Are the Bolsheviks storming the Winter Palace? Almost. The Graun has acquired Labour's "secret" plans to levy taxes on wealth. Okay, not plans but "options". These are being considered in case the incoming government has to raise cash for their ever so ambitious plans to renovate the British state and erect their own new Jerusalem.
For those of us sad enough to watch Keir Starmer in debates and keep tabs on his interviews, this won't catch one unawares. Labour's pledges to fix all the things but not get drawn on where the money is coming from has spurred its own sub genre of election 2024 commentary. Starmer and Rachel Reeves have categorically ruled out another round of austerity, which has led to speculation about borrowing or more tax rises. But here too, Labour has met this with a wall of denial. Reeves's so-called fiscal rules want to get state debt down and is more of a priority than pushing the green transition. So much so, you'll recall, she scaled back Labour's spending commitments. On the other hand, whenever Starmer has promised not to raise taxes on "working people". National Insurance, income tax, and VAT are off limits. But if you're eagle-eyed enough, he hasn't ruled out all taxes.
The Graun splash reveals Labour are considering increases to capital gains tax, and changes to inheritance tax to prevent its avoidance through tax relief schemes and "gifting". Which is a very common practice among well heeled families. Taken together, they could raise up to £10bn/year. Useful in a pinch, but quite marginal compared to what the Greens are pressing for.
This begs the question. Why is the Labour leadership being shy about these deliberations? Indeed, even though nothing is set in stone there's no reason why there couldn't have been a passage in the manifesto explaining that, thanks to the state of public finances, an incoming government would explore more revenue raising measures. It's not as though the document lacks vague promises of investigations into and initiatives about this and that. Why would another one hurt?
All politicians want to occupy a zone of non-punishment, where negative criticisms are deflected or, if they're not, they do not become amplified. Over the last couple of years particularly, change in the "changed Labour Party" has meant dumping all policies that might cause a bit of friction with vested interests. And where they haven't been jettisoned, policy has got watered down. "Bomb proofing" the manifesto has meant not building anything the Tory press would consider worth dropping ordinance on. That way, the reasoning goes, Starmer glides along the path of least resistance into Number 10, benefiting from an electoral coalition stretching from the Stockholm syndrome left to the anti-immigration right. Promising little and saying little isn't political cowardice but is super smart grown up politics laser focused on winning.
What is ridiculous is having them in the manifesto would have helped halt the fraying of the Labour vote we're starting to see around the edges. For those who think the rich have had it all their way for too long, which includes not a few wealthy people, the promise of wealth taxes, as slim as these proposals are, offer a positive case to vote Labour. The party leadership knows this. So if not cowardice, how to explain this aversion to doing something popular? Unfortunately, it's for the same reasons why Rishi Sunak's premiership set out to offer nothing and, indeed, has delivered just that (apart from the most memorably cack-handed campaign of recent times). For Starmer and Reeves, the playing down of hope, the use of change as an empty signifier, the promise they won't do anything that defies the gods of money, etc. is an effort at managing expectations so they can keep control of the narrative about their government. If you start promising things, people's expectations are raised and politicians come unstuck as they refuse to meet popular pressure. Saying you want to tax a bit of wealth can immediately lead to questions about inequality, private ownership and, horror of horrors, class. Issues Starmer and friends absolutely don't want to deal with.
At the beginning of the campaign, Starmer said "Change means stability". In this instance, that means stability for them. Not raising expectations isn't just for the ease of campaigning. It makes for easy governing too.
When news reached his ears that John Golding was writing a tell-all memoir of his dirty tricks in the Labour Party during the 1980s, our recently-retired friend John Spellar made his displeasure known. His concern, apparently, was that the means by which the left were carved out and put in a box might be required in the future and making these methods public would not serve the right well.
This week's profile of Morgan McSweeney, the new Labour right hatchet man in the Golding/Spellar tradition must have provoked similar mutters from that wing of the party. Thanks to his efforts, Keir Starmer's or, to be more accurate, the Labour right's writ reigns supreme. And of the methods employed to this end, the article isn't backward about being forward. It baldly states that McSweeney's aim was the removal of all the Labour left's institutional influence. The sacking and attempted removal of candidates had nothing to do with spurious concerns about "quality". The parachuting of Labour right notables into constituencies they have zero connection to is confirmed as "rewards" for services rendered. So much for the idea that being an MP is a selfless act of service.
How McSweeney came to prominence had little to do with assimilating Golding's rambling tome. Instead of backroom chicanery, what he pushed was a brazenly dishonest political project. As the former organiser for Liz Kendall's leadership campaign, his chief take home was that if you want to win in the Labour Party from the right, you have to lie. And this is what he did through the Labour Together vehicle, which for a while posed as a soft left organisation with the faces and endorsements to match, and then Starmer's own Corbyn-lite bid for the party's top job. It's an unsubtle strategy, but one that has worked over the last four years. That the press are uninterested and remain so, knowing they need a stable government that will pander to their interests now the Tories are no longer available has proven handy. But so has the quiescence of the trade unions who, despite a bit of chuntering over workers' rights, have been largely disciplined in not wanting to make life difficult for the Labour leader. But this only has so much mileage where mainstream politics are concerned, and Starmer has already copped unwelome questionning regarding past fibbing.
This record of skulduggery puts a question mark over McSweeney's future use. When his "genius" is built on manufacturing departures from the truth, what does he offer when the political costs of getting caught out are much higher than telling porkies about party malcontents? The article talks about him deserving a "big job", and with the unwelcome return of Nigel Farage and the rising polling fortunes of Reform, this is supposedly one of McSweeney's "concerns". How a felicity for bullshitting Labour activists and pressing deselect buttons could protect his boss's flanks from the far right remains to be seen. Likewise, one of his reputed superpowers is to mind read middle England and have a feel for their instincts. We know that's code for consuming the content of very important centrist personages and yes, reading Ian Dunt and listening to James O'Brien on the daily requires preternatural fortitude. But how will their stunning insights help fend off electoral opposition to a Labour government from the Liberal Democrats and the Greens when, let's be euphemistic, their read on politics leaves a lot to be desired?
The best way a Starmer government can see off attacks from the right and the left is through delivery. Not the weak sauce printed on a pledge card or the changey vapourware of the manifesto, but through real, tangible improvements to public service and the living standards of "working people". Political science isn't rocket science, after all. What does McSweeney bring to this table? With the party sewn up and the magical transformation of right wing NEC members into Labour MPs, he is functionally obsolete. But he needn't worry much about his immediate future. The favours banked and the secrets buried will see him given a role where, like his allies, he gets to feel important and in charge. He might even enjoy the status of feted guru, like dear old Peter Mandelson. But to all intents and purposes, his very useful uses are now at an end.
It's the day when fake political party Reform UK finally launched its "manifesto". But they get enough unwarranted coverage, so let's look at the Green Party's manifesto. Having enjoyed a bit of publicity following former Labour general secretary Jennie Formby's endorsement, it's not difficult to see why. For left wing people, there is a lot to like in the document.
Contrary to Labour's manifesto, which demands a dollop of self-delusion to be described as a radical document, no such mental gyrations have to be performed while leafing through the Greens'. On page 15, we find a promise to explore mutualisation as an alternative form of ownership, including taking existing firms into cooperative ownership in some circumstances. Unlike Labour and its crash diet offer to workers, at least compared with a a couple of years ago, the Greens stand for repealing all the anti-trade union laws since 1979, a £15/hr minimum wage, strict pay ratios across the economy, the adoption of single status for workers (dumped by Labour after business lobbying), and working toward the four-day week (p.17). On social security, the two child limit for child benefit would be scrapped, as would the cruelty of waiting times. Elected Greens would press for the abolition of the bedroom tax, and an uprating of benefits by £40/week. State pensions would be linked to inflation, and experiments with the basic income would take place (p.19). And where the rich are concerned, those with over £10m would see their tax bill rise by one per cent, and billionaire wealth would be taxed by an annual 2%. Tax dodge free ports/enterprise zones would be scrapped, Labour's self-imposed fiscal rules binned, and VAT applied to private school fees and finance (p.20).
