Keir Starmer and State Modernisation

Some first impressions on Gordon Brown's long-awaited review of the UK constitution. In his speech at Leeds University, Keir Starmer said Brown's recommendations would now form the basis of a consultation so they're ready to be implemented during the first parliament of an incoming Labour government. What's in them, and what are the politics of the proposals?

1. There are continuities between these proposals and what was in the last three Labour Party manifestos. In 2019, for example, Labour pledged to adopt a community wealth building approach with Preston as its model to regenerate local economies. There was to be greater freedom for local authorities over planning, but the real emphasis was on making funds available to rebuild public services run into the ground by a decade of Tory cuts. While nodding toward inequalities and the baleful consequences of centralised government, the Brown plan is driven by a different approach. I.e. Rather than restitution, his proposals reset the relationship between the state and its localities. Constitution, in other words.

2. The report identified 280 economic clusters scattered about the country. Transforming them into drivers of growth requires stronger local government, who will be responsible for driving economic plans and raising its own cash. Financial autonomy independent of the Treasury is a sharp divorce from received custom and practice. This is in conjunction with moving 50,000 civil service jobs out of London to save money and help build up the resilience of local economies, and encouraging cooperative relations between local authorities instead of the pork barrel competition set up by and presided over by the Tories' levelling up funds.

3. This is in the context of wider reform to the constitution. The abolition of the Lords, already trailed a couple of weeks ago, was reiterated again. Its replacement would be an assembly of the nations and the regions, which would lose the Lords' scrutinising function but work as the voice of local and devolved governments and safeguard their powers. Local authorities would also win the right to initiate legislation pertaining to their localities in parliament. Meanwhile, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland would enjoy new freedoms. Some limited foreign affairs powers for Scotland, along with the same local government agenda as England and Wales (that would surely upset the SNP). There would be new crime and punishment powers for the Welsh Assembly, and all three of the nations would enjoy the same access to the new British Regional Investment Bank.

4. The Labour Party is promising a golden age for policy wonks. What Starmer is setting out is the rudiments of a new regime of capital accumulation. Rather than central government getting involved in picking winners and driving economic policy, pushing it down into the lower reaches of the state, on paper, creates a more benign and supportive environment for businesses to operate in. Though it does not say so in this report, going from Rachel Reeves's rebranded Green New Deal and Starmer's own pronouncements on trade unionism, their envisaged role of government is one that sets out the overall strategic priorities for economic development while stepping in as an honest broker between capital and labour where it comes to industrial relations. The document contributes to the blue print for a new model of British capitalism. One in which the state (the executive, its devolved and local government entities, and the public services run under their shared aegis), businesses, and labour know their place and have a clearly delineated framework for relating to one another.

5. This is an obvious improvement on the half-arsed and corrupt effort of Tory modernisation. It is more ambitious than the Blair/Brown efforts at revamping the British state because it goes further. Whereas New Labour retained the neoliberal settlement and significantly reinforced it, while implementing some mildly redistributive policies, Starmer is offering something new. Its ambition was only matched by the Corbyn years, but with significant differences. Corbynism was more than just reversing austerity and restoring public services, it pointed to a break with bourgeois politics. The championing of alternative forms of ownership and the promise of more workplace democracy implied a fundamental challenge to capital and its right to manage its assets. I.e. The means of production. The radicalism of the Brown plan departs from the received wisdom of British statecraft (and its centring on the City) only, and it does this not to enhance democracy but to save British capitalism from itself.

6. This nevertheless is big politics, and it proved too much for the reporters who quizzed Starmer about it following his speech. Beth Rigby asked Starmer how this would help people facing the pressures of the cost of living crisis. Another suggested talk of Lords reform was bewildering given the scale of our present economic problems. Aren't these just Westminster bubble issues? And tweeting away, Times Iain Martin hack ignorantly crowed about Labour's 40-point plan. It's almost as if a generation of journalists are incapable of comprehending anything but the most marginal of changes, or anything more abstract than the state taking money from one area and spending it in another. To be fair to Starmer, he deftly dealt with this small-minded line of questioning by pointing out how short-termism was one of the contributing reasons why the Tories have got the country into such a mess. It also spoke to people's desire to do things differently and stop politics from being a block on what they want to do. Getting the politics right is central to economic prosperity.

7. Again, the question of trust has to be raised. Why should we believe Starmer is going to deliver on this? Because, ultimately, it's the politics. The 2020 leadership pledges were mostly ditched or watered down because they are fundamentally at odds with his technocratic, managerial politics. The settlement set out in the Brown document doesn't challenges his authoritarian view of government in any tangible way. He has his job at the top, and the First Ministers, the metro mayors, and the council leaders have their own domains to attend to further down. Introducing more elections to replace the Lords and making local authority elections matter more are hardly a major difficulty where the supremacy of his administration are concerned. In short, he's offering a great deal of change so things can, fundamentally, stay the same.

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