Keir Starmer said in his Labour conference speech that the threat from Reform was, as far as the UK is concerned, as great as the challenge of rebuilding after World War II ever was, and that to rebuild will require as much energy as was required to restore this country after 1945. As he put it:
We can all see that the country faces a choice, a defining choice.
Britain stands at a fork in the road.
We could choose decency, or we could choose division; renewal or decline; a country proud of its values, in control of its future, or one that succumbs against the grain of our history to the politics of grievance.
It is a test, a fight for the soul of our country, every bit as big as rebuilding Britain after the war.
And we must all rise to this challenge.
As ever, Starmer failed to join the dots in a way that has become his own particular political art form.
What he did not, apparently, appreciate as a consequence of what he said was that if the threat is so great, but Reform has yet to deliver the destruction it is promising, then the issue that we face now is not one equivalent to rebuilding, but one equivalent to rearmament, when all the while all that he is offering at presdent is appeasement.
Reform does not have power as yet, and there are four years left to prevent it from doing so, but if that is to happen, then what Labour needs to do is put in place the defences that will ensure that it can never take control of this country, rather than put in place the rebuilding process that might be required in the aftermath of fascism. For somebody in charge of the country, Starner's command of sequencing appears staggeringly poor.
So, what are those defences?
Firstly, and most obviously, we need proportional representation. Never again should a political party supported by a very small part of the UK population have a sweeping majority enabling it to act without taking into consideration the wishes of all the people in the UK, which is the position Starmer finds himself in. If he believes that we are in peril, then adopting proportional representation is the first thing that he must do.
Secondly, a country at risk abandons fiscal caution. Instead, it does everything necessary to ensure that the threat is countered. In this case, that means throwing aside the stupidity of fiscal rules, and ignoring the demands of the City of London (just as these were ignored in 1914 and 1939) to then use the power of the state to:
- Build the physical resources required to defend the nation.
- Mobilising finance to achieve that goal, in the ways that Lord Keynes explained, most particularly in his 1941 book, 'How to pay for the war'.
In other words, Starmer should be putting the country on a war footing to prove that we do not need Reform because he can:
- Build the houses that we need.
- Rebuild the NHS in the way that people want.
- Deliver education that gives everyone a chance in our society.
- Put our key industries and services under state control so that they serve people, and not profit
- Fight inequality.
- Make finance our servant, and not our master.
- Tackle climate change, and build resilience, not least that required to ensure we have sufficient domestic food production, where, unless action is taken, much of our most productive land will be lost to the sea within the foreseeable future.
- Create an industrial strategy that is also focused on these goals, and not providing an opportunity for financial engineering.
That is what he needed to say.
He did not, of course, say it.
He spoke about change, without specifying what it meant.
He spoke about working people, without realising how alienating this is to the young who have yet to work, to the elderly who no longer work, to those who cannot find work, and to those who society prejudices so that finding a job because of who they are, where they are, what conditions they suffer from and what biases employers have against them, is impossible.
As I predicted, Starmer spoke in sentences that could technically be strong together in the English language, but almost none of them made any sense.
Speaking to an audience that included cabinet ministers who sat, childlike, waving flags they had been given as if they were about to place them on sandcastles at the seaside, knowing that they would inevitably be swept away by the next tide, his gibberish flowed forth, but none of it, however, included a measure of substance.
Journalists know that Starmer is doomed. Long before 2029, they are sure his political career will, like most, end in ignominious failure, which he will have deserved more than most do. The sooner that happens, the better. But, unless there are those in Labour who will rise to the challenges that I note above, nothing will change, and the stage will be set for Farage.
What will happen? I do not know. As ever, I can only live in hope. But the truth is the failure of successive Tory and Labour governments, in the style that also typified those of the 1930s, might have already laid the foundations for the terror that might become us with Reform, and I use the word deliberately.
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I listened to him speaking on the radio and he seemed not to be there at all. He was the man who wasn’t there.
He as merely an outline of a leader, or a human being even.
There is no more to him than that.
Isnt there something in the background called ‘Advance’ that sounds just as destructive as Reform.
Am starting to think we wont see any election in 2029.
I keep thinking back to that moment last year, vote for me now, and you’ll never have vote again…
The only terror I see is puppet Starmer, McSweey, Blair… Am already living in terror.
“Isnt there something in the background called ‘Advance’ that sounds just as destructive as Reform. ”
Advance UK ? The second splinter group to split from Reform this year. Message seems to be “Farage is too soft – vote for us, we’re nastier”.
*I missed the following line in that post ‘When Trump said at a rally’
Starmer is a KC. & good with briefs. Politically he is dumb. The person supplying the briefs (gatekeeper) is McSweeney – telling him what to think, what to do.
