigration? Patchy. Despite enjoying a weak and divided Tory opposition, he has not performed well politically, alienating his own backbenchers, reigniting Corbynism, and doing nothing to quell the rise of Nigel Farage and Reform. The last seven days have been some of the worst in politics for a Labour prime minister in years, with the U-turns culminating in the Welfare Bill farce on Tuesday evening – a series of embarrassing admissions of personal errors of judgment in the first year, and his inability to anticipate or empathise with his clearly distressed chancellor during Prime Minister's Questions on Wednesday. The mood in the Labour party is bleak: in No 10 it is even bleaker still, with widespread despair replacing the joy of just a few months ago. It's difficult to know what remains intact of the Starmer project now the left is back in the ascendant and with the national finances in such a bad state. Business, which Starmer and Reeves worked so hard to win over, is deserting the party. The richest and best minds are leaving the country in droves for countries where they think that contributions will be better valued. The policy of VAT on independent school fees, which Labour said would not harm the schools concerned but improve education for all, is in trouble; the full extent of the damage may become apparent next year. A change of prime minister is widely talked about across Westminster and in the country. But a change will not help. Another year or more will be lost during the transition with progress stalling on the economy, public services and Britain's security in the world. There is no guarantee that any successor would perform better. Andy Burnham, perhaps, but he's just been re-elected in Manchester. No, sticking with an improved Starmer is the best hope. Vision, people and communication – all interlinked – are what is required if he is to come back in the autumn capable of holding the initiative and setting the agenda, rather than bumbling along as he has been. History teaches us that all the best prime ministers had a clear purpose for the country. He is still to articulate his story. A prime minister is captain of the ship of state. Unless he sets out where the ship is sailing, confusion reins. Better people are also needed to serve him. Successful prime ministers without exception had knowledgeable, strong and loyal teams around them. Yet Starmer came into No 10 with the most incomplete and inadequate team in 100 years. The fault was entirely his own, and he needs now to correct it – starting with a chief of staff who knows how to be chief of staff. The incumbent, Morgan McSweeney, is brilliant at electoral strategy, but not at understanding Whitehall or at governing. Finally, Starmer needs people who understand communications at a strategic and operational level to advise him. A mass injection of proven top talent from outside would reinvigorate and reimagine his premiership. Here's another thing about successful prime ministers: they learn on the job how to do it. But will he? Can he?
New Statesman
03-07-2025
- Politics
- New Statesman
The revenge of Labour's soft left
Photo byThe soft left has always had problems of definition. It's possible to label, not inaccurately, some fairly disparate sets of people and organisations as 'soft left'. You can slice it up, quibble and make arguments (if I had known just how long I'd spend arguing about the nature of the soft left before I came to the UK a decade ago, I'd probably have moved to a different country). Some might go in for a biblically accurate soft left including only those who abstained in the second round of the 1981 deputy leadership race; others might talk about the afterlives of Charter 88, or about Open Labour and the strange position of the soft left under Corbynism. But, as Keir Starmer, learned this week, even without definition, the soft left have the capacity to be a powerful and dangerous force. At the end of the day, the soft left is, broadly, the median position of the Labour Party, particularly that of the membership (there is a reason why 'soft left' cabinet ministers top LabourList's member polls every time). It's the people who aren't Blairites or Corbynites, the big middle. They would like things to be fairer, like public services and public ownership, are pretty socially liberal. But they're realistic about the latent radicalism (or lack thereof) of the British voting public. As a grouping it is large and vague and, suitably, probably its most representative avatar within the parliamentary Labour Party in recent years has been the Tribune group of MPs – which is large and vague and not particularly active. Despite the soft left's centrality within the party, the drama of Labour politics often happens around, rather than through, this middle politics. I think this