Chamberlain Labour

Approximately 100,000 on a far right march in London. A grim new milestone in post-war political history, and one conventional politics has spent all summer cultivating. What, for instance, did the big brains in the Labour Party think was going to happen after tailing the extreme right on immigration, and saying the tiny band of fascist-led protests against asylum seekers - which were self-evident efforts at repeating the same kind of disorder we saw last year - "had a point"? This is the culmination of Keir Starmer's rancid approach to immigration, one that has, alongside blanket media coverage, legitimated and amplified Reform in the first instance, and now enabled mass far right street politics. Never mind the Peter Mandelson scandal, Labour MPs should be demanding his resignation for this catastrophe.

The government's response to racist violence on the streets of the capital this weekend is pathetic. Number 10's comms allowed tumbleweed to roll through the Saturday evening news schedules. And as the Sunday morning politics programmes swung around, there was a statement from our new Home Secretary, Shabana Mahmood, that condemned the violence and ... that was it. An almost apolitical law and order response, as if she was talking about car theft or shop lifting. Worse, Peter Kyle, considered by the leader's office as an able communicator, was invited to venture a political opinion about the far right march on Sky News with Trevor Phillips. He said it showed "free speech was alive and well" in this country. No rebuttal, no response to Elon Musk's call for the overthrow of parliament. Another roll-me-over-and-tickle-my-belly moment. Finally, on Sunday afternoon Starmer uttered something. He said will "never surrender" the flag to the far right. How can the Prime Minister's words be taken seriously with his track record of ceding them the political initiative?

We've been here before. Last summer, Starmer's approach to the riots was politically weak. Instead, he left it to the King of all people to make the rote remarks about cohesion and community. And this reluctance to afford fascism a political rebuttal does not start with Starmer. In the 1930s, as 2010 paper points out, party activists were instructed to avoid agitating and confronting the Mosleyites and that being quiet about the far right would freeze them out of politics. Though, to be fair to this feeble strategy, Labour's efforts at ignoring the British Union of Fascists did not mean adopting the overtly racist parts of their programme or suggesting its thugs were motivated by genuine concerns.

Starmer's timidity toward the far right reflects the politics of our under-fire friend, Morgan McSweeney. Caught in the same doom loop that helped do the Tories in. As a well heeled member of the ruling class, his politics coincide a great deal with Tory statecraft. I.e. Offer nothing that might raise political horizons or get people's hopes up, because that could lead to popular demands they cannot comfortably accommodate within the settlement they defend. And so draw deep on the old, anti-immigrant racist traditions and divert anger toward undesirable out-groups while demonstrating the government's efficacy by dealing decisively with them. It's an approach that smacks of patronising contempt of Labour's voters, while desperately - and against all evidence - hopes it will keep them on board in lieu of anything else. For McSweeney and his view of "working people", anything that might sound like criticism of the racist politics of Nigel Farage, Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, Elon Musk, and he rest of the horror show will put off the people they ignorantly assume might support Labour in the future. A strange strategy when the job of winning the next election is about keeping the voters the party has in the seats that they have, but who are we to dispute the genius that thought bringing Mandelson back would be a good idea?

This is the root of the Labour leadership's paralysis. If we stay quiet while drunk far right mobs scream racist abuse and say they want to assassinate the Prime Minister, perhaps they'll give us a look before the next election. A strategy that will prove a slam dunk for sure. In the real world of politics where the consequences of this are playing out, the results of Starmer/McSweeney's approach has been the loss of one parliamentary by-election, giving away dozens of seats to Reform in council by-elections, and a collapse in Labour's already low levels of support. They are legitimising the extreme right by letting them dictate the terms of politics, and in so doing are paving the way for them while hoping, somehow, its voracious appetite for division and hate will be gratified by Labour's offerings. This is appeasement pure and simple. It didn't stop fascism in the 1930s. And it will not work today.

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By their Friends

You know Keir Starmer is on a sticky wicket when Kemi Badenoch made him squirm, disassemble, and throw out whataboutery like confetti at Wednesday's Prime Minister's Questions. The publication of Peter Mandelson's cringeworthy correspondence with the disgraced billionaire and sex trafficker, Jeffrey Epstein, shines an unwelcome light on a politician who revels in his dark reputation. It's a moment that highlights Starmer's double standards, considering how others have gone for far less.

In the letters, Mandelson calls Epstein his "best pal". On the occasion of the financier's birthday, he gushed "Once upon a time, an intelligent, sharp-witted man they call 'mysterious' parachuted into my life." Awkwardly, in 2010 Mandelson was able to leverage this chummy relationship after Epstein's conviction for child sex offenders to offload a UK state-owned bank on the cheap. And even worse, Mandelson apparently urged his "best pal" to fight for early release. When a leader says they have full confidence in an appointee, as Starmer has done, conventions suggests that the US ambassador's days are probably numbered.

Mandelson and scandal goes together like noughts with crosses. On the one hand, his personal conduct is less than above board. For instance, while he was busy scheming and plotting the removal of Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader "every day", he failed to declare interests and dishonestly badged his consultancy firm as a something that does not dispense political advice to avoid public oversight. He provides friendly counsel to union-busting firms, and happily cultivated the Tories while they were in office and provided jobs for former ministers. During the New Labour years, he famously took out a personal loan from Geoffrey Robinson - against the rules - to buy a desirable Notting Hill pad. When he returned to government it wasn't long before he was forced to resign again, this time for sorting out a passport for one of the Hinduja brothers after they donated a million pounds to the Millennium Dome project. They were facing allegations of their own around weapons and corruption at the time. After leaving office and finding his feet as an EU trade commissioner, he was noted for his friendship with Diego Della Yalle, an Italian fashion magnate who, entirely coincidentally, benefited from Mandelson's decision to slap tariffs on Chinese shoe imports. He was known for his links with Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska, an "entrepreneur" who made billions from plundering state owned assets in the chaos following the USSR's dissolution, and over whom Epstein-esque allegations currently hang.

Having read Mandelson's The Third Man, it's quite obvious that, like so many Labour figures before him, he used the party as a vehicle of social mobility. But perhaps none, save Tony Blair, have been as successful in getting wealthy off the relationships built between billionaires and businesses, and successive governments. Mandelson isn't unlucky in being a scandal magnet. Being a grasper, and filling his boots hanging around with financiers, tycoons, and self-styled entrepreneurs, means encountering moral vacuums is one of the occupational hazards. Anti-social psychopathy is a well known trait among billionaires, what with their senses of exalted importance and suicidal hubris. Mandelson, having not come from money, has used his skillset and contact book to insinuate himself into their lives and has become an indispensable retainer. So when Badenoch asked Starmer about whether he was aware of the extent of Mandelson's relationship to Epstein, the unspoken answer was "yes, of course". It was precisely because of his ability to schmooze and flatter plutocrats that the Prime Minister packed him off to Washington in the first place. Small wonder he still has full confidence in Mandelson being able to carry on with his role.

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Mulling Over Mainstream

Mainstream - the home for Labour's radical realists. This is how the newest faction on the block styles itself. Following Angela Rayner's exit, the clearing out of "Burnhamite" North Western MPs, the installation of the most politically narrow cabinet in Labour history, the deputy leadership election, and the gnashing of trade union teeth at the TUC's annual conference, its launch is blessed with fortuitous timing. And it's likely to annoy the Labour right, who think they have the monopoly on political wisdom and that the Blue Labour rubbish (minus its supposed fealty to left wing economics) is where most of Britain is at. Polling figures hovering around the 20% mark suggests not.