This wouldn't go far enough as far as some are concerned, but it does match the ambition and scope of Labour's Corbynist manifestos. But is this, as some centrist critics suggest, merely a shopping list likely to put off more than it attracts (because, in British politics, the grown ups have decided we're not allowed nice things), an effort at offering left policies to soak up support from the not insubstantial numbers who've grown disgusted with Labour and its leadership?
Actually, yes. On the left the Greens have long been regarded as a petit bourgeois party, albeit a radical one versus the populist right and those fishing in similar waters. As such, the Greens have traditionally appealed to a constituency not dissimilar to the Liberal Democrats - small business people, sections of the state/public sector, the professions. The party continues to appeal to this layer, and has made significant advances into Tory support in the countryside. They do so because they intersect with conservationist values, which has always been a concern for rural conservatives, and in this vein are the only party that takes environmentalism and climate change seriously. That and the Greens present themselves as an unsullied political force, one that would not raise the heckles that Labour might in certain corners of the country. Despite the Greens' radical left positions.
To be fair to the Greens, its positioning has been well to the left of the other parties for over 20 years. But this time, it's intersecting with the decomposition of the Labour base Jeremy Corbyn bequeathed Keir Starmer. Without going into the specifics, Starmer's purge of the left - which is now freely admitted - was always going to drive away some of the membership and a wider layer of diffuse support by turning against the interests and socially liberal values of the rising layer of, to use Starmer's favourite term, working people. Compounding this was the alienation of traditionally Labour-loyal communities, namely British Muslims and black Britons, and the abandonment of the most vulnerable. As the Greens have grown off the back of a new wave of activists flowing into the party from these quarters, it's beginning to acquire a new core support. As Starmer wants politics to tread lightly on people's lives, in reality it will continue stamping heavily on their interests and aspirations. The Greens are well positioned to make good the opportunities the Labour leader throws their way.
It's best then to think of the Green manifesto as an anchor. It reflects the values and ambitions of the rising class of immaterial workers more closely than Labour's programme for government does, and is cohering a new networks of stable support than the party has previously enjoyed. Manifestos are always more than what a party would do in government. It shows what interests they want to serve, and how they're going about articulating them. The Greens are showing that they're attuned to the class politics of the moment, and can expect to do well from them in the years to come.
The Tories, already in for a drubbing, now face obliteration thanks to Nigel Farage's decision to stand. Making his return to British politics, he has reasoned that campaigning for a convicted felon in the US presidential election was not a good look nor terribly lucrative. Especially as the moment was opportune for plunging the knife into the dying Tories and shaping a new horror from its dismembered remains. And this might just come to pass. With talk of Rishi Sunak's party coming third at the election, and several MRPs suggesting Reform might actually win some seats, as possibilities go it's not that far fetched. Or is it?
There's no doubting some on the right wing fringe of the soon-to-be-reduced Parliamentary Conservatve Party are shipping a post-election tie-up between Reform and the Tories. Just as the election was announced, Lucy Allan called for a vote for Reform in her Telford seat. A move that saw her expelled from the party. This last week Andrea Jenkyns has been caught pushing official party literature featuring her and Farage in a chummy photo. And trying to cash in on the sentiments of the Tories' thinning membership, Suella Braverman has said the Tories "should welcome" Farage into the fold.
From within the situational awareness of the Tory weltanschauung, this is not entirely mad. As argued before, the Tory obsession with race and immigration can, if you squint hard enough, be seen as an election winner. If the gate was opened to Farage and he was swept to the leadership of the Tories, his garrulous character and "truth telling" would contrast favourably with the lefty cultural Marxist wokery of Keir Starmer, and the party could quickly return to viability. After all, Brexit was won an anti-immigration politics, Boris Johnson won on anti-immigration politics, and the reason Sunak is flailing badly is because of his softness on immigration. Just take the Tory and Reform percentages and do the maths. A united right could see Labour down.
Provided Farage does get into the Commons, it's obvious there is a faction of the Tories - egged on by the press - that would happily have him. And if admitted and shenanigans don't get in the way, it's surely odds on the membership that voted for Liz Truss would endorse Farage as leader. This place has long forecasted a rightward turn for the Tories post-election as a means of cohering themselves following a shattering defeat. Just as they did after 1997. But this is not entirely nailed on. According to an analysis of Tory selections by Conservative Home's Paul Goodman, few new hard right candidates have been selected for the safest seats. With a lot of this wing getting taken out at the election, this might make for a more centrist - and I use that term advisedly - parliamentary party than has been the case for some years. And this changes things somewhat.
Just as a lot of Tories think going right can save the party, there are those who think a more centre-oriented pitch is the path to recovery. With the Lib Dems set to do well, abandoning more centrist positions and indulging every right wing hobby horse only strengthens the yellow party. If the Tories go hard right and/or get under the covers with Farage, the Lib Dems can choose between pitching to the left to capture discontent with Labour or start occupying land abandoned by the Conservatives, effectively presenting themselves as the grown up natural opposition to Starmer. Because Tory curious/right-leaning swing voters aren't going to be on board with a Farage or Farageist party, this could focus the minds of enough Tory MPs to block any leadership bid. And if that happens, with a semi-viable Reform party the Tories could well split with Farage taking some MPs and lots of members.
It's funny. Thinking back to writing the first draft of Falling Down during the first Covid lockdown and into that summer, I thought the thumping victory Johnson had achieved would stymie the Conservatives' long-term decline, and as such the process would only slowly take hold. The Tories would be competitive and could win against a lacklustre Starmer in 2024, but become progressively more difficult after that. But with Party Gate and Johnson's defenestration, the Truss debacle, and Sunak's do-nothing premiership, each of these moments have sped up the decomposition. Now this election, Farage standing, the D-Day clanger, and the possibility of post-election footsie that could rip the party to shreds, the rate at which the Tories are unravelling threatens to break the speed of causality. The only question left is there anything now, anything at all, that can make this happen even quicker? Recent history suggests it would be foolish to rule that out.
One of the silliest devices in Doctor Who is the psychic paper. A blank sheet to us viewers, when the Doctor wants to pass as an official the card is flashed and anyone looking at it sees the appropriate accreditation. The reception of Labour's manifesto has had a similar effect on its audience. For some on the left it's distilled Toryism, whereas for the right it's a "bonkers left-wing agenda". For business it's a sensible roadmap to stability, and for the centre left it's "quietly radical" if not, as per Will Hutton, "potentially more enduringly transformative than Labour’s in 1945." Who says Roland Barthes's insights about the death of the author are PoMo garbage?
The truth is you can read into the manifesto what you want into it. If you are on the left and need convincing Keir Starmer's Labour are worth voting for, you'll find your justifications. For those particularly weird floating voters who read manifestos, they're not likely to find anything that would repel them. Those looking for reasons to criticise and go elsewhere will find plenty of ammunition here. But what is interesting about the manifesto is how insubstantial it is. At 136 pages, it's four times thicker than the Green Party's document (more on that anon), but is much less weighty. In fact, I can't recall ever reading such a thin document. There are probably more photos of Starmer than there are actual policies. This passage (p.86) from the small section on higher education typifies the tone.
The current higher education funding settlement does not work for the taxpayer, universities, staff, or students. Labour will act to create a secure future for higher education and the opportunities it creates across the UK. We will work with universities to deliver for students and our economy.
What does that mean? Yes, something is wrong. But where's the solution, where's even the clue to the policy agenda we're going to get to secure Britain's universities?
This patter is repeated throughout. A problem is acknowledged, often rightly being put at the feet of the last 14 wasted Tory years, but instead of a proposal we get hand waving. It's this void that beckons the praise and invites the brickbats. For those of a wonkish mindset, there is a lot of "we're going to study this" and "we will review that". What this means in real speak is an expansion of the civil service and local government, with plenty of opportunities for administrative solutions to social problems and the inherited dysfunctions of the state. It also gives the (likely hundreds) of new Labour MPs a chance to make a name for themselves by spotting a need and championing a policy. It's a Fabian's fever dream. But in the sense of what is wrong, of the moral thread that underpins Labourism, there a few signs it has been stitched into the manifesto. It's a technocratic document through and through, one befitting the the mindset of its leader and his coterie of suits and briefcases.