In the case of finance, Starmer/Reeves is in the hands of the deadly duo of a neolibtard FinMin and a ditto BoE – with Reeves doing a bloody fan dance for all the difference she makes.
The gov, is gov by the neolibs who probably think they can get by with Fart-rage & co, & – they – just – don’t – care.
As for McSweeney – “man’s gotta know his limitations” & one year of power has cruelly exposed the Irishmans’. A bunch of clowns in a circus could make a better fist of it.
Here ends yet another Philippic.
[…] This article is republished with kind permission of Richard Murphy. Read the original here. […]
Never watched it. I knew I would be too annoyed. However, I have just read that Owen Jones has had his pass taken away from him, at the conference. Safeguarding issues, they said.
Declassified were not given passes in the first place.
Novara Media’s pass has also been revoked. Probably openDemocracy were denied one.
Yet according to the Evening Std there’s a substantial GBNews studio with a steady stream of senior Labour figures happy to engage.
WTF is going on?
And I also heard a clip of Farage claiming that Starmer’s words put Reform officials in danger by inflaming Antifa, especially in view of the murder of Charlie Kirk. Huh?
Seeing “safeguarding” being weaponised against Owen Jones made me think.
Someone did exactly that to me in a church context over my criticism of Israel. They said they didn’t “feel safe” around us.
I was surprised to see the “playbook” in use, I’m not even sure the person (a Gentile like me) realised it was out of a “defending Israel” playbook. The incident was reported to the safeguarding oversight, as per procedure, but the complainant wouldn’t engage and left us, which has proved somewhat liberating.
I wonder what the Guardian will do to support Owen Jones? All their senior people seem to have abandoned Starmer, now he’s a lost cause. The latest one to leave the sinking ship was Martin Kettle.
Thank you Richard for raising an issue that I feel has gone under the radar. Labour keeps banging on about serving the needs and desires of “working people” with the obvious implication that those who do not work are somehow second class citizens and undeserving. It makes me so angry. I worked my entire life until I finally called it a day earlier this year as I approached 68. I always paid my taxes on time and never claimed any benefits whatsoever until my state pension kicked in at 66. For most of my working life I was self-employed and, due to my turnover, I was not entitled to any Covid 19 state financial support. This resulted in my using up a large part of my cash savings to survive. As I am sure you will appreciate, I think Starmer’s narrative is bloody outrageous. More generally, I fear that you and I, and all of us in our age group, are being targeted for the type of ‘othering’ that has, until now, been reserved for migrants and other unfairly marginalised groups. This will only increase as the imbecilic Rachel Reeves presses on with her doomed economic ‘policies’. Please excuse my rant but I needed to get it off my chest.
Rants are permitted. Ask PSR. And, thank you. I share your sentiments.
Starmer speech: “Britain stands at a fork in the road. We could choose decency…” and so on with the rest of his meaningless word salad.
Decency = behaviour that conforms to accepted standards of morality or respectability.
He’s the last man who should be standing on a podium lecturing the UK public about “decency”.
He’s a man who takes bribes of money and clothes; he supports a genocide. He’s happy to support a genocidal maniac who is murdering en masse, from the very young to the old, an unarmed, deliberately starved people. His largesse knows no bounds when it comes to helping Netanyahu or hosting a felonious US President at a lavish dinner or helping his wealthy friends add to their immense riches by refusing to tax them appropriately.
When it comes to the UK public, however, it’s a different story, suffering is encouraged by him and his cabinet. Just ask the poor who can’t afford to eat and heat this winter, those who can’t afford to rent or buy a home, the disabled or the elderly how “decent” Starmer has been towards them since he became PM.
Hard to add anything to your thoughts because you said it all. I’m hopeful that some economic sense will eventually prevail.
As for Farage, I think he’ll scupper himself, but my wife thinks people are fixated on these darned boats and that will scupper Starmer regardless of any economic resurgence. She’s usually right as she’ll often tell me.
I agree with you Richard that the peril we now face from Reform and other threats is so great that we need to be on a war footing. I think keir Starmer tried today to give a rousing passionate speech in order to rouse the nation to resistance and I was relived at last to see him come out fighting but ” Blood, toil, tears and sweat” it wasn’t. I see what the paper flags in the audience were trying to achieve, but small paper flags just come across as paltry and certainly aren’t enough to stir the emotions to sacrifice and struggle. Emotion has a big role to play in politics, but Starmer is not by nature an emotional man. I think, as you do, that given the fragmentation of our politics we desperately need to adopt a form of PR so that people can feel that their vote and their opinion means something and that therefore democracy is worth defending. I hope it would also enable the formation of an anti-fascist coalition which could deny power to Farage. Given the multiple emergencies we face we need to harness a broad spectrum of opinions and talents against the catastrophe that a Reform government here would bring.