What does Mainstream stand for? Its statement of values talks about protecting workers, long-term investments, defending liberties, democracy, and international law, and touts an open conception of a national community in which everyone has a stake. Shades of old friend One Nation Labour from the Ed Miliband era. On how Mainstream as a faction will work, there are commitments to pluralism, an openness to ideas, a commitment to defeat Faragism (or, borrowing from Stuart Hall, 'authoritarian populism'), and work to enhance democracy in the Labour Party. Looking through the signatories we find a mix of Jeremy Corbyn-associated figures, soft left MPs, and - fittingly enough - some from the mainstream of the parliamentary party.

This initiative will strike a chord with many members. Despite Labour's best efforts to to lose troublesome members, or as one Starmerite insider memorably put it, to "shake off the fleas", the much reduced rump left are likely to find plenty that's attractive about Mainstream. Not just because it contrasts with the Prime Minister's monochromatic managerialism, but the fact it speaks to their grievances. All across the party, including in the Labour machine, there are people weary of Morgan McSweeney's grip and are rightly concerned that he and Starmer are leading Labour over the cliff with their continued boosting of Reform and extreme right wing politics. Because of this and thanks to the accident of timing, the new faction could play a role in determining the outcome of the deputy leadership.

As argued here before, In theory Labour could bring it back and see off Reform because the party has the levers of government to do things. And pivoting toward popular policies instead of getting into a racist bidding war with Farage could undercut the extreme right's support. Racism doesn't drop from a clear blue sky - it is embedded in how economics and politics works, exacerbated by the choices made by governments. Assuming Labour does poorly at next year's local elections and Starmer is removed, a new leader with a Mainstream and a mainstream policy platform might be able to turn it around. But it would be far from easy, what with an eco-populist alternative and the menaces of a new viable left party.

Unfortunately for those involved and Labour as a whole, Mainstream is probably a couple of years or so too late. Had this coalition formalised itself to prevent Starmer's backsliding on his leadership pledges, it could have been a bulwark against his leadership's capitulations and stupidities and the fragmentation of the party base. The actions Labour really needed to take to arrest Reform and prevent it becoming a threat to democratic politics have had their moments in the recent past. The task now is much harder. And so in the spirit of comradeship, while I wish those on the Labour left involved with Mainstream well it does smack of being too little, too late.

After Angela Rayner

So much for my forecasts. The report of the government's standards' advisor found that Angela Rayner's failure to pay the correct stamp duty on her £850k Brighton pad was not motivated by avoidance, but she should have sought the appropriate specialist advice. As such, she broke the Ministerial Code. Under these circumstances, there was no way Rayner could brazen it out as many a Tory minister had under the ancien regime, and she quickly located a sword to fall on to. This left Keir Starmer with two headaches. Who to appoint Deputy Prime Minister, and the difficulties arising from the election of a new Deputy Leader for the Labour Party.

To be fair to Starmer, and true to his state bureacrat background he has moved swiftly to prevent festering speculation by carrying out a major cabinet reshuffle. David Lammy is Rayner's replacement, and adds Lord Chancellor and the justice brief to his portfolio. Yvette Cooper Has been shifted from the Home Office to Foreign Secretary. Whether that's because Starmer is dissatisfied with her performance in the doomed effort to stop the boats awaits commentary from helpful insiders. She's replaced by Shabana Mahmood, who has something of a reputation of taking on thankless tasks and, before Labour entered government, received little thanks in return. The recently promoted Darren Jones find his new job as cabinet enforcer (the absurdly-titled Chancellor of the Grand Duchy of Lancaster) subsuminng his new-old job as Chief Secretary to the PM. Pat McFadden is off to the DWP, while Liz Kendall carries the can for the welfare debacle and resurfaces as science minister. Also in is Wee Dougie as the Scotland minister, and out is Ian Murray - a permanently soggy tea towel long overdue a hanging-out to-dry. And gone is Lucy Powell, or Andy Burnham's representative in cabinet. With her and Rayner warming seats on the backbenches, no other Labour cabinet has had as many right wingers sitting around the table.

Stuffing your top team with think-alikes presents its own problem: the other trends and shades of opinion in the parliamentary party do not have representatives shaping "phase two" of Starmer's government. Appearing decisive and not shilly-shallying around with the appointments closes down speculation now, but could cause political problems later. And this is where the deputy leadership contest rears its ugly head.

With the cabinet a monochromatic grey of tired, obsolete managerialism, there is every danger the upcoming election might see an outbreak of politics. Of course, the gatekeepers will ensure that no one from the Campaign Group will get a look in. But there is unhappiness on the backbenches. Careerists impatient to begin climbing the career ladder, honourable members irked at McSweeney's arrogance and thuggery, worry warts concerned that the racism is inflaming, not dampening support for Reform, Starmer supporting the Palestinian genocide, and going out of their way to attack the most vulnerable. The moment is ripe for old hands and new faces to make a splash, and therefore the possibility of embarrassment. For Starmer, it would be preferable that the contest did not happen and that a single loyalist figure comes forward, but the pre-recess welfare rebellion makes such an enforced outcome difficult. McSweeney's threats didn't work then and caused a great deal of upset among the PLP. With the party firmly on the skids they probably won't cut the mustard now.

And whatever the outcome, though the appointment of the party's deputy leader as Deputy Prime Minister is a convention, the presence of another politician with their own mandate from the MPs, membership, and union affiliates acts as a pressure on Starmer. He might, horrors, have to accommodate mass opinion. Blocking a contest, nobbling the candidates, or later refusing to appoint the deputy is not without risks. Especially now a left alternative is coalescing. So Rayner is down and out for now, but the mess she leaves is fraught with beartraps for a clodhopping leadership.

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Unravelling McSweeney

A handful of points on Patrick Maguire and Gabriel Pogrund's Get In: The Inside Story of Labour under Starmer.

1. This story is really a commentary on the activities of Keir Starmer and, more importantly, Morgan McSweeney. In fact, given the conversations, insights, and reflections on who was thinking and saying what and when from "sources close to the leadership", McSweeney should have been given a writing credit.

2. Virtually all the dirty tricks the Labour right pulled during the Jeremy Corbyn years (including some not covered previously) are confessed to. The barefaced lying, the arm twisting, the diddling with delegates, and the breaking of electoral law, everything is included. According to Labour legend, when John Spellar read John Golding's vainglorious The Hammer of the Left, he was pissed off that the right's dirty tricks were out in the open for all to see. Reading this book must have made his face melt.

3. On their co-author McSweeney, there are two mentions of planning meetings taking place at his mansion. Which reminded me that McSweeney is actually from a bourgeois background, and helps explain his antipathy to anything smacking of working class politics. Helps, but does not account for all. The pen portrait of McSweeney that emerges is of a bureaucrat who is hungry to smash the left and win elections. What he actually stands for is thin on the ground. There is nothing about a commitment to improving the health service, helping the vulnerable, and making sure education delivers equality of opportunity - which are the values even the most vacuous, tank-grown backbench Starmerite would admit to. But McSweeney does appear to care about immigration and hammering those who, like he once did, want to make their fortunes on these shores. In any other context, McSweeney would fit right in to the contemporary Tory party or, for that matter, Reform.

4. This, its predecessor volume (Left Out), and Tim Shipman's Brexit/Tory collapse quartet (All Out War, Fall Out, No Way Out, and Out), all share the same methodology: of politics boiled down to personalities and the clashes between them. This is soap opera for boring people. The interplay of interest and individuals is a matter of coincidence. In Get In, for instance, there is some discussion of Trevor Chinn and Waheed Ali and what they have done for the Labour right. In the latter's case, there's some treatment of freebiegate and his having once had a Number 10 pass, and his apparent veto on measures that would curb wealth concentration. But his support for the party is presented as an individual foible, not an exercise of his - and by extension - common oligarchical interests. As such this, like Shipman's work, political comment generally, and mainstream politics' obsession with biographies evidences a distorted picture of politics that they all share.

