Labour's recent party conference has a noticeably different mood about it compared to last year. It was far more confident, and so was Starmer himself. While there is still a notable sense of caution, justified since this isn't the first time it looked like Labour was about to win, the confidence exuded from the 2022 Labour Party conference is also well-justified, considering there is now a real possibility that Labour will win not only the next election and take power once again, but win in a landslide not seen since Tony Blair's thumping general election victory in 1997.
The most obvious source of this newfound confidence is, of course, the abject collapse of the Conservative Party no sooner than three weeks after their new leader took office. The party had already suffered politically as a result of the myriad scandals that toppled Boris Johnson and the farcical contest to replace him, but now they have declined to such as point that they are as much as thirty-three points behind Labour in polls. After the new government's disastrous mini-budget—a blatant giveaway to the richest 1% of Britons which entailed the abolition of the 45% top rate of income tax—caused a seismic shock to the British pound, the party is now so furious at its own leadership that there are already calls for Liz Truss to be replaced as Prime Minister, again I must emphasise that this is only three whole weeks after the party voted for her as their leader.
Of course the Tories surely don't deserve all of the credit. It has become fashionable to say that Labour's strength in polls is fragile and will erode over the course of an actual election campaign. Perhaps for a time this may have been the case, but one cannot credibly make this argument anymore, not simply because the Tories are going out of their way to demonstrate their devotion to fighting the class war on the side of the rich, but also because Labour has recently made such significant policy interventions that one can no longer say that Labour under Starmer doesn't stand for anything.
Earlier in August, Labour had already established themselves as offering a credible, albeit not very far-reaching alternative to the government's approach to stemming rising energy prices by proposing a freeze of the energy price cap at the April 2022 level, which they would fund with a windfall tax on big energy companies' profits. The Labour MP Peter Dowd also recently introduced a bill that would give every UK worker a four-day work week. That alone marked a notable drift from Blairite market orthodoxy, but it was at conference which we saw even more clear policies, some of them quite strong and some of them obviously cribbed from the left. They include:
- Reinstating the 45% top rate of income tax
- Raising the minimum wage to a "real living wage" (a motion passed by delegates called for Labour to commit to raising this to £15 per hour)
- Establishing a new state-owned energy company called Great British Energy, which would operate on renewable energy sources
- Investing £28 billion per year to transition to a green energy economy
- Creating an £8 billion national weath fund which would help finance the aforementioned transition
- Renationalising the railways
- Reviving the council housing sector and boosting it to the point that it overtakes the private rented sector
- Providing better pay, terms and conditions for care workers
- Scrapping the Tories' racist Rwanda plan
- Reforming the Gender Recognition Act of 2004
- Abolishing the Tories' cruel disability assessments
- Passing a new Race Equality Act which implements the provisions recommended by the Lammy Review
- Keeping Channel 4 and the BBC under public ownership
- Allowing patients to book GP appointments online so that they no longer have to phone them at 8am to get an appointment
- Funding free breakfast clubs in all primary schools in England
- Guaranteed mental health treatment for patients within a month
None of this is especially radical, and in fact collectively they are a reassertion of the kind of social-democratic politics that used to characterise the Labour Party until the 1990s. Nonetheless, this is certainly rather impressive considering that many of us on the left were expecting a stodgy conservatism from Starmer, and I imagine that many of us who bear the hidden injuries of class rule in Tory Britain will feel somewhat relieved by the fact that the next Labour government will at least try to address some of our everyday concerns. At conference delegates voted for Labour to commit to even more promising policies, such as nationalisationg Royal Mail, establishing a National Care Service, and instituting proportional representation for national elections, but whether or not the party goes through with these is still up in the air.
As much an improvement to my own lot in life as Labour's new policies may represent, I am of course critical of the new direction which Labour is going in. For starters, there was not a single mention of UBI even though it would make a real difference in improving the lives of the poor and marginalised and potentially liberate them from the means-testing bureaucracy that characterises the current welfare system, and nor does UBI even appear in Starmer's speech. The speech itself was quite decent, but despite more than a few clever putdowns of the Tories, it was a mixed bag, and at its worst it gave no answer to the question of constiutional reform and to the question of Brexit, except to say that he will make Brexit "work" and to treat the SNP as an enemy to be fought and opposed.
Whatever happens, it is clear that Starmer is listening to the left on many issues, and indeed Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham has noticed that in particular Starmer has been paying attention to the Enough is Enough movement and is at least trying to win over their supporters. This vindicates a theory of change that I had argued several times on this blog, that in order for any real gains for the working class to be enacted you cannot rely on any particular party, and only pressure from a mass movement is strong enough to make the bourgeois parties change their course. It was a mass movement that forced Starmer to oppose the PCSC Act in 2021, and it is clearly the pressure exerted by Enough is Enough and Don't Pay UK which is forcing Labour to put forward some form of social-democratic alternative to the Tories.