is in part due to the fact that, as John Denham highlighted in his excellent Renewal article on the nature of the soft left, it's the faction of the party that has never flirted with new or other parties to either the left or right. The soft left isn't flouncing anywhere in a fit of pique. They're just doing, and just want, normal Labourism. Harnessed, however, the power of the middle of the party is formidable indeed. Keir Starmer should know this, because it's basically what he did in his 2020 leadership campaign to great effect. It's also generally thought of as being the Prime Minister's own political home, as a student Trotskyist turned 2015 Andy Burnham voter. Instead of the conscious, positive appeals of that campaign, in the first year of this Labour government the middle of the party has been antagonised into organisation by the leadership. They'll put up with a lot, but when you lose them, you're screwed. This process of antagonisation has come about through policy choices that the base transparently hate, and through a draconian party management stance on Labour's left. (And even parts of the soft left: in 2023 Compass director Neal Lawson's membership was investigated by the leadership over a tweet calling for voters to back Green candidates in local elections.) It's also come from out and out carelessness when it comes to the PLP, who on the whole don't appreciate being treated as mindless lobby fodder you can occasionally threaten if you need to. There's also No 10's habit of briefing overt contempt for unserious 'garden variety liberal left[ies]' – in other words, the most of the Labour Party. As a friend observed to me recently, the general attitude has been: what if you do, actually, catch more flies with vinegar? An antagonisation-to-organisation pipeline was apparent to anyone who made their way to Compass conference at the end of May. Cross-party since 2010, Compass seems to be re-orientating itself towards internal Labour politics; Andy Burnham and Louise Haigh drew large crowds studded with Momentum types, instead of just the anti-monarchist pensioners who make up the organisation's default audience (pointing to a vindication of Alfie Steer's writing on better understanding – and overcoming – the divisions between hard and soft left). This process of soft left coalescing has now born fruit, in the form of an impressively slick rebellion-by-amendment which this week saw the government forced into a dramatic climb down over its welfare bill. The names on the amendment were not particularly surprising for anyone who is studying the party. The socialist campaign group; the pre-Corbyn soft left like Polly Billington; new intake trade unionist MPs like Antonia Bance and Laurence Turner; perennial wildcards like Stella Creasy and Rosena Allin-Khan; a significant portion of the Lisa Nandy for leader campaign (Louise Haigh, Sarah Owen, Vicky Foxcroft), though obviously not Nandy herself. There are also probably some interesting comments to be made about the gender splits going on. Subscribe to The New Statesman today from only £8.99 per month Subscribe This amendment also featured quite a lot of new intake MPs who won seats the party had no formal designs on. These people are not dumb and have made the calculation that they probably won't win again and probably won't be promoted. They've realised they might as well be who they are – which is, for most people who came in through less carefully observed selection processes in less winnable seats, people of the broad soft left who do not want their legacy to be making life worse for PIP claimants. Keeping these people on side should have been easy. Do the Labour manifesto, don't say we live on an 'island of strangers'. With a broad soft left newly imbued with a sense of its own agency, party management for the leadership is not liable to get any easier. [See also: It's time for Starmer and Reeves to embrace the soft left] Related
Times
28-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Times
Green firebrand challenges Corbynites: Join me in the radical left
On June 29, 2016, Jeremy Corbyn appeared at a central London rally and made an attempt to move on from the Brexit referendum held the previous week. The Labour leader was instead heckled by a 33-year-old hypnotherapist actor who, unbeknown to the left-wing activists present, had just launched his political career as a candidate for the Liberal Democrats. 'What about Europe, Jeremy!' Zack Polanski jeered. 