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Rayner in Danger

Her future is now in the hands of the government's independent standards commissioner, but if Angela Rayner's account of how she "forgot" to pay £40k in stamp duty is found to be substantially true, it's unlikely she'll have to resign from cabinet. Nevertheless, buying an £850k des res while holding the policy brief for overcoming Britain's housing crisis was a bad look to start with, reinforcing the popular perception that politicians are on the make. And reckless too, what with the historic low levels of support this government had to start with that have only got worse since.

The problem Rayner has is her role in government is not only to bring an otherwise staid operation a touch of colour, it's to blast the Tories over their rank hypocrisies. Such as around dodging tax. Even if the standards process exonerates her, it's not likely she'll front any attacks on this any time soon. At Prime Minister's Questions today, Keir Starmer made a public show of backing his deputy and, in another absence of tactical nous, Kemi Badenoch largely left the issue alone. But from Starmer's standpoint, losing Rayner would be a calamity - despite his backroom boys having previously had fun attacking her base in the party.

Unlike Starmer's relationship to Rachel Reeves, there has long been tension between leader and deputy but more recently it has proven productive. The PM brings (or, rather, brought) the vibes of managerial competence and Mr Rules probity, while Rayner can convincingly appear authentic - more so than other cabinet continuity Blairites from similarly humble backgrounds. And when it comes to elections, Rayner's easy-going charisma is a boon for a government of empty suits and non-personalities. Without the cover she provides, it's difficult to see any other Labour figure filling her shoes and belting out the John-Prescott-in-a-skirt numbers. Without her, Labour in office appears even more alienating and divorced from the working people it it affects to represent.

The Tories, however, are cock-a-hoop. Their hostility to Rayner isn't simply snobbery. After all, until recently there were a few working class Conservatives that sat on their benches. Rather, despite her patchy politics that swing between the soft left and the stupidities of Blue Labour, what irks the Tories and the leader writers of the unhinged right wing press is what she represents: the presence of trade unions in political life. For these people, the very hint of working class collectivism, no matter how diluted, is something our hyper class conscious gatekeepers of permissible politics cannot stomach. For them, the prize of Rayner's departure is not so much getting rid of a key prop of Starmer's premiership but the sinking of the workers' rights agenda she has championed. How likely would that be taken up with any enthusiasm by a replacement?

Given the stale set of promises Labour were elected on, and how much this government is already subsumed by capital's interests, we're in the less than optimal situation where the watered down promises to improve workers' rights might rest on Rayner's beleaguered shoulders alone. And it's for this reason, and this reason only, why we should be careful about cheering on her departure.

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The Greens' Historic Opportunity

Congratulations to Zack Polanski for his emphatic victory in the Green Party leadership race. Carving out an 84% share of the votes shows a depth of support that can't simply be written off as refugees from Corbynism. Even under the outgoing leadership of Carla Denyer and Adrian Ramsay, the party's left wing turn had powered it to a record number of MPs, councillors, and London Assembly members. Armed with an unapologetic "eco-populism" unafraid of attacking concentrated wealth and using class-based arguments to criticise Labour's doomed efforts to out-barbarise Nigel Farage and Reform, Polanski has a clear strategy for appealing to the disaffected. But is it reasonable to suppose the Greens' upward trajectory will continue?

There's a yawning gap for the party to fill. While the Greens have traditionally been seen as a radical petit bourgeois party because, in all honesty, they were, its environmental and social justice messaging is resonating far beyond its narrow, traditional support base. There are events like the Palestinian genocide, the racist scapegoating of asylum seekers, the junking of environmental protections, and the experience of being at the sharp end of class inequality that are neglected by the mainstream but are nevertheless shaping politics, and are issues the Greens have ready answers for. And there is the wider shift in class relations as well, where the growing dominance of immaterial labour is reinforcing socially liberal values. The Greens' vibes resonate with ever wider layers of workers while its policy platform is largely consistent with their perception of their interests. For example among the cohorts most thoroughly socialised into the social competencies immaterial labour requires, the latest YouGov poll reports they are on 27% among 18-24 year olds, four points clear of Labour and 12 points ahead of the Tories and Reform combined.

As noted previously, there are a couple of obstacles in the Greens' way. Can Polanski keep hold of the small c conservatives that supported the party in Waveney Valley and North Herefordshire while going for the broadening progressive vote? And what about the new Corbyn/Sultana party? Indicative polling shows it could command up to a fifth of the electorate right out of the gate, and the silly numbers that have signed up to the mailing list casts a shadow that dwarves the aggregate size of the rest of Britain's political parties. The new left party will be fishing in similar waters, and then some. Polanski knows this, and welcomed its formation while holding out the possibility of cooperation. A putative alliance would apparently attract a third of all votes as a starting point.

You'll note that Labour isn't listed as an obstacle. Bullishly, Polanski has declared his ambition to replace it. After a summer of chasing Reform voters and reaping the reward of ever-declining polling, Labour are now congenitally incapable of fielding political arguments against the left. For example, this sponsored(!?) piece on LabourList tries building something out of Keir Starmer's "power, not protest" drivel. With a straight face, Robert Knowles-Leak, a self-styled specialist in combatting the Greens in (*checks notes*) Bristol, shamelessly accuses Polanski of pushing divisive politics and offering false hope. He says the Greens offer easy solutions and have broken promises in his home town by selling off council houses, without noting that Labour have done little to nothing to replace the 22,000 lost in the city since the early 1980s. An oversight, I'm sure. Summing up, he says serious parties listen to the electorate. But the Greens are listening to the electorate, it's Starmer, McSweeney and co. that have decided the people's priorities on the environment, on Gaza, on housing, and on the NHS are not worth bothering with. In other words, a weird little piece that reproduces every accusation-is-really-a-confession trope.

With nothing to offer progressive voters, Labour's defences against Polanski's eco-populism are so many chocolate fireguards. The Greens stand on the threshold of an historic opportunity, and every sign points towards their readiness to capitalise on it.

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How Not to Cover a Reshuffle

The new parliamentary term began today, and Keir Starmer led it off with a small reshuffle. Darren Jones has moved from the Treasury to 'Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister', a new position in charge of "delivery". Baronness Minouchie Shafik, having previously done stints at the IMF and Bank of England is now Starmer's chief economic advisor, and Tim Allan - former Blair lackey and founder of the Blairite comms firm, Portland, is confirmed as the sole head of Downing Street's PR machine. Gone is Liz Lloyd, another Blair era appointee, to make way for Jones. Politically, does it mean anything? Does it signify a fresh start? No. The government remains the same slow motion car crash it was yesterday.

That hasn't stopped some from trying to read significance into these mainly managerial moves. In some of the most tenedentious commentary I've read recently, for the Telegraph associate editor Gordon Rayner declares this was "a power grab" that shows Rachel Reeves is on borrowed time. The evidence? Moving Jones to Number 10 leaves the chancellor "publicly humiliated". Mindful that Prime Ministers who sack their next door neighbours aren't long for this political world, this is apparently an element of a low-key campaign to make her life impossible and force Reeves's resignation after her multiple misfires in office.

This, alas, is an exercise in right wing wishful thinking. A point underlined by the additional comment provided by John Redwood. For one, if the framing was true there would be "insiders" touting anonymous briefings. Maybe Rayner's contact list has a dearth of Labour numbers, so he couldn't find anyone to give him the inside track. But nowhere else is running the line that this is a constructive dismissal effort. Not even the gossip mongers at Guido, who prefer to dwell on how Jones's appointment takes some responsibilities off Pat McFadden. If displeasure underpins the reshuffle, one could make a more plausible case for it being at the expense of his brief, not Reeves's.