There are some welcome policies. As noted before, Starmer's original commitment to trade unions has been watered down thanks to constant lobbying by Labour's fear weather business friends, and Peter Mandelson. But it says everything that even their implementation in this reduced state would make a difference to workplace rights and trade union activism. Though, do note, the Tories' anti-union legislation on strikes, cooling off periods, picketing, secondary action, and ballot thresholds remain untouched. Also positive but overlooked in the commentary on Labour's offering is the commitment to activate the Socio-Economic Duty, a little known bit of law that was slipped into the 2010 Equality Act in the dying days of New Labour and not repealed (nor enforced) by the Tories since. This compels public authorities to reduce socio-economic disadvantage as an inescapable part of exercising their functions. This has been variously adopted by the devolved governments and various Labour-run councils, but the nature of local government funding has stymied the effects of its implementation. This is incompatible with austerity, which is why the Tories ignored it.
For everything that can and would make a difference, just to remind us of the character of Labourism there is something appalling. More power to the police and intelligence services because terrorism (p.15), the notion of putting more coppers onto the streets because of a non-existent crime epidemic, the waffle about wanting a Palestinian state while idly standing by as tens of thousands have been butchered, and a fast track asylum removals service. There's the fluffy language about helping disabled people back into work, a policy that gave us the hated Work Capability Assessment 16 years ago, and the contradictory idiocy of affirming trans rights while backing the flawed Cass review. Milquetoast progressivism and performative authoritarianism, it's a Blair-era call back.
In fact, what this manifesto reminds me of is the 2010 document that Gordon Brown put forward. Having rediscovered the most limited Keynesianism during the 2008 crash, the 2024 manifesto reads as its direct heir with the last three airbrushed out of existence. Instead of plagiarising Wikipedia, Rachel Reeves's "securonomics" is a cut and paste of the late Alastair Darling. Except he was honest about the "need" to cut public spending, whereas you'll find no such candour from the front bench about how they plan to pay for their modernisation of the state.
That said, it would be unfair to say there is no difference between what Labour and the Tories are offering. Their document is "Sunakism" distilled. I.e. An exercise in offering nothing but culture war stunts to avoid the hard graft of dealing with the problems they're responsible for. Starmer's authoritarian modernisation, like Sunak's politics-as-avoidance, fights shy of raising people's expectations as a means of assuming control of the political narrative and avoiding stirring up popular enthusiasm for policies they'd rather not enact. This is what one of Starmer's favourite phrases - for a politics that "treads lightly on people's lives" - is all about. But even then, if Labour sees through its promises and gestures, this will result in better outcomes than the cruelty and spite the Tory manifesto wants to inflict.
But better is a matter of degree. Making life a bit more bearable is hardly the most stirring of slogans or most ambitious of visions. This is why there is no enthusiasm for Starmer's "Changed Labour", and why it will be increasingly difficult to hold its coalition of support together after the election.
Doing anything on Wednesday 19th June? Interested in Michel Foucault and his works? The University of Derby is hosting a day conference to honour him almost 40 years to the day after his untimely death. More information is available here.
I'll be presenting something too, so I'm unlikely to surface from the Foucault mines this weekend. This is what my paper is on.
Retro Foucault, Our Contemporary? Revisiting The Subject and Power Afterword at a Time of Desubjectivation Crisis
The contemporary reception of Foucault as a theorist governance has proven extremely influential at explaining how Western governments have reshaped their institutions to encourage the formation of neoliberal subjectivities. However, with falling living standards, stagnant wages, and restricted housing supply, the offer of social mobility and material abundance that has worked as the carrot to the neoliberal stick of surveillance and punitive measures suggests the assemblage supporting this form of governance is breaking down. This is not a crisis of the passage from logics of discipline to logics of control (Deleuze 1992), but a more fundamental problem of desubjectivation. That is, a withering away of relations and motivations that provide neoliberal capitalism everyday legitimacy and justification, with more reliance on mechanisms of “machinic enslavement” (Lazzarato 2014). In Britain, the likely election of a government that defines itself in relation to an ethic of public service, has a programme of refurbishing institutions of state, and has the ambition to restore their authority, will have to face up to this problem. At the time of writing, the Labour Opposition’s discourse on social security and the centrality of employment suggests they do not recognise the challenge or are relying on the need to work – one machinic compulsion among many that Lazzarato identifies – to maintain the order necessary for their project. In parallel with this, Labour has emphasised its support for authoritarian state institutions, has ostentatiously dressed itself up in national colours, has flirted with socially conservative positions, regularly invokes ‘security’ as a theme, and has presided over an authoritarian internal party regime, which likely indicates its policy approach to domestic questions and law and order.
This is where the “old” Foucault of the microphysics of power might prove useful. By returning to his famous afterword, The Subject and Power, in Dreyfus and Rabinow (1982), we find a useful toolkit for analysing political efforts that either found post-neoliberal forms of subjectivation or co-opt other subjectivities that have grown up in resistance to neoliberal governance to patch up/maintain prevailing assemblages of extraction, exploitation, and control. As Labour is offering a state-centred political project, Foucault’s sketches of pastoral power and attacks on forms of individualism congenial to the operation of state institutions, his analytical separation of power from linguistics and sign systems, understanding as power as action on action, the constitution of “others”, and the how points of agonism and tension are incorporated into dominant modes of governance, as well as Foucault’s five methodological points for analysing power so we can make sense of what Negri (2017, p.161) calls a circulation of “command, exclusion and violence” are essential points of departure for analysing and anticipating what is likely to come. While accepting Deleuze’s (and Foucault’s!) argument that disciplinary techniques and logics are obsolete in the absence of a regime of control, a politics of re-founding and re-emphasising the state as the official centre of social life makes a return to the crude technologies of power more likely.
Monday was Liberal Democrat manifesto day! Following Ed Davey's well-received video about his being a personal carer for his son, the biggest splash - larger than his Lake Windermere antics - was the party's commitment to pushing more money into health and social care services. This would involve a special minimum wage for care workers two quid above the present £11.44 hourly rate, an additional £20 on carers' allowance, and raising the ceiling of what carers can earn before the state starts clawing it back. Okay, these are not big commitments really but are likely to be better than what Labour offers in its manifesto. Tough choices and all that. Other offerings include a windfall tax on fossil fuels producers, mental health professionals in every school, increases to capital gains tax, and an unwarranted attack on trade unions.
The Lib Dems aren't doing fantastic in the polls, what with Nigel Farage exciting the media pack (plus ça change) and the Greens eclipsing the yellow party in a couple of surveys. But they are worth keeping an eye on, and not just because they're positioned to do well out of a Keir Starmer government. There is a chance, a slim chance, they could be the official opposition after 4th July. Can you imagine it? No more Tory psychodrama hogging the headlines. Names like Suella Braverman forgotten. Their racist hobby horses and culture war rubbish no longer have political traction. Starmer will have his agenda, and from the Despatch Box Davey will take him on on the NHS, care, the single market, and other staples of liberal and centrist concerns. This is politics as Ian Dunt's dreams made flesh.
If you believe that's going to happen, I have a bridge to sell you.
Assuming the Lib Dems become HM's opposition, absolutely nothing will change when it comes to the discourse of British politics. This election campaign typifies it. Reform, if they're lucky, can look forward to returning a single MP - most likely Farage himself in Clacton. Yet, despite having a handful of councillors they are getting more coverage than the Greens (800+ councillors) and the Lib Dems combined. You can't put this down to the unique threat Reform poses the Tories. Chances are the Lib Dems will take more votes and seats off them. No, what the election is showing is the institutional predisposition toward the right. And that's not going to disappear simply because the parliamentary Tory party might end up holding its meetings in a phone box.
The Tory press, which to all intents and purposes are as much part of the party as its cadre of MPs, councillors, and the rest, have a sunk investment in the politics they peddle. They are as steadfast in the maintenance of bourgeois class relations, and that will inform their critique of the incoming Labour government. Not because they believe Starmer is going to outlaw landlordism and nationalise sausages. As hyper-class conscious partisans of capital the very idea of the Labour Party worries them. The trade union link, its dependence on supporters who don't have much of a stake in British capitalism, and the recent memory of Jeremy Corbyn's leadership makes them nervous. Despite Starmer's many assurances and the general cast of his project, they are concerned he might raise political expectations with his nebulous promises to fix things and make public services work.