'Where were you when we needed you?' Corbyn, brow furrowed, appeared speechless, leaving his supporters to hiss and drown out the noise. Today, Polanski is neither an unknown on the left nor a Lib Dem. The tiggerish London Assembly member is running to become leader of the Green Party, of which he is already deputy and whose politics over the past decade have tracked him in moving steadily leftwards. He is still generating headlines and posing complicated questions of Corbyn and the Corbynites. The surprising dynamic is that Polanski — a gay vegan Jew who long ago traded his native Salford for north London — is now doing so in the spirit of comradeship. Addressing the question of his transformation, he invokes Corbyn's hero, Tony Benn: he is interested in where people are going, he says, not where they are from. As such, Polanski has spent recent weeks positioning himself as the radical socialist and pro-Palestine — for which read Corbynite — candidate for the leadership not only of the Greens but of the British left in its entirety. The size and political complexion of the Greens' grassroots membership today is poorly understood (last year it was estimated to number about 57,000, albeit it is thought to have grown since) but his 'eco-populist' vision has generated more noise than his two rivals, MPs Adrian Ramsay and Ellie Chowns, who are running on a joint ticket. In the event that he wins the contest, the results of which will be announced at the start of September after a summer of campaigning, he wants the independent MP for Islington North in the tent. Speaking from the Glastonbury festival, where he is busy canvassing, and where Corbyn appeared on the Pyramid Stage at his peak in 2017, Polanski said: 'Anyone who aligns with our values in the Green Party is very welcome to join the party, and so I'd love to see progressive left-wing MPs in the party.' Does that include Corbyn? What of his parliamentary protégés, including those in the Socialist Campaign Group, the left-wing faction of Labour MPs? He confirms: 'Anyone who aligns — and I believe that Zarah [Sultana, the firebrand MP for Coventry South] and Jeremy do align with where the Green Party are — that's a decision for them.' He rattles off a list of socialist positions he would seek to enact: 'protecting the NHS'; 'building social homes'; a 'wealth tax'; and stopping the 'genocide in Gaza'. The reason such pronouncements are causing much debate, and a degree of discomfort, on the left is that it has spent the almost two years since October 7 discussing the future of progressive politics — but failing to identify a clear solution or leader before the next election. Polanski, as one Corbynite puts it, is threatening to 'eat [our] lunch'. Since last year, Reform UK has taken centre stage as the main opposition to Sir Keir Starmer and the established order in Westminster. Yet the Greens won four seats, their most so far and one fewer than Reform, secured two million votes, and came second in 40 seats. Elsewhere, disgruntled socialists and Muslim voters delivered five independent MPs, Corbyn among them. The difference is that Nigel Farage has long personified the anti-immigrant, anti-woke sentiment; is a dominant figure within Reform who has vanquished all internal allies; and has singular communications skills. The radical left has no such person. It has a more complicated relationship with hierarchy in the first instance. It is also less of the view that parliament is the only place where proper politics can be done, especially on the issue of Gaza. Parliamentary chicanery has had far less impact, and visibility, than weekly marches up and down the country, attacks on allegedly pro-Israel businesses and the recent infiltration of RAF Brize Norton. Polanski is adamant that opposition to Israel's actions in Gaza is not limited to the party's traditional urban base — in cities like Brighton and Bristol — nor the British Muslim community. He says of the Red Wall areas where Greens have performed surprisingly well — among them South Tyneside council, where they are the second largest party now: 'In fact, I think in those seats, people are equally concerned with the genocide in Gaza, and people are really affected by inequality.' The Greens — who were the first party in England and Wales to call the Jewish state an 'apartheid' and the first to say it was committing 'genocide' — has at times faced criticism for its track record on expelling antisemitic councillors, but also its focus on the Middle East. Its current leader hand-delivered a petition to her local council asking the mayor to write to the foreign secretary to demand a ceasefire, and prior to the last election circulated leaflets featuring the Palestine flag and images of rubble. Polanski is unapologetic about that. 'I think fundamentally, there's a genocide in Gaza. And actually, the Palestinian people are the story here,' he says. 