Since Reeves's appointment, there is some truth to the notion that she has blindsided Starmer, particularly with last summer's debacle over winter fuel payments. One might suggest Starmer had no choice but to stick by his chancellor so early in the new government, but her initiative was consistent with the Labour right's approach to social security. And it proved to be the jumping off points for further attacks, most of which have been blunted or abandoned. These cannot be layed solely at Reeves's door. The Prime Minister nodded every one on, and his unelected henchmen were greenlit to do their worst "persuading" opposition-minded MPs to back the line.

There is no truth in the view that Starmer and Reeves are in tension, let alone at splitting point. He has accepted her outlook, conditioned as it is by the Treasury/Bank of England/City nexus as the commonsense view on matters economic - reinforced by Shafik's appointment. This reshuffle is business-as-usual and more of the same. And Rayner's Telegraph piece? A case study of forcing the facts to fit a baseless conclusion. Which just about sums up the entirety of right wing politics in the moment of Conservatism's collapse.

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Rachel Reeves's Pitiful Attack on Corbyn

Being the object of Rachel Reeves's criticism is like getting gummed by a toothless sheep. Nevertheless, her "scathing" broadside against Jeremy Corbyn interests because, in a few sentences, she encapsulates the outlook and politics of the Labour right.

Speaking at the Edinburgh Fringe and asked about her opinion on Corbyn's emerging new left party, the Chancellor said "Jeremy Corbyn has had two chances to be prime minister and I think the country gave their verdict, most recently in 2019 when Labour had its worst result since 1935 ... He tried to destroy my party and he can now go set up his own party ... The country has rejected him twice. The bloke’s got a big ego. He can have another go but I think the country will have the same verdict.”

It's always funny when the likes of Reeves bring up the "worst result" line. Because, as we know, this nadir in Labour's recent parliamentary fortunes still secured more public support than Keir's Starmer's super spectacular victory. It was only the collapse of the Tories and the Reform surge that gave the 2024 election the first-glance appearance of a Labour triumph. She knows this too, and so do all the journalists who've praised Starmer's pragmatism and genuflected to Morgan McSweeney's hyped up genius. It's almost as if there's a conspiracy of silence that refuses to ask questions or acknowledge the problems with the election result.

That Reeves should accuse Corbyn of nearly destroying the Labour Party sounds a bit like projection too. Always a politician who has to get other people to do the organising for her, Reeves kept her head down during the Corbyn years. But she was party to the destructive behaviour that ensured a left-led Labour never got a clear run at the Tories. And, in the summer of 2016, she was on the side of the isolated parliamentary party that not only tried to topple Corbyn, but threatened to split the party with its tacit endorsement of the court case seeking to bar Corbyn from running again. And that's just for starters.

Since assuming office, Reeves has showcased a singular lack of judgement. Coming for the winter fuel allowance, then attacking disabled people, and sapping small businesses through her increase of employer National Insurance contributions, she more than any other front bencher is arguably responsible for the collapse in Labour's polling. Yes, even more than the Prime Minister.

Lastly, Reeves alights upon Corbyn's ego. The Labour right have convinced themselves that he is a preening narcissist, probably because they can't imagine that someone might be motivated to do something about poverty because they're against poverty, as opposed to it looking good for the TV cameras. And this to come from a woman who has better things to do than write her own books, and is so conscious of her place in the history books as the first female chancellor that she can't stop boasting about it, seldom do we see a clearer example of an accusation being a confession.

As you may have noticed, what was absent from her remarks was politics. Reeves can't offer a political critique of a new left party because, for her, there are no politics outside of tailing the Bank of England, doffing her cap to the bosses that might give her a nice post-politics job, and having cosy chats with establishment stenographers. She typifies the Labour right entirely. In recent days, rather than stand up to Nigel Farage's division-stoking "Lawless Britain" tour and the efforts of sundry far right groups to stir up a repeat of last year's racist riots, we see Angela Eagle affirming that those protesting outside of refugee hostels have genuine concerns. And then we had Peter Kyle and Jess Phillips likening Reform's opposition to the Online Safety Act as "enabling modern day Jimmy Saviles". When you look at who was the chief crown prosecutor at the time, I'm guessing they haven't thought about the consequences of dwelling on this.

The Labour right do not have the ability or the nous to take on their opponents to their left and their right, because they got to the top by lying, chicanery, and bureaucratic manoeuvring. That was enough to win them the Labour Party and, from there, an election through fortuitous circumstances. But as Reeves's lobbing of duds at the left have shown, none of them have a clue about how to defend their position. And it's this that will do for them in the end.

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The Case for Cautious Optimism

Like 500,000 other people, I signed up for the Zarah Sultana/Jeremy Corbyn Your Party mailing list. Comparing free registration to the memberships of other political parties is hardly a like-for-like exercise, but it does demonstrate a real appetite for an alternative to Keir Starmer's authoritarian incompetence and Nigel Farage's right wing extremism. And it's very likely the donation facility has already raised tens if not hundreds of thousands in small donations. Already, the new party is orders of magnitudes more significant than any other left-of-Labour outfit in British political history, and it doesn't really exist yet.

Since the announcement, and setting aside dishonest rubbish about letting Reform in and right wing panic, the establishment have, by and large, greeted it with two responses. The first is with dismissive humour, that - ho, ho, - neither Corbyn nor Sultana could get their story straight about the new party's name. What a muddle! The other, articulated on Times Radio, has it that there are too many irreconcilables among the party's potential support. That on the one hand you have Muslim voters lost to Labour over Gaza but who are socially conservative, and social progressives motivated by, among other things, trans rights. This surely is a mountain the nascent party would find impassable.

A more thought-through variant of this position is offered by John Oxley. He makes a similar point about the incompatibility between the voting behaviour of the so-called Gaza Independents in the Commons, and where the party's progressive base would sit. But a further difficulty is that if this can be overcome, it would - at best - lead to a handful of seats because the party has "too narrow a niche". Building reach requires issues that have broad appeal and can be capitalised on, as Farage has done with Brexit and immigration. Reform also complicates things, as it pivots towards Labour seats with its mix of anti-immigration, English nationalist politics, and dalliances with left-populist economics. Another problem are the new party's supporters, among whom are likely to be unpopular views at odds with public opinion, it's not clear how these difficulties could be overcome. That is, in the absence of one thing: a Farage of the left. "Someone with a demagogue appeal, political nous to weave these tribes together, and organisational skills to pull together a party which pushes its advantage strategically." Without this, there are flashes of anger and fragments of grievance. And so the new party will be born, but with limited life chances.

These are serious issues, but they are issues limited to a party of a certain type. All parties are condensers and coalitions of interests, but where the government, the Tories, Reform, and the Liberal Democrats are concerned, there is one interest that predominates - capital's. What they offer then are variations on a theme. I.e. Who can manage its collective interests best, which in the case of the Tories and Labour, is about engineering the class relationships British capitalism depends on. To ensure they're on the right track, leading figures cosy on up to business interests as closely as possible. No need for members as mediators of interests when luncheons and private meetings do the job. In Labour's case, this closeness to capital has proceeded with the attacks on and removal of democracy, due process, and natural justice inside the party. This leads to a politics where agency and efficacy is invested in the leadership, and offers bourgeois politics a model of how it should be done.

As a mainstream politics writer, this is the prism through which Oxley perceives politics. However, this is not the approach informing the new party. In the aftermath of his victory last year, Corbyn argued that he owed his return to the Commons to community embeddedness and power. And perhaps mindful of other left wing splits from Labour and the sundry efforts at building an alternative, he has been reluctant to commit to a new party in the absence of a strong base and an orientation that would sink deep roots into our class. Like many others, I've found this reticence frustrating. Starting a new organisation requires that someone who has social weight, which Corbyn does, makes the move and be the catalyst for what could come next. He might have been pushed into it before he was ready, but the die is cast and the numbers are coming up.