Somewhere surely in that broad spectrum there would be an orator or two capable of rousing the blood?
I see all the shortcomings you (and others) you point out… and I don’t disagree.
But for me it was a great speech. Why?
Yesterday, my wife, with Indefinite Leave to Remain was fearful; today she heard what she needed to hear from the Prime Minister.
Of course, whether he delivers is another matter. Of course, one could ask why did he wait until now…. but this was an important speech and it hit the right tone as far as she was concerned.
Hang on. Didn’t you hear Shabana Mahmoud? Either Starmer did not, or one of them is lying, and I think it was Starmer.
Having indefinite leave to remain does not give you the right to vote in general elections no matter how long you have lived here and how much tax and NI you have paid.
Rules on British citizenship change quite regularly. The tests now for British citizenship are ridiculous. Very few British people would be able to answer them.
I know people who were born here but because one parent was European, they had to have the other country’s passports.
I know someone who is having to go to London next week because they can now only get their passport from the embassy. This person does not want to give up birth citizenship. Never had to before. Now no vote in birth country or here, despite being allowed to teach British children for nearly 30 years.
This is how to make people feel at home here, is it?
No.
I too know people in that situation.
reply to Anon,
I am really sorry that your wife should have been made to feel anxious about her Indefinite leave to Remain status. It is unconscionable that someone who has been given a legal decision upon which she has built her life should be made to fear it will be arbitrarily rescinded at some date in the future. For what it is worth there are plenty of people in this country who feel the monstrous injustice of this and will oppose any attempt to introduce any such policy.
I agree with you Sheila and share your sentiments. This idea of somehow removing or downgrading the status and rights associated with ILR also offends the legal principles of certainty that underpins much of public law (as can be seen in numerous cases on a variety of topics), res judicata and the Parliamentary presumption against retrospective legislative changes. Even if the UK were to abandon the ECHR these would still apply via common law.
“For somebody in charge of the country, Starmer’s command of sequencing appears staggeringly poor.”
One could postulate that his speech was written by an LLM.
He looks to Atlee and 1945, hoping to milk the nostalgia and WW2 Blitz spirit.
But he ignores the harsh policy reality. Rebuilding the UK in 1945, required an awful lot of government spending, and a dramatic break with the Tory past. It meant Churchill got the sack from the people, it wasn’t done by corporations and billionaires but through appropriate public ownership and public spending. Atlee didn’t WAIT for growth, he CAUSED it.
Indeed. Mobilise as never before. Perhaps that’s why Reeves was breaking down again today. She knows the lines she’ll have to cross in order to do that.
Starmer is comfortable in opposition and that’s how he is behaving: as opposition to Reform.
I have no time for Kier Starmer or his government, and less for Nigel Farage and Reform. I share you sentiments entirely. I do wish though that Starmer’s speech did not identify people as ‘the enemy’ – I think that is dangerous talk. If people disagree with you, you oppose them – they are opposition. This is entirely different to an enemy.
As part of wider reading, I follow a blog by a commentator whose political position I wholly disagree with. In addition, I regard much of the output as misogynistic and racist. I read to try and understand why someone has such views – not to endorse them. In the output of today’s blog, the Starmer speech is commented upon. And the commentator clearly sees themselves (and their fellow travellers) as now ‘enemies’ of the government who can now quite legitimately “fight back”. It stops short of being a direct call to any violence, but it borders on it.
in my opinion, you deal with opponents and opposition by dialogue (however difficult or even distasteful) and positive actions. But you do not offer any kind of physical harm. By defining ‘an enemy’, you are allowing the possibility of physical harm or worse to occur. So I do wish Starmer had not used that phrase. But perhaps I am too literal or exacting in my own use of words.
Noted. Thanks.
The ‘old’ parties are finished, they have nothing to offer and have well and truly failed the entire country with the exception of multimillionaires. Nothing Starmer can say or do can wash away the support of a genocide with out tax money and our armed forces. Nothing. Ever. Murder can never be excused.
There is no excuse for anyone to support the Labour party now – and yet people do, just like so many average Germans supported the Nazi party and so many Americans support MAGA and so on. Maybe because of ignorance, fear and embarrassment ? I don’t understand it.
Anyway, there’s no point in listening to them, they have broken every promise and knowingly chose to freeze our elderly (even helpfully worked out how many they would sacrifice) and drive children into poverty (it doesn’t matter if they now reverse this, years of poverty has left our children shorter than their European counter parts- that’s not reversable), never mind suppressing free speech and the right to demonstrate peacefully.
The only thing to give me some hope is listening to Zack Polanski (his podcast is full of interesting people- give it a go) and knowing that there are some amazing brave people out there who are trying to change things with innovative ideas and insights. And yes, I know he’s not perfect.
If only we had that proportional representation…
I have recorded with / for Zack