'And I think often we can all get distracted by talking about groups and actions. And actually, I'd much rather focus on stopping the war, working for a ceasefire, and ending the occupation of Israel.' Adding to the complexity is the fact that many of the left's leading lights — such as Sultana — are still part of Labour, even if she is currently suspended. And others still suffer from what their nemesis, Lord Mandelson, has called 'long Corbyn': the trauma of his suspension from Labour, his repudiation at the ballot box in 2019 and the allegations of antisemitism. Still, leading figures on the left are increasingly of the view that something needs to be done to capitalise on the political moment. Gaza remains a galvanising force — and anti-Labour sentiment is not going away, either on the activist left or in the Muslim community. Support for Labour among committed progressives has fallen from 67 per cent in 2019 to 49 per cent at last year's election, and down to 39 per cent last month. Over the past week, three Greens have won council by-elections triggered by defections or resignations from Labour — including most recently its first in Greenwich. Current polling suggests that — even without a Corbynite tilt — the party would win ultra-safe Labour seats such as Huddersfield. Meanwhile, Luke Tryl, of the pollster More in Common, points to the fact that, in local elections in May, in seats where more than 30 per cent of voters were Muslim, half voted for independent candidates. Within a political tradition known for its splittism, there is unanimity within the left only about the fact such feeling demands one of three things: a new party, a parliamentary grouping or a national movement. To that, Polanski's rejoinder is simple: all three already exist in the form of the Greens. In the event he wins, he says, he intends to depart from the party's traditional identity — as a 'single-issue party' of polar bears and saving the countryside — and pivot towards full-fat leftism. He explains: 'So it's up to anyone what they want to do in terms of starting new things. But actually, I'd encourage anyone right now, whether they're a member of another party, or indeed, an MP from another party, if they align with our values, to join with the Greens.' While his party has a quixotic structure that requires leadership elections every two years and involves the grassroots in policymaking, Polanski has been unusually prepared to speak the usual language of conventional politics. He says the party needs to be less timid and to 'learn' from Farage, whose communications skills, and clarity of vision, have made him favourite to be the next prime minister. And despite the queasiness on the left about the role of parliament, Polanski has resolved, as Farage did, that all roads to power run through Westminster. He says: 'I actually have a constituency in mind, and I want to be one of the first group of new London MPs, or first group of London Green MPs.' • Baroness Jones: You're never too old to be arrested as a Green The question then — beyond the outcome of the race — is whether or not the rest of the left has a rival plan. After a More in Common poll suggested a party led by Corbyn could win 10 per cent of the vote, Andrew Murray, his former aide, last week revealed in an eyebrow-raising account in the socialist daily Morning Star two options had long been under consideration. One was Collective, a new national party founded by Karie Murphy, Corbyn's former chief of staff, whose central idea is to install him as interim leader. The other, which is nameless, seeks to create a looser parliamentary grouping of pro-Gaza MPs, possibly with Corbyn or Sultana as figureheads. Murray added that those two tendencies had now combined, indicating a new organisation could be launched imminently. For the Greens, or any new party, there is a final question. Even if the left found a way to unite, what is the best it could achieve at a general election in 2029? The idea of a progressive alternative to Starmer has acquired momentum precisely because of his rightward shift and his determination instead to court Reform votes. Yet if he continues to fall in the polls, would liberal and left voters not support him in order to avoid opening the door to Farage? More in Common says that most Green (57 per cent) and Lib Dem (51 per cent) voters would vote tactically to keep out Reform. For now, it appears that, whatever its configuration, in Westminster at least, the left is likely to remain on the periphery.
Bloomberg
30-04-2025
- Politics
- Bloomberg
Julian Harris: Blair and Starmer Try to Patch Up Green Gaffe
At Labour's last major conference before the 2024 general election, Keir Starmer gave a tub-thumping commendation of the party's record in government under Tony Blair. 'Thirteen years of 'things can only get better' versus thirteen years of 'things can only get worse' [under the Conservatives],' Starmer bellowed, effectively cementing Labour's re-transformation from socialist Corbynism into a slick, centrist, election-winning machine.