When he was Labour leader, Corbyn and Corbynism pushed it to the limits of Labourism and threatened to go beyond it. Corbyn tried to ground the party in community organising, to turn what was the traditional party of the working class in name into its party in substance. And it's encouraging that this model of collective power is the approach Corbyn wants to found the party on, and not the electoralism of a Labour mk II. This is where things can get weird where the mainstream model of politics is concerned. If this quickly puts on a few hundred thousand members at launch, as noted a while back the organisation in and of itself can become a political factor. Not because it can turn out armies of canvassers - though helpful. It comes from its social weight. Putting its energies and grounding its organisation in workplaces and communities makes it familiar, creating living relationships between members, activists, and our class at large. It becomes a party that lives the everyday lives of everyday people, because the party is them. The party doesn't need a strong leader, because its job is to generate hundreds of thousands of them. These aren't people who stand above and separately from them, like Labour politicians do, but are indistinguishable. Their leadership comes from organising and building institutions that bring our people together. This is not only the best way to break from Labourism and transform society for the better, it is the only practical way of doing so.

The party as a substantive collective, as a part of and vehicle for our class, this is its potential as things stand. There will be arguments and problems, but its declaration comes at the right time. Labour have performed dismally in office and have attacked its own base, like all Labour governments do. The country is pervaded by a miasma of dissatisfaction that the current crop of parties cannot intersect with. And, germane to the new party, the experience of the last decade in Labour Party politics, the explosion of street movements, and the proliferation of industrial disputes has swelled the legions of politically switched on and experienced activists looking for something to cohere their efforts around. The Labour leadership contest of 2015 and all that followed was a moment upon which the direction of this country's politics turned. This new party could be another one.

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From U-Turn to U-Bend

Rachel Reeves's (partial) reversal of the winter fuel cut for pensioners was as much a nailed-on certainty you can get in politics. After the local elections drubbing and the continued erosion of Labour's base, something, anything had to be done to reverse the non-stop slide in Labour's fortunes since the general election. Pensioners on incomes lower than £35k, which is about three-quarters of them, will now receive the payment compared to 1.4m or so who qualified for the help last Winter. For all her talk of the iron-hard fiscal rules, Reeves has found they're flexible enough when occasion demands.

This has nothing to do with finding extra headroom because the economy is performing better. It's all about the politics. The first is the immediate consideration. With her big spending announcements due on Wednesday when departments will receive their multi-year settlements, the government - which are desperate for good news - will hope its commitments earns them praise from all quarters. They want the winter fuel albatross taken from around their neck, so getting ahead of the main event and giving the press something to splash on now - which their elderly readership won't fail to notice - clears the decks for the goodies to come. In other words, Reeves has ensured she won't be overshadowed by ... Reeves. With most pensioners sorted, the government are hoping this is going to be so much water under the bridge by 2029. Who's going to be carping on about this then when all the nice, shiny things will be in place?

They forget we live in a politics where memory lasts and the 1978-9 Winter of Discontent is still a factor for some. No one is going to forget that as soon as Labour got into office, they cut support for the elderly and decided keeping kids in poverty was fine and dandy, while they helped themselves to ministerial perks and freebies (all properly declared, of course). You never get a second chance to make a first impression, and no amount of right-wing posturing can repair the damage done. What might is action. If people see visible improvements in public services, wage packets and pensions going further, and the country looking and acting less mean and shabby Labour are in with a shout of turning it around. But unfortunately for them, their doomed efforts at trying to out-Reform Reform, cleaving to the right, and failing to push policies that might grow and consolidate their own coalition of voters - indeed, at times, actively attacking its natural support - makes this exceedingly unlikely.

No, Labour aren't about to be thanked for turning the clock back. "Doing the right thing" cannot erase the fact they did the wrong thing in the first place, and arrogantly paraded it about as a badge of toughness.

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Labour's Money Woes

A small item in a week full of big stories. LabourList reported that the party's finances have plunged into the red. Actual figures weren't given, but £4m is needed to fight next year's local elections - the ones Keir Starmer's political future increasingly hinges on. How has the party got into this predicament? There was the small matter of last year's general election, but apart from that nothing else is said. It's as if fluctuations in the bank account are simply natural, with the party going through endless cycles of heavy spending and retrenchment. The great unsaid is this model of financial precarity is quite deliberate.

There's only one 21st century Labour leader who did not face a party funding crisis, and it was old unmentionable himself, Jeremy Corbyn. In fact, despite splashing the cash at the 2019 general election the party was still in the black when it was handed over to Keir Starmer. And this, some readers might recall, was because of the huge membership. The subscription base alone secured Labour's finances, and the enthusiasm they generated fundraised millions more. Add in the trade union fees and donations and, for four years, the party was awash with cash. It disproved the "common sense" that parties needed rich donors. Clearly, if enough people get on board, they do not.

When Starmer took over, he immediately went to war with the membership and, unsurprisingly, hundreds of thousands of them voted with their feet. Including, eventually, your scribe. Contributing to Labour's current woes are further falls in party membership, with the rumour mill suggesting 10% of those on board during the last election have upped sticks. But this is how Starmer and the bulk of the parliamentary party like it. Crowd-funded monies for workers' parties is good, because it provides the economics underpinning their political independence. But for the careerists who make it to the top, this is a barrier to their integration into the establishment. Starmer's jettisoning of members wasn't just a case of reversing the democratic gains made in the party under Corbyn, but a concerted effort at making Labour amenable to bourgeois interests - and what better way than making it financially dependent on the largesse of the rich?

As noted here many times, Labour play the game of having to constantly reassure capital that it's on their side. And this is because Labourism itself, from capital's point of view, always carries the trace of danger - no matter how supine and pro-business a Labour government. Corbynism reminded the powers that be that, from seemingly nowhere, the B team of British politics can occasionally be the site of class aspirations from below and threaten to upset the prevailing class settlement. The leadership's choice to skirt insolvency is a political one as it keeps them close to the interests Labour was set up to contest. Therefore the elite-courting cash raising plans they implement to keep the lights on, even if it risks accusations of sleaze and cronyism are, as far as Starmer, the PLP, the media, and the business class always preferable, because it keeps a lid on British politics and preserve class relations as they are.

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Explaining Rayner Danger

Angela Rayner's in the news. The Telegraph has been in receipt of documents showing that she argued for tax rises in cabinet meetings. These involved hideously Bolshevist measures like upping the back surcharge by five per cent and removing tax relief on dividends. Soon it will be a 100% wealth tax and the nationalisation of the country's cutlery drawers. For the Tory press, this demonstrates how beneath Labour's fiscal responsibility lurks a menace red in tooth and claw, desperate for the opportunity to push class warfare politics.

It's complete rubbish, of course. The threat the Deputy Prime Minister poses British capitalism is daily demonstrated by her going along with everything this government has done since assuming office. All the leak says is that, shock horror, there are different views in cabinet and that occasionally policies pushed by one minister or one faction are sent over to the Treasury for analysis. But because this is politics, everything has significance and is read as such, regardless of intention. Which has allowed for a bit of Kremlinology to work out what's going on.

Could it be that Rayner is positioning herself ahead of a leadership election before Labour goes to the country again? Where the beleaguered membership and affiliated unions are concerned, it's a reminder that someone at the top has an understanding of what Labourism is about. A diet of disability cuts and attacks on the elderly - u-turn notwithstanding - is a performance unlikely to make for happy campers, let alone electoral success. It keeps the soft left reassured and when Keir Starmer gets the heave ho, we can see who's politically best placed to take over. The leak therefore came from her team.

Or did it? We know who has a history of briefing against leading members of the government (a coincidence, I'm sure, that it's nearly always women on the receiving end), and that would be Morgan McSweeney and friends. This fits with a pattern of behaviour aimed at Rayner specifically. To their mind, Labour spending money and taxing the rich is very unpopular, and leaking Rayner's proposals would damage her in the eyes of the public and dent her chances among the PLP. This makes the party safe for Wes Streeting or some other horror to assume the leadership. It's the same kind of genius we saw on show when Labour's 2017 manifesto was leaked by a right winger, and helped ensure its offerings dominated election coverage for a few days - much to the party's benefit.