It is also clear that, contrary to what many on the left had assumed, Labour will not be returning to that old Blairite philosophy that we feared they would. Gone is the heady market optimism that so characterised New Labour during the late 1990s and early-mid 2000s, no longer is Labour trumpeting the virtues of the European Union or the Euro, but this is not to say that we are seeing the suit and tie Corbynism that Starmer's early supporters thought they were getting. What we are seeing is the emergence of a distinct ideology within the Labour centre: Starmerism.
If I had to define Starmerism, I would define it as a current that sits to the left of Blairism and clearly influenced by Milibandism (as Owen Jones has speculated that it was Ed Miliband that nudged Starmer into many of the positions taken at conference), but probably not as left-wing as Brownism and certainly far to the right of Corbynism. It is in other words a middle-of-the-road philosophy of the Labour centre, or the "soft left" as it is sometimes called. In view of Starmer's actions and interventions over the past two-and-a-half years of his time as leader of the opposition, Starmerism can be characterised by the following traits:
- Support for state intervention in the economy to a greater extent than Blairism, but to a much more limited extent than Corbynism or even than pre-Blairite Labour governments.
- Seeking harmony between the working class and the business community, which explains Starmer's refusal to support the summer strikes and willingness to punish MPs who join the picket line
- Strong antipathy towards the left, particularly trade union militancy and critics of Western foreign policy (Starmer will only listen to the left when it is clear he has no other option)
- Relatedly, strong commitment to NATO alignment and Western imperialism
- Patriotic appeals to English national identity, typified by Starmer's fulsome and obsessive embrace of the British flag and the Labour Conference opening with the national anthem
- A soft Eurosceptic stance which rejects the more virulent English nationalism of the Brexiteer right, but which nonetheless sees Labour refusing to even consider British re-entry in the single market, despite Starmer's own past support for a second referendum
- Support for expanding state and carceral power as a solution to crime (for example, his abstentions on most Tory authoritarian laws, and recent support for a "domestic abuser register")
- Support for liberal/progressive social positions while opposing mass movements that actually fight for them on the streets
- A moralistic liberal view of politics which fetishises the process and emphasises abstractions such as "decency" as the benchmark for a good politican rather than their concern for tangible working class interests
Unlike Corbynism, Milibandism, Brownism or even Blairism, I think it is quite clear that Starmerism coalesced not as the result of a serious ideological journey made by the leader in question as had been the case for the past four Labour leaders, but rather the result of Starmer's own political opportunism. Thus Starmerism is much more ideologically fluid than its predecessors, yet it does maintain a certain unique character, perhaps the result of the collision between Starmer's inherent conservative tendencies and a political context which demands a clear and radical break from the ideological orthodoxy of the past four decades.
The one thing that must readily be accepted, however, is that Starmerism is not equivalent to Blairism whether you look at it in detail or in terms of broad strokes, and that Blairism is probably not coming back. Indeed the Labour right seem to have begrudgingly accepted this reality, as we have seen figures normally associated with the Labour right advocate for social-democratic intervention, which they rationalise by saying that the current crisis facing the UK necessites this change of policy. I never thought I'd see the day when Wes Streeting advocates for taxing corporate profits, or Rachel Reeves wanting to increase social spending, but it seems that our situation is dire even the Labour right has to accept that government has to step in. Better late than never to realise this I suppose.
Of course there will be much criticism from the left over whether or not Starmer and his allies are sincere enough to actually implement any of these proposed policies. Such concern is very much warranted, as Labour has had a long history of making huge promises and then kicking them into the long grass when they have the chance, as those of us currently living under a Welsh Labour government know all too well. That being the case, Labour is certainly not immune to pressure, by it from the public or from economic crises such as what we are living through. Considering the nature of our situation, it is a testament to Starmer's cautiousness and inner conservatism that Labour didn't go even further in this week's conference.
It must be said that the Tories are not even the only big losers this week. Sure, it's now crystal clear that they're going to lose power no matter what in an election in which they could very easily face a massive wipe-out, but we'd be lying to ourselves if we assumed only the Tories lose. The other big loser is, unfortunately, the Labour left—or more specifically the Corbynite left—and I say this primarily because many of their arguments against Starmer's leadership have imploded right before our eyes.
Far from leading the party to electoral ruin, as Corbynites warned, it now appears that Starmer's about to lead it to its biggest victory in decades. For sure, this is likely mostly because of the Tories' newfound appetite for self-immolation, but in recent weeks and months Labour have made very clear statements about which policies they would fight an election on and pursue if put into power, meaning that we can no longer say that it is unclear what Labour stands for. Throughout the Starmer years Corbynites have coped by sarcastically and incessantly posting some variation of "any other Labour leader would be 20 points ahead. Starmer should resign" (a sarcastic reference to Tony Blair's previous comments on Jeremy Corbyn's performace as leader) under every election poll. I imagine that they are now quite red-faced at two of the latest polls which give them a lead well in excess of that, and following this I expect that they will shift the goalposts because nothing other than his ouster from Labour leadership will suffice.