So what? Aren't the press in long-term decline as well? Yes, but they still determine Britain's political conversation. Broadcast journalism and their online content accept them as the gatekeepers of what is and isn't an issue, and for a variety of (usually self-serving) reasons leading politicians except their talking points as legitimate concerns and will respond to them. Hence, in our imagined scenario Davey might press Starmer on the care crisis, but given his acceptance of right wing framing on so many things, the Labour leader has effectively chosen to be held accountable on right wing issues. And because of this, he's going to provide the press with enough hot air to reflate the busted Tory balloon and give them an opening for a partial return.
Even though the Tories suffering their deserved decline and fall, there is still a mass constituency for conservatism in this country. Its continuous erosion is the ultimate root of Tory woe, but for now it remains substantial. Over and over, in briefing and in policy terms, Labour has genuflected in this direction. And even as mass conservatism diminishes to a rump that can never win an election by itself again, the modus operandi of tacking right equalling super clever smart politics will still light up the Starmerist dashboard. As 1997 is the model, and tragedy and farce will befall the incoming government as they imitate Tony Blair's time in office, because he retained political dominance by owning so many traditional Tory (if not Thatcherite) concerns you can expect Starmer and co try the same trick.
Early on in the campaign, Starmer and Rachel Reeves had great fun telling the media that "stability means change". And vice versa. This applies to politics. We might be in store for a massive realignment where the Tories are so reduced that, for the first time since the early 20th century, they might get beaten by the Liberal Party. Or, to be more accurate, its direct successor. But apart from the change it would make to parliamentary arithmetic, we won't see the advent of "sensible" or "grown up" politics. It will still be dominated by scaremongering, racism, beggar-thy-neighbouring. Not a new liberal enlightenment but the usual divisive swill, and for Starmer and friends that will suit them fine.
In this country, electoral politics is the graveyard of left wing aspirations. But that has never stopped the far left - defined here as a movement of groups, parties, and/or alliances that lays claim to Marxist, communist, class conscious, and/or socialist labels - from fielding its own candidates. Now that nominations for seats closed on Friday 7th June, by my reckoning there are 242 candidates standing under an unambiguously left wing party label. There are also 59 more left wing independents, of which more shortly.
How does the scale of the far left challenge match up to previous years? Very few candidates stood in 2017 and 2019 because most of the left had seized the opportunity Corbynism presented and were plugging away in the Labour Party. At the last election just 17 candidates from seven organisations stood, a small total exacerbated by the particular character of that election. This was slightly down on the unexpected contest of two years previous. You would have to go to 2015 for a proper assessment of the far left's strength and, yes, more people are standing now than nine years ago. Then the different parties and alliances of the extra-Labour left fielded 215 candidates, with 131 of them coming from the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition. That was higher than the Socialist Alliance at its height and better than the official Communist Party's peak of 100 candidates at the 1950 general election.
Fast forward to 2024 and George Galloway's Workers' Party have surpassed the record set by TUSC. Going by my online tour of the country's constituencies, the electorate in 152 constituencies will have the WP option. In contrast TUSC, the electoral vehicle that doesn't take elections seriously, was able to rustle up 40 candidancies. This is way down on 2015 and is even beaten by their 2010 debut, where they stood in 42 seats.
Other sizeable interventions, at least by the minnowed standards of the British far left, are offered by the Communist Party of Britain and the Socialist Labour Party. The CPB, benefiting from a rejuvenation of the Young Communist League, has managed a roster of 14 candidates. This almost doubles the numbers standing in 2015 and 2010. No such infusion of fresh blood has flowed into the SLP, which doesn't seem to exist between elections (though, to be fair, the SLP East Midlands banner was at Saturday's Silk Mill march/festival in Derby, and apparently I'm the spitting image of one of their lesser spotted comrades). Its 12 candidates this time beats 2015's eight, but pales against 2010's 24. Then you have the usual smattering of smaller groups who habitually stand in elections. The weirdest campaign has to be that offered by the Socialist Equality Party who've decided to centralise their scarce resources by launching two challenges at the opposite ends of this island.
242 candidates means this is the largest far left election challenge ever. But is even more so if you add in the 59 independents. There are definitional issues about whether these could be classed as left-of-Labour challenges. On the one hand, the answer is obviously a yes. Considering the hightest profile of these, such as Jeremy Corbyn, Faiza Shaheen, Andrew Feinstein, and Leanne Mohamad, these are politically and rhetorically to Labour's left. But from the point of view of measuring the electoral strength of the far left over time, they're problematic. As independents, such candidacies draw on different dynamics. For example, thinking back to Ken Livingstone's victorious London mayoral candidacy in 2000, no one suggested at the time that left challengers to New Labour were on the cusp of great things. A point reinforced by the very modest votes won by the London Socialist Alliance in the contemporaneous assembly elections.
Talking of definitional issues, some readers would query the acceptance of the Workers' Party as a far left organisation. Dodgy candidates, including not a few who throw around antisemitic and conspiracy theories like they're confetti, and the party's sociological base reminds one more of Reform than socialist organisations that are routinely critiqued - like the Socialist Workers' Party - for being middle class. Despite this, there are three reasons for including them here. Galloway has positioned the WP as a left organisation, and one that subscribes to an anti-imperialism that goes well beyond the bounds of mainstream politics. The second is its policy platform. The pledges outlined on its website are similar demands to what you might read at the end of a dreary Trotskyist weekly. The anti-woke posturing the party has grown notorious for is downplayed. And, thirdly, as far as the ordinary punter is concerned arguments about the WP's composition don't come into the equation. With Reform and the Tories scrapping in the sewer, voters motivated by racism and spite have more attractive options than a party defining itself in soldiarity with victimised ethnic minorities. You don't have to like them, but for my money the WP is within the scope of what the 'far left' is.
One last point, can we talk about sectarianism? With 650 seats up for grabs, there are plenty enough to go round. But no. Leaving aside clashes between left independents and left organisations, which swim in slightly different streams anyway, there are - give or take a few - 34 clashes among our 242 candidates. There are even a couple of seats where three left baldies are fighting over the same comb. This inability to avoid clashes is partly down to obstinance, with the SLP, Workers' Revolutionary Party, and Socialist Party of Great Britain being the biggest offenders. All for their very worthy reasons. But one cannnot discount amateurism as well. Since Rishi Sunak came to office, the parties should have determined which seats they were targeting and focused their work accordingly knowing an election wasn't far off. The failure to do so isn't just intra-left clashes, but Galloway's Workers' Party partly filling the vacuum and the much-larger-than-usual clutch of left independents doing their own thing. For those of the Leninist persuasion, the party is supposed to be the memory of the class. How far they are from this ideal can be measured by their inability to learn from past election campaigns.
Predictions are almost as foolish as standing in an election with a party name no one identifies with, but I'm going to venture some forecasts about the performance of the candidates below. Jeremy Corbyn will be re-elected as an independent, and will continue to haunt the brains of the Labour right despite the inevitability of their crushing electoral victory. I also think Galloway is in with a very good chance of retaining Rochdale. With the Labour vote already fraying, though not enough to forestall this election's outcome, and the depravity of Israel undimmed as the establishment continues to minimise and excuse its crimes, Galloway is in with a shout. As for the rest? People Before Profit across the Irish Sea are expected to get quite decent votes off the back of consistent work. Elsewhere a smattering of left independents will save their deposits though none will win, and by and large the party label candidates will do poorly, with a typical range of between 0.5 and 1.5%. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news to those for whom this will come as a hammer blow.
Below are listed all the candidacies I'm aware of. If there are any missing, please drop a comment. Please note where a candidacy is underlined, that means it is clashing with another.