Regardless of why it was leaked, for the Telegraph it feeds into a Rayner danger obsession they share with the Conservative Party. Her politics are simultaneously chameleonic and Milquetoast, and carry a light stain of Blue Labour drivel. But as far as the right are concerned, Rayner is indelibly part of the trade union movement. Unlike Streeting and Bridget Phillipson, who are also from working class backgrounds, she made it into politics through the unions - Unison specifically. She reminds the establishment that Labour is fundamentally unreliable because Labourism draws its strength from the labour movement, and mobilises, still, the support of workers. This, despite the gyrations by many a Labour politician to play this down or efface it. For the hyper-class conscious leader writers of the bourgeois press, this is always a worry for as long as Labourism retains this base. It is chimerical, and even though Labour's history has been one of stabilising British capitalism, there are interludes where it appears poised to turn on its master - Bevanism, Bennism, Militant, and more recently Corbynism all threatened this country's class settlement, and were occasions for genuine panic in establishment circles. Rayner is attacked not only because of what she is, but because she - despite her own politics - represents to them the threat of what could be.

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More Anti-Immigration Cynicism

Reflecting on the last five years of Tory immigration policy, Keir Starmer said "the damage this has done to our country is incalculable." Immigration has turned Britain into "an island of strangers". "Enforcement will be tougher than ever and migration numbers will fall" with the target of shrinking new arrivals by 100,000/year come 2029. That means care sector vacancies going unfilled, and because Labour hates universities, institutions face a tax on every overseas student the recruit. This performative toughness has won some support outwith the party. Germany's far right AfD have praised Starmer's position. The right here, however, are performatively unimpressed.

While she fights for relevance, Kemi Badenoch said "this is nowhere near the scale that we need". Writing on Conservative Home, Ted Grainger was more downbeat, opining that the Tories had their chance - especially following Brexit - but blew it. Nigel Farage attacked Starmer for "tinkering around the edges" and said Labour were "panicked" by Reform's rise. An observation that is obviously true. Meanwhile, Starmer continues to upset his base in the media with centrist opinion right royally angry about yet another betrayal of the liberal hero image they invented for him.

We know this strategy isn't going to work. Getting into a bidding war with the Tories and Reform on immigration is a mug's game. Getting Starmer to announce the policy in The Sun, and having Yvette Cooper appear on GB News and refusing to challenge the racist questions put to her won't change the equation at all. For the core pf the racist right, only pulling down the shutters will do for a start. And those for whom it is one issue among many, evidence shows Labour would be better off playing to its historic strengths. But, as we know, this government doesn't want to stand up to the few on behalf of the many because it might raise expectations and generate further clamour for challenging established power and wealth.

Let's try a thought experiment. Knowing that similar efforts everywhere on the continent has ended in ruination for the centre left, taking them at their word why are Starmer and friends asking us to believe they will avoid that fate? It seems they are relying on the politics of demonstration. Contrary to Starmer's disgusting rhetoric about "open borders experiments", the big drivers of immigration since 2021 have been the 150,000 who've settled here from Hong Kong. Since Russia's invasion of Ukraine, over 200,000 refugees have settled here too. Both helped immigration figures spike during the last couple of years and now, very obviously, numbers are going to come down again without any government intervention. They can only migrate here the once. Just like the £22bn black hole fantasy and other data points, this will be spun as the great success of Starmer's "toughness". Therefore, when the Tories and Reform attack Labour they will have the falling migrant numbers ready to whip out to refute their arguments. Genius! It won't convince the hardcore, but Starmer hopes it will assure the Reform adjacent and neutralise the issue, giving Labour political space to showcase their record. Like cutting the NHS, taking money off the disabled, arming a genocide, etc. etc.

The attack on immigration underlines the political vapidity and moral emptiness of Starmerism. If the strategy is expecting that, when push comes to shove in 2029, progressive voters line up behind Labour to prevent the right from getting in, carrying on like this is a sure fire way to replicate the disaster of the American presidential election and saddle us with Farage in Number 10. These are the stakes and, damningly, Labour doesn't give a hoot.

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Reform's Anti-Asylum Council Wheeze

After sweeping all before it last week, there has been some thinking aloud about what Reform plan to do with its two mayoralties, 10 councils, and 676 new councillors. What Zia Yusuf, the moneybags businessman Nigel Farage has subcontracted the dictatorial running of the party to, has said is that their local authorities are going to lodge legal actions to prevent the dispersal of asylum seekers to hostels. "We have some of the best lawyers in the country working for free to resist this awful Government", he boasted.

The "reply" from centrist supporters of Keir Starmer has been insufferably smug. This so-called parody account sums up their social media outpourings to a tee: local authorities don't have the power to stop government resettlement efforts, and therefore Reform are going to be on the hook for wasting council money on pointless and doomed legal challenges. This is a demonstration of stupidity and ideology getting in the way of the serious business of delivering local services, helping ensure they lose support when the public wise up to their antics. The fools!

Unfortunately, the foolishness sits entirely with the centrists. Yusuf and Farage know legal challenges stand next to no chance. They're not embarking on this campaign because they don't know the limits of local government. It's a wheeze to build the party and keep Reform in the news. Every time a challenge is dismissed, they get to posture as the common sense little guy battling the liberal elites on behalf of hard-pressed Britons. It's a recipe for generating more headlines in the right wing press, getting the rest of the media to dance to their tune, and forcing Labour to follow their lead - because the government are uninterested in challenging anti-immigration and anti-asylum prejudices - and embedding Reform as the only real challenge to the status quo come the next election.

Yes, there will be grumbles along the way in Reform's new local government base. It won't be long before the diktats from the centre clash with what Reform-run councils and local authority party groupings want to do. There will be rows about Yusuf's power, and the usual suspensions, expulsions, resignations, and denunciations. Authoritarian politics breeds dissension. But this won't affect Reform's standing. Those who voted for them in the local elections were not convinced by their pledges on potholes and Special Education Need pupils. They're also aware councils don't have much power nor appear to respond well to residents' needs, regardless of the party who runs it. Farage and friends know this, even if super clever centrists do not. For Reform's campaign is an effort by a party serious about winning power in 2029. Something that cannot be said about the choices Labour has made in government.

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After the May Day Massacre

A bad night for Labour. A terrible night for the Conservatives. A parliamentary by-election that should have been routine for the government lost to Reform by six votes. 16 councils held by the Conservatives, all gone. 186 Labour and 676 Tory councillors looking for new ways to spend their evenings, May Day will rightly go down as a massacre. Nigel Farage's extreme right insurgency blew through council halls up and down the country and, with little effort, swept aside the established parties. The polls pointed to such an outcome, and these losses are the consquences of the strategies Labour and the Tories have chosen to pursue.

Reform did well, but no triumph is ever unqualified. The only party that benefits from hyping the result is Farage himself. In a reverse of last July's election result, in many council seats Reform won where Labour and Tory votes splintered and, like that election, turnout was low - though not historically so in local government terms. The second point is the character of Reform's vote. As has been argued here since time immemorial, over the last 15 years local elections and by-election have had an inbuilt Tory advantage. I.e. As a party heavily dependent on elderly voters, it has benefited from their disproportionate commitment to turn out and vote. Pollsters' data tables repeatedly demonstrates how Reform has a very similar voter profile, though with a tendency to appeal a bit more to older working age people than the Tories managed. Farage's success is dependent on a certain amount of clout the party has among these cohorts, and that it would be diluted in a general election where greater turnout, to a degree, depresses the influence older/retired voters exercise. Thirdly, how deep is Reform's support? In a conjuncture where Labour has made itself repulsive to older people, and the shambles the Tories have become speaks for itself, how much of this is driven by middle finger/burn-the-house-down nihilism? Immigration has always been a stand-in for a bucketful of grievances and is a condenser of concern. Therefore, if there are improvements in living standards and services and are seen to be improvements and are felt as such by the constituencies disposed toward Reform, Farage's support could prove temporary. At least that's what the data suggests.