Yahoo
06-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Britain is in the grip of militant rule but one tax change could free us
Our political parties, or at least the traditional ones, are in a mess. Labour and Conservative membership is in freefall. This has led them to become ever more reliant on an ever-decreasing number of donors, and in turn, this dependency on big money means that the need to galvanise mass support to their respective causes becomes less urgent. They can become less responsive to public concerns, further putting off potential recruits. Offering tax breaks for individual donations to political parties, perhaps capped at £50,000, could offer a way out of this doom spiral. It would incentivise our parties to recruit and tailor their message to the public's concerns. Labour's membership is now reported to stand at 309,000, down more than 11pc since last year's General Election and from nearly 565,000 in 2017 at the height of Corbynism. The Islington messiah preached a truly toxic creed – but he did manage to recruit and galvanise a mass membership, bringing in a torrent of small donations. Among young supporters the situation is now especially dire. The party's youth membership stood at around 100,000 when Keir Starmer became leader; it is now 30,000. The Conservative Party is literally dying off. In 2001, over 250,000 members voted in the leadership election; by 2005, it was just under 200,000; in 2022, it was down to 140,000. Last year, Kemi Badenoch received 53,806 votes against Robert Jenrick's 41,388 – just over 95,000 had cast a ballot. Membership is 40pc of what it was at the start of this century. By contrast, Nigel Farage and Reform UK do understand the value of recruiting a mass membership. By Friday, it claimed to have signed up 221,212 and now sets its sights on overtaking Labour's numbers. This would be quite something for a party that is barely six years old, compared to the socialists' 125-year heritage. The mainstay of Labour's financial backing has always been the unions. Tony Blair had a genius for recruiting super-rich supporters, and even Starmer has brought some £1m-plus donors on board. But this does not change the overall picture; over time union power has been concentrated in fewer hands. In the 1970s heyday of their power, dozens of unions were affiliated to Labour. Now there are only 11 left, and only three of them really matter. Huge influence, indeed power, is now in the hands of this handful of general secretaries. The 11 affiliates include organisations of largely historic interest. The National Union of Mineworkers remains tied to Labour, but at the end of 2022 it only had 194 members, of which 91 paid their dues. Its general secretary was paid £40,127, or £440 for each person paying to be represented. With a base that size, it is not contributing much to Labour's coffers – £1,828 in 2022. The affiliates that matter are the large general trade unions – Unite, Unison and the GMB. Electoral Commission figures show that since 2001, Unite has paid Labour over £70m, and Unison and the GMB both around £40m. Is it any wonder that so many of the demands of these unions have been met over the past nine months? The picture with the Tories is not much better. In the run-up to the last election, the Conservatives became hugely dependent on one donor. Frank Hester – the man who notoriously made obnoxious remarks about Labour MP Diane Abbott – donated £20m, in part as an individual and in part via his company, the Phoenix Partnership, during 2023 and 2024. This amounted to roughly 40pc of all Tory support. Whatever Mr Hester's merits or otherwise, this is clearly not a healthy situation. Offering tax breaks for political donations could offer a way out of both the Labour and Tory funding predicament. The move would not be unprecedented. Legacies to political parties are already exempt from inheritance tax, provided that the party elected two MPs at the last election or one MP plus receiving at least 150,000 votes. This rule must be most tiresome to the Communist Party of Britain, which receives a steady stream of £50,000-plus bequests from passing comrades, but has thankfully obtained no MPs and negligible votes in recent decades. There is an oven-ready model that could be adopted for applying tax relief: that already pertaining to charitable donations. Gift Aid, or its political equivalent, could be applied to all donations made by a UK taxpayer. This would mean that if an individual donated £8,000 to Labour, or the Tories, Reform, or whatever, that party could then claim back an additional £2,000 from HMRC. This basic rate relief – it is 25pc of the size of the actual donation rather than 2pc, as the system treats the gift as the gross amount – would then be augmented for higher and additional rate taxpayers. They would claim the difference on their tax return, as is the case with charitable gifts. The cost of donating £10,000 to a political party would be £6,000 for a higher rate tax payer and £5,500 for a 45pc additional rate payer. The current model of funding in the UK means it is all too easy for parties to be captured by vested interests. Offering tax reliefs with a cap is not a panacea, but it would at least offer a potential escape. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