Alliance for Green Socialism Leeds North East - Mike Davies Lewisham North - John Lloyd
Communist Future Manchester Central - Caitriona Rylance
Communist League Manchester Rusholme - Peter Clifford Tottenham - Pamela Holmes
Communist Party of Britain Blaenau Gwent - Robert Griffiths Bury South - Dan Ross
Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket - Darren Turner
Coatbridge and Bellshill - Drew Gilchrist Edinburgh North and Leith - Richard Shilcock Glasgow North East - Gary Steele Hastings and Rye - Nicholas Davies
Ipswich - Freddie Sofar
Leicester South - Ann Green Lewisham North - Oliver Snelling Merthyr Tydfil and Aberdare - Bob Davenport Newcastle East and Wallsend - Emma-Jane Phillips
South West Norfolk - Lorraine Douglas
Taunton and Wellington - Rochelle Russell
Left Independents
Aberdeen South - Sophie Molly
Banbury - Cassie Bellingham
Bethnal Green and Stepney - Ajmal Masroor
Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk - Ellie Merton
Birmingham Edgbaston - Ammar Waraich
Birmingham Hall Green and Moseley - Mohammad Hafeez
Birmingham Ladywood - Akhmed Yakoob
Birmingham Selly Oak - Kamel Hawwash
Brentford and Isleworth - Zebunisa Rao
Bristol East - Wael Arafat
Cardiff West - John Urquhart
Central Devon - Arthur Price
Chingford and Woodford Green - Faiza Shaheen
Dudley - Shakeela Bibi
East Ham - Tahir Mirza
Eltham and Chislehurst - John Courtneidge
Enfield North - Ertan Karpazli
Feltham and Heston - Damian Read
Frome and East Somerset - Gareth Heathcote
Grantham and Bourne - Charmaine Morgan
Harrow West - Pamela Fitzpatrick
Heywood and Middleton North - Chris Furlong
Holborn St Pancras - Andrew Feinstein
Hove and Portslade - Tanushka Marah
Ilford North - Leanne Mohamad
Ilford South - Syed Siddiqi
Islington North - Jeremy Corbyn
Kensington and Bayswater - Emma Dent Coad
Kingston and Surbiton - Yvonne Tracey
Leicester East - Claudia Webbe
Leicester South - Shockat Adam
Leyton and Wanstead - Shanell Johnson
Liverpool Garston - Sam Gorst
Liverpool Wavertree - Anne San
Mid Cheshire - Helen Clawson
Monmouthshire - Owen Lewis
Newcastle upon Tyne Central and West - Yvonne Ridley
Newport East - Pippa Bartolotti
Oxford East - Jabu Nala-Hartley
Preston - Michael Lavalette
Reading West and Mod Berkshire - Adrian Abbs
Sheffield Brightside and Hillsborough - Maxine Bowler
Sittingbourne and Sheppey - Mike Baldock
South Dorset - Giovanna Lewis
Southgate and Wood Green - Karl Vidol
Southport - Sean Halsall
Stockport - Asley Walker
Stockton West - Monty Brack
Stoke-on-Trent Central - Andy Polshaw
Stratford and Bow - Fiona Lali
Stratford and Bow - Steve Headley
Tottenham - Nandita Lal
Tunbridge Wells - Hassan Kassem
Walsall and Bloxwich - Aftab Nawaz
Wells and Mendip Hills - Abi McGuire
West Suffolk - Katie Parker
West Ham and Beckton - Sophia Naqvi
Wigan - Jan Cunliffe
Windsor - David Buckley
Wycombe - Ajaz Rehman
People Before Profit
Belfast North - Fiona Ferguson
Belfast West - Gerry Carroll
Foyle - Shaun Harkin
Scottish Socialist Party
Glasgow East - Liam McLaughlan
Rutherglen - Bill Bonnar
Socialist Equality Party
Holborn and St Pancras - Tom Scripps
Inverness, Skye, and West Rossshire - Darren Paxton
Socialist Labour Party
Bangor Aberconwy - Katherine Jones
Barnsley South - Terry Robinson
Birmingham Perry Bar - Shangara Singh
Camborne and Redruth - Robert Hawkins
Central Ayrhsire - Lois McDaid Edinburgh North and Leith - David Jacobsen
Forest of Dean - Saiham Sikder Gloucester - Akhlaque Ahmed Mansfield - Peter Dean
North Ayrshire and Arran - James McDaid Plymouth Sutton and Devonport - Robert Hawkins
South Derbyshire - Paul Liversuch
Social Justice Party
Scarborough and Whitby - Asa Jones
Socialist Party of Great Britain
Clapham and Brixton Hill - Bill Martin Folkestone and Hythe - Andy Thomas
Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition
Aberdeen North - Lucas Grant
Birmingham Erdington - Corinthia Ward
Bristol North East - Dan Smart
Cardiff East - John Williams
Chorley - Martin Powell-Davies Coventry East - Dave Nellist
Crawley - Robin Burnham
Croydon West - April Ashley
Doncaster North - Andy Hiles
Dundee Central - Jim McFarlane Folkestone and Hythe - Momtaz Khanom
Gateshead Central and Whickham - Norman Hall Glasgow North East - Chris Sermanni
Glasgow South - Brian Smith
Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes - Mark Gee Ilford South - Andy Walker
Islington South and Finsbury - Ethan Saunders
Kingston upon Hull North and Cottingham - Michael Whale Leeds Central and Headingley - Louie Fulton
Leicester West - Steve Score
Liverpool Riverside - Roger Bannister Mansfield - Karen Seymour
Northampton South - Katie Simpson Plymouth Sutton and Devonport - Alex Moore
Reading Central - Adam Gillman
Rutherglen - Chris Sermanni Sheffield Central - Isabelle France Sheffield Heeley - Mick Suter Smethwick - Ravaldeep Bath
South West Devon - Ben Davy
Southampton Itchen - Decland Clune Southampton Test - Maggie Fricker Southgate and Wood Green - Karl Vidol
Swansea West - Gareth Bromhall
Swindon North - Scott Hunter
Uxbridge and South Ruislip - Gary Harbord Walthamstow - Nancy Taaffe
West Ham and Beckton - Lois Austin
Worcester - Mark Davies
Worsley and Eccles - Sally Griffiths
Transform
Bishop Auckland - Rachel Maughan Newton Aycliffe and Spennymoor - Brian Agar
Workers' Party GB
Alloa and Grangemouth - Tom Flanagan
Altrincham and Sale West - Amir Burney
Ashton-under-Lyne – Aroma Hassan
Aylesbury – Jan Gajdos
Barking – Hamid Shah
Bath - Matthew Alford
Battersea - Hazel James
Bedford - Prince Sadiq Chaudhury
Birmingham Hodge Hill and Solihull North - James Giles
Birmingham Yardley - Jody McIntyre
Blackburn - Craig Murray Blaenau Gwent - Choudhry Yasir Iqbal
Bolton North East - Syeda Misbah Kazmi
Bolton South and Walkden - Jack Khan
Bootle - Ian Smith
Bradford South – Harry Boota
Brent East - James Mutimer
Brent West – Nadia Klok
Brentford and Isleworth – Nisar Malik
Bridgwater - Gregory Tanner
Bromsgrove - Aheesha Zahir
Broxtowe - Maqsood Syed
Burnley - Tass Hussain
Burton and Uttoxeter - Azmat Mir
Bury North - Shafat Ali Bury South - Sameera Ashraf
Caerfyrddin - David Evans
Cambridge - Khalid Abu-Tayyem
Carshalton and Wallington - Atif Rashid
Ceredigion Preseli - Taghrid Al-Mawed
Chatham and Aylesford - Matt Valentine
Cheadle - Tanya Manzoor
Chelmsford - Mark Kenlen
Chelsea and Fulham - Sabi Patwary
Chesham and Amersham - Muhammad Pervez Khan
Chesterfield - Julie Lowe
Cities of London and Westminster - Hoz Shafiei Coventry East - Paul Bedson
Coventry South - Mohammed Ali Syed
Crawley - Linda Bamieh
Crewe and Nantwich - Phillip Lane
Croydon South - Kulsum Hussin
Croydon West - Ahsan Ullah
Derby South - Chris Williamson
Doncaster Central - Tosh McDonald
Dover and Deal - Colin Tasker
Dudley - Aftab Hussein
Dundee Central - Raymond Mennie
Ealing Central and Acton - Nada Jarche
Ealing North – Sam Habeeb
Ealing Southall - Darsham Singh Azad
Edmonton and Winchmore Hill - Denise Headley
Eltham and Chislehurst - Sean Stewart
Enfield North - Aishat Anifowoshe
Erith and Thamesmead - Mohammed Abu Shahed
Feltham and Heston – Amrit Mann Gloucester - Steve Gower
Gorton and Denton - Amir Burney
Greenwich and Woolwich - Sheikh Raquib Hackney South and Shoreditch - Mohammed Hussain
Halifax - Shakir Saghir Hammersmith and Chiswick - Raj Gill
Harrow East - Sarajulhaq Parwani
Hartlepool - Thomas Dudley Hastings and Rye - Philip Colley
Havant - Jennifer Alemanno
Hayes and Harlington - Rizwana Karim
Hendon - Imtiaz Palekar
Hornsey and Friern Barnet – Dino Philippos
Ilford North - Shabaz Hussain Ilford South - Golam Tipu
Kingston and Surbiton - Ali Abdulla