But are we going to see movement in this direction? Labour, I suppose, are in a better position because they have the levers of government to hand and can pull on them to make the necessary differences. Unfortunately, while you even have awful right wingers like Jo White of the self-proclaimed Red Wall group dubbing the scrapping winter fuel payments Labour's "poll tax", Morgan McSweeney and Labour's big strategy brains are likelier to take notice on her call to get tough with grooming gangs. There are idiotic MPs punting for a watering down of Net Zero, and Keir Starmer himself says "he gets it" (gets what?) and that he'll go "further and faster" on his policy agenda. A politician acting in good faith and genuinely concerned about the results would have paused to think that perhaps it's those priorities that are the problem.

For the beleagured Kemi Badenoch, the task of turning it around for the Tories is much harder. How can she demonstrate change when the means for doing so are much more limited? Dave and Osborne had their fights over the Tory logo, and the superficial rebranding of the Conservatives as a socially liberal, pro-environment party. Badenoch and her stalking horse are boxed into a strategy where the Tories are trying to be more credible than Reform on the issues that Reform voters care about. It does make some sort of sense that they'd want to consolidate their base after a shattering defeat and an unprecedented challenge to their right, but going hard on immigration and anti-woke posturing cannot work because they have few means of demonstrating their efficacy. And while they do the Liberal Democrats carry on making inroads, turning what were their rural heartlands across England into new bases for a more moderate, inclusive centre right politics that the Lib Dems could well embrace. However, on Sunday's Laura Kuenssberg Badenoch said that, yes, people are angry with the Tories for their 14 years in office, but politically nothing needs to change. She even said twice that Britons needed to be having more children, referencing another social media obsession of the very online right.

While politics has changed, for both parties nothing has. Every election victory and defeat over the last five years has been interpreted as either vindication of a rightward turn or the outcome of not being right wing enough. Until their strategies are informed differently, more pain lies ahead for Labour and the Tories.

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The Eve of Destruction

The local elections are nigh, and the media have already decided who the winner is. And that would be none other than Nigel Farage. Perhaps it's just a reflection of algorithmic governance pushing stories my way, but wherever my eyeballs land there is something feeding the Reform hype machine. This piece on right wing propaganda outlet, Times Radio, condenses almost every trope coverage of Farage's faux anti-establishment party indulges. Reform are going to win hundreds of seats. It's going to take councils. Labour cannot stem the tide. And Farage is not just a social media star, the young are going total gaga for him.

Undoubtedly, Reform will do very well on Thursday. Not least thanks to the heaps of media coverage they receive. But it's worth remembering that the last time this clutch of seats were up, it was at the height of Boris Johnson's powers. And by coincidence, a Labour-held parliamentary seat is also in the mix. It's not terribly likely that they will hold on to Runcorn, though the result will probably hinge more on Labour's support having places to go and staying at home rather than turning en masse to Reform. If Farage adds another MP to the parliamentary roster, how his campaign has dug into the Tories and united the right wing anti-Labour vote behind them will have done much of the heavy lifting. If that happens, Tory/Reform talk will graduate from whispers to audible grumbles.

Ah yes, the Tories. Let's talk about them. The 2021 locals marked the Tories at their greatest extent. After pausing council elections the year previously thanks to Covid, the bloody baptism of Keir Starmer's first election test reflected more the public opinion adjustment following the 2019 election and the consolidation of goodwill the Tories (undeservedly) reaped for handling the pandemic than popular perceptions of/discontent with Labour's leader. But because Starmer's sunk new wells of antipathy and the character of the switchers from Labour to the Tories, Kemi Badenoch's crew are disproportionately exposed to Reform. Despite what Number 10 and the media would have us believe, it is the Conservatives who stand to have their local government base eviscerated. But one shouldn't just look to the right. The Liberal Democrats are well poised to gouge pounds of flesh out of the Tory rump, seeing as Badenoch and pretty much all the party have decided centre-leaning soft conservatives aren't worth bothering with.

Will this be the story come Friday morning? The Tories will do worse than Labour, but Badenoch and her putative successor will take Reform victories as a message that they need to get even more right wing. Despite what will be big losses to the Lib Dems in former heartland seats. And for Labour, if Runcorn goes and a smattering of council seats elsewhere, identical conclusions will be drawn. In other words, for both of the declining main parties, the evidence of the polls are not an occasion for thinking, reflecting, and reconsidering their political strategies. No, the preconceived narratives have already been written and the numbers will be made to fit them.

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How Labour Could Beat Reform

Labour can win the next election without pandering to right wing prejudices. That's not your run-of-the-mill left winger arguing this, but recent work undertaken by Steve Akehurst for public opinion researchers, Persuasion UK. The piece, 'Getting to Know Reform Curious Labour voters' presents lots of useful nuggets that puncture the media-confected myths around Reform's vote and Labour's exposure to them.

For example, 11% of Labour's 2024 coalition fall into the 'Reform curious' category. And if all of them switched their allegiance at the next election, all other things being equal the party would shed 123 seats. Blimey, that sounds serious. In other parts of the country the problems are worse. In seats where Reform came second, 13% of Labour voters are open to swapping Keir Starmer for Nigel Farage. In Scotland, potential defectors are pegged at around 18% of the vote. A case of keep calm, carry on scapegoating the immigrants, and everything will be alright. Right? No. The polling finds 29% of the 2024 Labour coalition are 'Green curious', and 41% are prepared to support the Liberal Democrats under the right circumstances. And those said circumstances cover substantive lurches to the right.

The Reform-curious tend to share similar demographic characteristics with Reform voters at large (white, older, disproportionately male), are more socially conservative than the rest of the Labour base, and for 66% of whom immigration is the key political issue. But these positions are "worn lightly". For example, p.34 shows the long distance between the Reform curious and actual Reform supporters, even though they're on the right of Labour's coalition. For the latter, anti-immigration, anti-Green measures, and their antipathy to "woke" is baked into their world views. For the Reform curious Labour voters, it's more of an inclination.

This is important, because it suggests rightist tendencies within Labour's coalition could be overcome without too much bother. However, capitulating to them would be devastating. The centrepiece of Akehurst's research is an experiment which measured the weighted sample's responses to Labour adopting certain policies (p.67). It finds that leaning right on immigration keeps a few percentage points of the Reform curious on board, whereas the most extreme position - banning all immigration - could reach into the Reform vote itself. But the price paid would be the mass abandonment of the party by left wing voters. And this is after many liberal and left wing voters had already gone elsewhere in 2024. Going right secures negligible benefits at significant cost.

How might Labour avoid this fate? By not shifting right. Akehurst establishes that many of the Reform curious are "economically populist", or in straight forward terms, left wing on materialist issues. Workers rights, tackling inequality, rebuilding public services, and wealth taxes are much more popular with this group than Reform voters at large. And, electorally speaking, it's the sweet spot. Avoiding the ground favoured by the right and pushing populist economic messages against entrenched interests loses no votes to the left, and crucially none to the right either. The study does not look at voters who went elsewhere last year, but as there is a growing progressive majority in this country, such positioning could recapture votes lost and go a long way to secure the party its second term.