The scale of the Labour left's defeat was typified at the party conference, where there were much fewer left-wing delegates than last year (and hence less people to heckle Starmer mid-speech). Starmer's conference speech even included a little victory dance where he boasts about ripping the Corbynite faction out of the party, referring to this exercise as tackling antisemitism despite the fact that many of the critics he's expelled were left-wing Jews who were as rightly appalled at anti-semitism as he is. Yet for all of the Labour left's tough talk, their answer has amounted to complete and total capitulation. When eleven Labour MPs who signed an open letter from the Stop the War Coalition opposing a war in Ukraine and criticising NATO's record as a "defensive" alliance, all eleven of them withdrew their signatures the instant Starmer threatened to withdraw the whip from them. John McDonnell and Diane Abbott even went so far as to pull out of a Stop the War rally, presumably to save their careers in the Labour Party. To this day, even as it is now painfully clear that Labour is no longer a space for left-wingers and genuine socialists, the response of much of the left is to "stay and fight" within a party that is resolutely against them.
The root of this contradiction is obvious. As much as they may despise Labour as a party, they've still held on to that ancient belief in Labour as the primary vehicle for socialist transformation, and at any rate many of the public advocates for the "stay and fight" position have made careers advancing themselves within the Labour Party which they're not prepared to abandon. Thus they are compelled to discourage the working class and its advocates from pursuing independent political representation and keep them tied to the Labour Party.
It is ultimately in this spirit that, in response to Starmer taking the party to the right of where it was under Corbyn, there have been loud calls from left-wingers both in and out of the Labour Party (although primarily these are all on Twitter) for Starmer to resign, with supporters using the hashtag #StarmerOut everywhere they can. The whole point of the campaign is to bury any and all issues with the Labour Party by kicking the right-wing leadership out and reinstalling left-wing leadership, preferably with Jeremy Corbyn as leader. Some of them were even hoping that the "Beergate" scandal invented by the right would do their job for them. Putting aside the utter foolishness of attempting to oust a Labour leader who now enjoys a position of insurmountable political strength, if they had paid any attention to the state of the Labour Party in 2022, they would realise that the left in Labour is now far too weak to mount any sort of leadership challenge in any case. This would mean that the likely replacement for Starmer would either be another "soft left" candidate such as Lisa Nandy or Yvette Cooper, or it could be someone even further to the right such as Wes Streeting. The #StarmerOut crew would effectively risk handing the party to someone who is a right-winger as a matter of first principle, and for what? Nothing but pure spite that the party is no longer run by someone who is exactly like them.
This has prefigured their approach to the way they analyse the Labour Party even when recent news appears to confirm their beliefs. When the Forde Report landed and confirmed that both the Labour right and the Labour left weaponised the anti-semitism issue as a tool for factional war against their opponents, most of the Corbynite left insisted on blaming only the Labour right, claiming any suggestion of left-wing impropriety was invented by the media. For all the talk of how Starmer was obsessively sectarian (and there is no doubt that he was), it turns out that the Corbynite left is not so different, and as the years went by their desperation and obsession only magnified as it became clear that they were losing the argument within the party.
What became of the Corbynites is nothing short of a travesty. Our current political situation should have been the perfect opportunity for them to build a new mass party of the radical left capable of unifying the extraparliamentary left into a fighting force that can replace Labour as the new political vehicle for the working class, articulating its real interests and demands while equipping them with the knowledge and tools needed to bring about a progressive alternative to the capitalist social order. Instead the Corbynites are focused on hyping up a new Al-Jazeera documentary called The Labour Files, showing yet again that all they care about is relitigating the anti-semitism drama of the Corbyn years, a drive motivated not so much by the quest for truth so much as a desire to exact revenge on Starmer for their own fading into irrelevance. The consequence is that now if you want to push Truss' openly vicious neo-Thatcherite Tories out of power, Starmer's Labour is the only game in town, especially for those of us who live in areas where no viable alternative has presence, all thanks to the pathetic incompetence of the Corbynite left.
The situation that we face is grim. We are about to head into one of the toughest winters in living memory in terms of the cost of living, the economy and our public services are in such dire straits that even Labour admits that rescusing them won't be easy once they get into power. The political situation is so volatile that we could witness the collapse of a government that has not even been in office for a month, and an early general election is now a distinct possibility. We simply don't have time for whatever the failed "Corbyn or bust" movement would rather we do and none of the necessary infrastructure, and we have no choice but to get this Tory government out of power by any means. The only other option is a general strike, but there is no guarantee that an election isn't called first.
That is why for all of their insufferable whining, I suspect that many of the #StarmerOut crowd would vote Labour anyway despite their protestations. In fact, as Martin Hall of Counterfire admits, many socialists did exactly that during the Blair years, even after Blair had entered the Iraq War. What reason would they have not to? Thanks to their laziness there really is no alternative except to tactically vote a Labour government into power, and hope that either it can be pressured to implement the reforms delegates voted for or that its failure to address the contradictions of capitalism and the union will unwittingly pave the way for a new mass movement against capitalism and colonialism.
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