Knowsley - Graham Padden Leeds Central and Headingley - Owais Rajput Leeds North East - Dawud Islam
Leeds South - Muhammad Azeem
Leeds West and Pudsey - Jamel El Kheir
Lewisham East - Steph Koffi Lewisham North - Mian Akbar
Lewisham West and East Dulwich – Gwenton Sloley
Leyton and Wanstead - Mahtab Aziz
Lincoln - Linda Richardson
Luton North - Waheed Akbar
Luton South and South Bedfordshire - Yasin Rehman Manchester Central - Parham Hashemi Manchester Rusholme - Mohhamed Bilal
Manchester Withington - Elizabeth Greenwood Merthyr Tydfil and Aberdare – Anthony Cole
Mid Derbyshire - Josiah Uche
Middlesbrough and Thornaby East - Mehmoona Ameen
Mitcham and Morden – Mehmood Jamshed
Newark - Collan Siddique Newcastle upon Tyne East and Wallsend - Muhammed Ghori Newton Aycliffe and Spennymoor - Minhajul Suhon
North Durham - Chris Bradburn
North East Cambridgeshire - Clayton Payne
North Somerset - Suneil Basu
Northampton North - Khalid Razzaq
Nottingham East - Issan Ghazni
Nottingham South - Paras Ghazni
Nuneaton - John Homer
Oldham East and Saddleworth - Shanaz Saddique
Oxford East - Zaid Marham
Pendle and Clitheroe - Syed Hashmi
Peterborough - Amjad Hussain Plymouth Sutton and Devonport - Guy Haywood
Poplar and Limehouse - Kamran Khan
Putney - Heiko Khoo
Queen's Park and Maida Vale - Irakli Menabde
Rawmarsh and Conisbrough - Robert Watson
Redditch - Mohammed Amin
Richmond and Northallerton - Louise Dickens
Rochdale - George Galloway
Rochester and Strood - John Innes
Romford - Zhafaran Qayum
Rossendale and Darwen - Tayab Ali
Rotherham - Taukir Iqbal
Salford - Mustafa Abdullah
Sheffield Brightside and Hillsborough - Mark Tyler Sheffield Central - Caitlin Hardy
Sheffield Hallam - Mohammed Moui-Tabrizy Sheffield Heeley - Steven Roy
Sheffield South East - Muzafar Rahman
Shipley - Waqas Khan
Slough - Adnan Shabbir Smethwick - Nahim Rubani
South Northamptonshire – Mick Stott
Southampton Test - Wajahat Shaukrat Southgate and Wood Green - Geoff Moseley
Stalybridge and Hyde - Audel Shirin
Stockport - Ayesha Khan
Stourbridge - Mohammed Ramzan
Stratford and Bow – Halima Khan
Streatham and Croydon North - Wasseem Sherwani
Stretford and Urmston - Khalila Choudhury
Sutton Coldfield - Wajad Burkey
Tamworth - Adam Goodfellow
Thurrock - Yousaff Khan
Tooting - Tarik Hussain
Torbay – Paul Moor Tottenham - Jennifer Obaseki
Twickenham - Umair Malik
Wakefield and Rothwell - Keith Mason
Wallasey - Philip Bimpson Walthamstow - Imran Arshad
Watford - Khalid Chohan
Widnes and Halewood - Michael Murphy
Wimbledon - Aaron Mafi
Windsor - Simran Dhillon
Wolverhampton South East - Athar Warraich
Wolverhampton West - Vikas Chopra Worsley and Eccles - Nasri Barghouti
Wycombe - Khalil Ahmed
Wythenshawe and Sale East - John Barstow
Workers Revolutionary Party Hackney South and Shoreditch - Carol Small Hammersmith and Chiswick - Scott Dore
Liverpool Garston - Frank Swinney
Oxford East - Brandon French
Peckham - Mariatu Kargbo
Rishi Sunak's spectacular mishandling of the D-Day commemorations have been nothing less than catastrophic for the Tories. What has happened owes less to the successful unfolding of Operation Overlord on the beaches 80 years ago. Instead it reminds one of Operation Dynamo, the hasty, chaotic evacuation of British, Belgian, and French troops from Dunkirk four years previously. Except that salvaged a huge allied army from the jaws of defeat. For Sunak, his mistake - easily the equal of Boris Johnson's party gate or Liz Truss tanking the economy - will not have any upside for the beleaguered forces of the Conservative Party. It does instead make their coming defeat all the more total and final.
The popular legitimacy of the British state has declined in recent years, exemplified by the relatively muted popular reaction to the death of the Queen and King Charles's coronation. But the Second World War and the role Britain played in the defeat of the Nazis remains a source of pride and nostalgia, particularly for the post-war generation who grew up in its shadow. They learned about the hardships and tragedies straight from their parents. Most families have relatives that served in the war and, in a lot of cases, that has become part of the background of who they are. Even if people don't know the ins and outs of the major battles. They appreciate and respect what millions went through, and feel gratitude for the hundreds of thousands of Britons who were killed at home and overseas.
By ducking out of the commemorations early, ostensibly to record an interview with ITV News to deny allegations of lying during Tuesday night's leaders' debate is a double thumbing of the nose to official ritual and the sacrifices made by those who did not come home. If this was not the middle of the election, in terms of the mores and propriety of bourgeois politics it would be a resigning matter. Especially so now it has emerged that Sunak had to be persuaded by Emmanuel Macron to attend in the first place.
What the hell has happened? For Nigel Farage, Sunak "doesn't care about our culture" (nudge, nudge, wink, wink). This dog whistling doesn't wash. Rather, Sunak's clanger has its roots in his class politics. For one, this place was talking about his lack of nous before it was fashionable. It might be that Sunak is a singly incompetent guy, but this is inseparable from his political programme. Which, baldly put, is to offer absolutely nothing. It was evident from his first day in office, and since then all of his policies have been punitive culture war rubbish. This is about trying to manage people's expectations by offering nothing, so they in turn won't make future demands on the state. Pulling off the class politics of not doing anything requires skill, and that's something Sunak obviously lacks.
This is compounded by what is becoming the worst Tory election campaign ever. Even worse than Theresa May's 2017 debacle which, you'll remember, still managed to get her over the line as the largest party. Sunak's challenge - to keep together a rump from which some sort of recovery might be staged - was rendered almost impossible by Farage's return. And so, he's done what so many of his boss class fellows rail against: he's quietly quit. This checking out is evident from the half-arsed round of apology interviews. With him looking under threat in his own nominally super safe seat, who can blame him if his vista is filled not by the Downing Street dining table but a golden horizon of silhouetted palm trees and sun kissed beaches? Life as a moneybags venture capitalist hanging out in Silicon Valley must seem so much simpler and alluring than the dross of British politics.
It's all over. All Labour need do is sit back, and perhaps have a bit of fun speculating what terrible blunder Sunak will commit next.
For most visitors to this blog, the words 'eurodance' and 'masterpiece' seldom, if ever go together. But as I have a blog post cooking tonight, here is some absolute monster filler that never bothered the charts in this country. Our bad, I guess.
Can the news get any worse for the Conservatives? Before ITV's Leaders' Debate, Survation dropped its first big MRP of this campaign. Field work took place between the day the election was called, and it puts voter intention on 43% Labour and 24% for the Tories. By the standards of recent polling by sundry firms, not too catastrophic. Until you look at the seat-by-seat projections. Labour surges to 487 seats with the Tories trailing on 71. And remember, polling was done before Nigel Farage announced his comeback. Those Tory numbers could get even worse.