Picture the scene when these findings lit up the Downing Street radar on Monday morning. Will Labour alter its policy direction in light of this evidence? Will it change their strategy where the ignominious collapse of the Democrats and its centre left brethren on the continent have so far failed to convince? I'm sorry to say Morgan McSweeney is likely to file this report in the trash folder. This isn't because he genuinely thinks the path to re-election lies through racist posturing, but that his project - and that of Starmer's more generally - is about managing the politics in capital's interest. This means patrolling the political terrain so things like hope and raised aspirations are shot down if they so much as peer out of their foxholes. This government has constructed a fiscal fiction designed purposely to dampen expectations, and is refusing to countenance taxes on capital and wealth because, well, the more class conscious sections of our rulers fear where that might lead. The data is inconvenient, because it's at cross purposes to the government's project. And so into the bin this useful and interesting piece of work will go, while the "Morganiser" carries on laying the foundation for a catastrophic rout four years hence.

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The Lure of the Racist Self-Own

Having accomplished an unprecedented hollowing-out of support during a general election, Labour remain committed to testing the resilience of its electoral coalition. Among the latest in a long line of tawdry announcements is news Yvette Cooper will publicise the nationality of foreign criminals. The plan involves drawing up league tables of nationalities by crime, which has become possible after wonkish twiddling with how Home Office stats are generated. But why? A "source" says the government wants the public to be better informed, but also to show how much tougher Labour is on foreign criminals than the Tories were, boasting how the government are deporting more than Robert Jenrick did while providing more information about them. And right on cue, up popped Jenrick to say this data should have been available long before now. Falling into the very trap set by the cunning masterminds behind the party's strategic direction.

The politics are, on the surface, pretty straightforward. Because in Starmerland the working class are coded as Reform-supporting racists, pandering to scapegoats will turn the heads of this largely imaginary constituency. You can picture it on the nation's mobile phones. The BBC News alert pops up with Cooper's initiative, and the couple of million looking to vote for Nigel Farage at the upcoming council elections will look at it, curse the Tories' softness, and head to the polls with Labour voting intentions in their hearts. But, of course, this is not going to happen. Reform, you might recall, is a difficulty for Labour but an existential dread for the Tories, making this in strategic terms a fool's errand. Why chase after voters breaking to the right of the Tories on cultural issues instead of shoring up one's own fraying base, or making an offer that might appeal to the apparently "economically progressive" side of the artefactual Labour-Reform switcher?

There is no political mileage for Labour in pandering to the racist mischief thr right stirs up about foreign criminals. So what's the attraction? There is a joy a certain kind of middle class politician has in bureaucratically squishing little people, and especially so if one expects plaudits. Who cares about foreign criminals? They are the perfect out group, a scapegoat tailor made for scapegoating. And Labour needs its scapegoats. But there's more! Anything that is adjacent to cracking down on immigration and immigrants, according to the Tory play book is the route to political success. That Labour have imbibed this as their political common sense is illustrative of how far Keir Starmer's leadership has moved to the right. And then we have the obscene displacement activity of massaging the organs of the repressive state. Because this is a Labour government that doesn't want to do too much that might encourage people to expect more from politics, it's much easier to give the impression of being very busy. And the comparatively risk-free way of demonstrating activity without upsetting the apple cart is to lean heavily into the politics of immigration. And in so doing, the government are contributing to the huge effort made by the media and Labour's political opponents in keeping that as one of the country's top three issues.

And yet, the stupidity is their entering a race they can never win. Galaxy brain Morgan McSweeney is implying that if deportations are ramped up, work and student visas curbed, and foreign criminals seen to be getting their just desserts, then the issue will be neutralised. But it won't be. Labour supporters who are concerned about immigration are more motivated by other issues, and if they're leaning toward Reform it's in a manner akin to those who flirted with the BNP 15-20 years ago. I.e. mostly as the nuclear option among the protest vote buttons. And those that prioritise immigration do so on culturalist and outright racist grounds, and are never going to be impressed by nationality league tables of sex offenders and shoplifters. Except as ammunition for racist scapegoating, which Labour knows is likely to happen as a result of this policy. The headlines of the gutter press write themselves.

Racism as a tool of divide and rule is just as attractive to this crop of Labour ministers as it was to the Tories. And in the mean time, the base - one it can ill-afford to lose with the post-election collapse in its polling - will carry on unwinding and finding a welcome in the Liberal Democrats, the Greens, and where they're available, independent leftists.

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Communing with Dead Voters

If you wait by the river long enough, goes the proverb, the bodies of your enemies will float by. Likewise for the left in this country. Sitting and watching politics journalism means points made years ago will find themselves laundered for mainstream consumption. And with the noticing underway - the realisation that Keir Starmer and co aren't much cop - the sub-genre of repackaged observations and arguments is picking up.

There were two such examples from the last couple of days. In her mail out to subscribers, The I's Katy Balls reported on growing disquiet among Labour MPs about the party's strategy. One (anonymous, of course) insider said "If we’re doing Reform-lite policies, we shouldn’t be losing to Reform.” Balls observes that the government might, therefore, need to shore up its left flank with policies that, shock, left wing voters might like.

And then in The Economist we have Duncan Robinson laying into the delusions that have captured the Labour and Conservative Party leaderships. Starmerism and the Tories are beholden to a zombie politics in which their favourite voter is ... dead. This constituency, which haunts the imaginations of Morgan McSweeney, commits the government to the nonsenses of Brexit and the rejection of anything amounting to a sensible accommodation with the EU. He writes, "If, like everyone else in British politics, one is looking for right-leaning, Leave-voting non-graduates with particularly authoritarian views to attend a focus group, then the best place to find them is the morgue."

Long-time readers of this blog might be experiencing dejavu. Labour's right wing turn is unsustainable? You don't say. Right wing authoritarian politics is in long-term decline, and with it the parties dependent on these constituencies? Where have we heard that before? The basic, almost banal position of this corner of the internet is in the first instance the Conservatives, and Reform are subject to the aforementioned declinist pressures. Their base in wider society is ageing and dying, and not getting replaced like-for-like. For the moment, their support turns out disproportionately but any advantage the right holds here is time limited. It's therefore foolish in the extreme for a party like Labour, which still holds leads among working age people despite the collapse of the polling position, to hitch their wagon to a bunch of gee-gees ready for the knackers yard.

So we have an identification of a problem facing bourgeois politics, but what's missing from Balls's and Robinson's account is the explanation. It might seem puzzling that Kemi Badenoch's hapless leadership is abandoning efforts at winning back thw swathe of Tory seats lost to the Liberal Democrats for the sake of a handful of constituencies they conceded to Reform. However, the Tories - not unreasonably - believe Nigel Farage is the existential threat. To stand any chance of winning again, the Conservatives have to monopolise hardcore right wing voters. At least where the thinking of leading Tories are concerned. Only when the base is secure and the interlopers seen off can they think about taking back ground from the Lib Dems. The people Badenoch and friends have to attract might be dead, but their shades continue to animate the right wing media, which is still viewed as the voice of Tory England. Though these institutions are shedding readers to the Grim Reaper daily, their editorials are so much ouija spelling out what the Tories have to do.

And Labour? Being "responsible", the "grown up" thing is to put as much political distance between their management of British capitalism, and the aspirations of the party's base. Fiscal rules, attacks on the disabled, pretending to be Brexit true-believers, the expired, ex-voters of 2019 vintage are convenient ghosts summoned from the spirit realm to haunt the excuses for inaction and cruelty. But the Labour leadership are deeply cynical mediums and lack the credulity of a Derek Acorah. Their conjuring is a fraud to alibi a politics of managing expectations. The promise of doing very little and continuing attacks on the most vulnerable and the scapegoats favoured by the Tories dampens demands on them to do progressive things, while also reassuring the ruling class that Starmerism means safety where the stability of class relations are concerned. This means the last thing the government want is to reject the dead in favour of the living, because securing Labour's future as an election winning machine that can bury the Tories and see off Reform will only happen if they strive to be capital's master, not its handmaiden. And I'm sure you don't need me to tell you how unlikely that is.