For Rishi Sunak, the situation could not be more desperate. He needed a good night facing off against Keir Starmer in the hope of salvaging a viable core post-election. But as this and other MRPs show, Sunak himself can't not pay to ignore his formerly super safe constituency, which is set on becoming a marginal. Sunak then needed to be less the Prime Minister's Questions point scorer, and certainly not repeat his arrogant tones of a couple of years back during the televised Tory leadership debates. He needed to strike the statesman pose, which was certainly going to be the ground on which Starmer pitched his tent.
And as for the Labour leader, this is his election to lose. And that has been the case since Liz Truss entered Number 10. Yet even he and his team know that disgust with the Tories are driving polling numbers, they want to turn that into an enthusiasm for Starmer that has long been lacking. For most people, up until now he has been a grey blur so for many this would be their first serious look at how Starmer comes across. What he had to do was make sure he didn't lose his cool, fluff his lines, and come over worse than the Prime Minister. How did they do?
It was pretty appalling all told. To be fair to Starmer and Sunak, this wasn't entirely their fault. Keeping the head-to-head to just over an hour and cramming in as many questions as possible meant they were limited to 45 second answers. Completely ridiculous. Like much political commentary, this did nothing to enlighten or, as we used to say in the old organisation, "raise the level". ITV had engineered the debate to produce quick time sound bites. It didn't put either leader in much difficulty because none of the questions stretched them. As such, I doubt anyone would have come away with a changed mind.
The substance of "discussion" was pretty meagre. Sunak did like to talk over Starmer a lot and had more chair's actions aimed at him, but then the format did suit what he was selling. Telling viewers to forget about the last 14 years, we needed to have our eyes fixed on the future. According to the Prime Minister, the economy is doing well, NHS waiting lists are coming down, small boats in the channel are falling. He's protecting households from the costs of the green transition by basically doing bugger all about it, and he's thrown more money at the military. But this was very secondary to his main message. Labour can't be trusted with national security, Labour will flood our streets with asylum seekers, Labour will have a deputy PM that doesn't like nuclear weapons, Labour's going to increase energy bills and force people to buy heat pumps and electric vehicles. But most of all, the one thing Sunak would not shut up about was Labour's alleged plan to hike taxes by £2,000/year. Someone was paying attention during the face-to-faces between Boris Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn: repeat one thing again and again and again so it lodges in the mind. In fact, one thing that did surprise is that Sunak didn't go lower. Given he's running a core vote only campaign, I'm surprised he didn't make more of his "quadruple pension lock" - the guarantee that pensioners will not pay tax on their state pension. Because Labour aren't backing his scheme, he ventured that Starmer favoured a "retirement tax". But he only proffered this once, which would be more effective with his desired audience than dodgy claims about a phantom tax bill.
Starmer for his part didn't go in for aloof serious vibes. He went for the Tory record. Showing two can play Sunak's game, the words "Liz Truss" paired with "trashed the economy" were uttered almost as much. Initially it seemed he was knocked off balance by the £2k tax gambit, and only revisited it to rubbish it half-way through the show. Of the two, he certainly offered more. He talked about GB energy, plans to build 1.5 million homes, more teachers, action on NHS waiting lists. He promised leadership on Israel Palestine, saying it would be his "solemn duty" to make a resolution a reality. He didn't say much on the economy even in the dedicated economy question, but his response to the climate question linked it to economic growth and opportunity - which differed from Sunak's rendering it as a cost and an obstacle. Basically, Starmer didn't need to bring much to the table beyond his memorised content of the pledge card, and so didn't.
Audience participation was much more muted than the polarised election of 2019, but both men got cheers and applause. Though Sunak distinguished himself by receiving jeers and mocking laughter over his national insurance scheme. Something Starmer can undoubtedly look forward to when he does the next round of these four/five years down the line.
Going back to what both men were trying to achieve with this, I think both will be pretty pleased. Sunak got his attack lines out and was able to peddle his fear-mongering. He wasn't skewered on the Tories' record, thanks both to the format and his relentless conjuring of the anti-Labour terrors. Starmer wasn't ruffled either. He wasn't provoked, and when Sunak hit below the belt rather than booting back Starmer quickly tried to refute his nonsense. In all then, a score draw. But Sunak needed to smash it and have Starmer deflate like a souffle, not making any headway here means certain catastrophic defeat on 4th July.
Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. At a press conference on Monday afternoon Nigel Farage made the "emergency" announcement that he was taking over the leadership of Reform (incorporated as a for-profit private company that he's chief shareholder of) and declaring for the Clacton seat. With the Tories already reeling from a series of polls forecast a range from bad defeat to complete catastrophe, rather than doing a deal and saving the party's bacon (as per 2019) he's going to be in there at the kill. He's relishing the chance to administer one, two, many knife thrusts into the guts of the badly wounded Conservative beast. The Tories' final expiration is not a matter of hype now but a very real possibility.
One doesn't have to like his politics or even like Farage to understand his appeal. He's a million miles away from the dead-eyed briefcases that pass for most mainstream MPs. His "you-can't-say-that" use of right wing talking points appear to come from an authentic place, simply because Reform's owner/leader can speak for as long as he likes coherently, without prompts, and not without humour. It's this peculiar charisma that struck a chord with some men of a certain age, and has beguiled many a journalist. Farage's politics are as reactionary as they are boring. But our Nige most assuredly is not, and it's that kind of star quality that is missing from the Tory line up. And that is a problem. For right wing voters hungering for an authoritarian figure, no-knack Sunak doesn't measure up.
In the questions, Farage gave the impression that Reform weren't likely to win any seats. And he's probably right. Clacton, which is held by the anonymous right winger Giles Watling (who is more famous for playing a character in Carla Lane's Bread over 30 years ago, which says it all) has an enormous cushion of votes under his backside. It's unlikely Farage can overturn such a majority, even with Labour winning over Tory voters with the Lib Dems and the Greens tearing out their share here in there. But the danger comes in those marginal seats which, given the state of the polls, could include any constituency where the Tory incumbent has a majority lower than 15,000 votes. Reform could easily make a difference and tip dozens more seats into Labour and Liberal Democrat gains. What a terrible shame.
How are the Tories meeting the threat of Reform? As it stands, their campaign so far has been entirely about shoring up the core vote. Whether it's peddling national service (which appears to account for losing support, according to the latest survey from JL Partners) or cranking up the fear factor, none of it is shifting the polls in their direction, nor is it warding off Reform's menaces. Now that Farage is in play and can use his standing to win over more Tory voters and lure others out on election day, where does the Conservative campaign go? Sunak has decided there's no place like the gutter, and is banging the ECHR drum again in the hope that the promise to do Brexit for a second time will appeal. You don't need to be terribly astute to realise that it won't.
The problems the Tories have is that to the mind of the Reform-minded voter, Farage's tales of Brexit betrayal ring true. They were promised frictionless trade with Europe, a clampdown on immigration, the spending of monies saved on decaying coastal towns and the country outside of the South East. And, of course, the £350m/week for the NHS. Leave campaigners said the cost of living would come down and, to borrow a recent Tory party phrase, the economy would be going "gang busters" free from the sclerotic weight of a decaying EU. None of this has happened. The reason why is because Brexit was a pie-in-the-sky project that suited the interests of a section of British capital, but no one likes to be taken for a mug. And so there's mileage in Farage's argument that Brexit has been mishandled and the opportunities binned because the Tories are Marxists in hock to leftist ideology, or some such rubbish. Therefore, because the Tories are choosing to fight on this ground they are doomed to lose a bidding war with Farage. The result is a split vote and the kind of election result even I didn't contemplate in my more excitable moments writing the book.
But does Farage's return also pose a threat to Labour? The idiot's scribe Tom Harris thinks so, though his argument is perhaps the most stupid comment I've seen on the election so far. Apparently Labour voters might be tempted because excitement. No, Keir Starmer doesn't have to be worried about opposition coming from the right for a while. But if he plays the immigration bad/anti woke politics game, and there's nothing in his speeches on immigration to say he won't, he's throwing Farage a lifeline that will keep him politically relevant long after the Tories are taken out and he fails to win for the eighth time running. In cultivating scapegoats of Labour's own, he also runs the risk of a war with Reform that Labour cannot win. Especially as it would speed up the disintegration of his own base which, to be honest, isn't in rude health - despite what the polls say.
As for Reform itself, does it have much of a future? Not really. As with UKIP before it, because of the character of its support it has all the declinist features of Tory support in extremis. But it doesn't need longevity. Farage's purpose - openly stated - is to pressure UK politics from the right and swing it toward his brand of authoritarian politics before realities catch up with its obsolescence. If by doing so he's able to hold back the struggle for a green transition, the final victory of socially liberal attitudes, and stymie the ascendency of the new class politics, that means a longer period in the spotlight and more cash for a gilded retirement. Reform, after all, is a business and the purpose of a business is to return a profit to its owner.
On Thursday morning I cancelled my Labour Party membership. It wasn't difficult. Doing the belt and braces thing the monthly direct debit got done first, and the online resignation form was filled out. And that was it. A 14-and-a-half year relationship ended with a few clicks.
I'm not unique, nor am I immune to the political processes I write about. No one stands outside of history after all. The decomposition of Labour's base is real and, just as recent events have accelerated the long-term decline of the Tories, the Labour leadership's support for Israel as it openly commits genocide has increased the rate at which Keir Starmer and his thuggish allies are hollowing out the party. For me at least, the attacks on Diane Abbott and the sacking of Faiza Shaheen and Lloyd Russell-Moyle were the final straw. If you are on the left in Labour, there is only so much shit you can eat and my belly has distended with my fill.
This isn't to say the character of the Labour Party has changed. It remains what it always has been: a fusion of opposites. It is simultaneously a party of selfless sacrifice and careerism, of peace and the enthusiastic advocacy of war, of working class self-help and the prostration before business. Self-confidence and servility runs through Labourism like Blackpool through a stick of rock, but in more recent years, as the internal counter-revolution against the vestiges of Corbynism has gathered steam the party has been remade. Starmer's mantra of "returning the party to service" is returning it to an outright political instrument of British capital. His "country first, party second" mantra is a coded statement to British business that their interests are the priority, and those of labour, which after all Labour is supposed to represent, are relegated to the never never. The right are in the ascendency, and the ability to do something about it within the party is extremely limited.
This is me, I suppose, catching up with my analysis. Years ago we could see Starmer sowing the seeds of his political self-destruction, but I didn't expect them to start germinating so readily. To be able to engage with the process of political recomposition outside of Labour, be it in the street and protest movements, the seeming impetus behind the left independent candidacies, and what's happening with the Greens means, for me at least, that Labour membership is a political encumbrance as well as a moral burden.
What my decision is not is a denunciation of those on the left who've kept their membership and remain variously active in the party. Nothing is gained from rubbish like "you can't be a proper socialist if you're a member of the Labour Party". This black and white approach to politics is common because it's a structural feature of every day life, but is something to be resisted, not embraced. James Schneider in his book Our Bloc, and his recent spot on Politics Theory Other made the obvious and sensible argument that all sections of the left should talk to one another and cohere as much as its able, given competing areas of focus. The left, it is worth remembering, has a mass presence that can set the agenda and make the establishment tremble. It is much more than the caricatured Saturday paper sale and the inquorate trades council meeting. If the future is in the business of being dangerous, then that is the only destiny suitable for the left.
Anyway, I'm rambling. That's the end of the road for me and the Labour Party for the time being. But certainly not an end for me and politics.
It's been eight months (eight months!) since the blog last played host to a round up of new left media projects. And that's because not many have shown up on the radar. But there has been a trickle, and here they now are. All are worth giving your time to, so check them out!
If you know of any new(ish) blogs, podcasts, channels, Facebook pages, resources, spin offs of existing projects, campaign websites or whatever that haven't featured before then drop me a line via the comments, email, Facebook, or Twitter. Please note I'm looking for new media that has started within the last 12 months, give or take. The round up appears hereabouts when there are enough new entrants to justify a post!
I can't think of another episode that sums up the Labour right's spite and petty-mindedness more than what's happened this week. Taking out Lloyd Russell-Moyle with a vexatious complaint with no time for him to contest it. Deciding to get rid of Faiza Shaheen - selected fair and square by her CLP - and using decade-old tweets from before she was a party member as evidence for her "unsuitability". And then Diane Abbott who, we learned this week, had had the "investigation" against her closed in December and that everything Keir Starmer has said about the subject since has been an outright lie. The Labour right pushed to block her candidacy, but their schemes suffered a rare reversal as political and media pressure, and Diane's threat to stand as an independent, forced them into retreat. Not that they're too bothered, seeing how they helped themselves to a heap of safe seats suddenly made vacant by MPs pressured into retirement.
This tawdry episode, particularly the targeting of Diane, is a quick time run through of what they've done to the party since Starmer got elected. However, while the media can usually pay little to no attention to internal Labour stitching and purging, unless the left are in charge, this is no longer the case. Since Starmer disgracefully went into bat for Israeli war crimes, Labour has suffered a collapse among its core Muslim vote. This is the immediate precipitating factor of George Galloway's by-election victory and the seeming viability of his party - and is a story even the most obsequious Starmer-loyal outlets could not ignore. Now we're in a general election campaign, all this is fair game for the media. Especially for its Tory supporting sections who are looking for anything to throw in Labour's direction.
That alone makes the Labour right's factional moves stupid. They're undertaking them in full public view at the height of a general election campaign when more people are paying attention. But they say much more than that. Not content with alienating important blocs of Muslim supporters, the shoddy treatment meted out to Diane shows the party thinks it can manage without black British supporters too. All week we've had Labour figures, usually white men, saying she was a trailblazer but now her time is up. What do these geniuses think the conversations are among black households and those for whom anti-racism matters, and is not a guise put on for appearances sake? Again, it's the same disgusting calculation. They think Labour can not only win despite pissing off core voters, it can actually win even more hard right votes by capitalising on the Tories and the media's racist demonisation of Diane.
Apart from the immediate consequence of emboldening racists, especially when right wing street mobilisations are more likely in the coming years, this shows the shape of unpleasant things to come. Labour has never been backward about being forward with its own dabbling in racist politics and strategies. It's embedded in Labourism's soul, and under Starmer it has been deployed as a weapon when considered opportune. But with the elevation of so many Labour right apparatchiks to the parliamentary party for whom racism is a factional and political tool, the readiness to use it has, on paper, grown. These are the ones who will be the loudest cheerleaders for Starmer's "Border Security Command", for demonising refugees and immigrants, ramping up the anti-Muslim rhetoric and, it almost goes without saying, bombing Middle Eastern nations.
The second is that they've got away with their objective. Starmer has carried the can for their obsessive attacks on Diane, but are flush with success from cancelling Shaheen's candidacy and putting Russell-Moyle out to pasture. Who can say whether there will be more in the coming days? By outsourcing shenanigans to the worst people in the party Starmer has given them carte blanche to do as they please, and this entitlement to their fiefdom will include the PLP and Number 10 after the election. They can't wait to do their own leaking, their own briefing against ministers and other MPs/rivals. They want to swan around like they own the shop. And because Starmer has limited his own hinterland thanks to his Faustian bargain with these people, their turn against him when things go wrong is foregone.
But there is much more serious trouble brewing. It's been long argued here (and here) that, despite the seat distribution of the 2019 election result, Starmer inherited a pretty hefty coalition of Labour supporters that was likely to hold together and grow provided he pushed policies that were commensurate with their interests. Of course, he was never going to do that but the warning's there, lodged in the historical record. Over three years on and his politics and the behaviour of his fair weather allies have accelerated that process. Offering nothing for workers, despite his patronising language about "working people", attacking trans rights while pretending to be LGBTQ+ friendly, and the racism of backing Israel and taking delight in attack Britain's first black woman MP is demobilising this support. The current polling numbers flatter Starmer, powered by a visceral anti-Toryism over any genuine affection for the Labour leader and his policy agenda. But they will not last long, and as the difficulties mount the people he and his project have so far alienated, along with millions of others, are going to find alternatives ready to receive them.
