Notes on Keir Starmer's speech
Leader's speech, Liverpool
At every stage where Labour has taken the initiative, such as over the windfall tax and the energy price freeze, it has been able to lead the argument. Where it has sat back it has flagged and become prone to attack. For this reason, Keir Starmer’s conference speech today was a notable improvement on last year’s in terms of a number of key elements of content, benefiting from much clearer dividing lines with the Conservative party.
Also contained within the speech were some indications of where future friction and arguments will play out.
Labour’s commitment to establish a publicly-owned energy company will be popular with members and has the capacity to cut through the public. It has been widely welcomed on Labour’s left.
On Sunday, SavantaComRes published MRP research that showed very widespread support for public ownership of Britain’s utilities.
In Welwyn Hatfield, where Grant Shapps is the MP, seventy-two per cent of voters supported public ownership of the railways. In Islington North, support stood at seventy-five per cent. This pattern was repeated over and over again right across the country. So voters in the constituency of the former transport secretary, who has presided over the biggest rail strikes in decades, support public ownership of the railways by almost the same crushing figure as the constituency of the former Labour leader who changed Labour’s policy to end the failed privatisation. The same goes for attitudes to energy, which produces a similar result: seventy-four per cent for public ownership of energy in Islington, seventy-two per cent in Welwyn.
There is a good reason for this. The crises we are living through have made the case for a change in ownership. To take those two examples. On the railways the franchising model totally collapsed during covid. On energy, Germany last Wednesday announced a deal to nationalise the country’s biggest gas importer, a few months after France nationalised its biggest utility company EDF.
Combined with commitments for green jobs and investment, a sovereign wealth fund, council housing and public ownership of the railways, there is a clearer picture of where Labour is heading.
As Patrick Maguire of the Times reports, there has been some criticism of the conference strapline ‘A Fairer, Greener Future’. But putting to one side the arguments about the slogan’s precise formulation, the proposition of a framework that combines the economy and cost of living crisis with the climate crisis, green jobs and energy is important. To build an alliance of the electorate that knits together urban voters that formed Labour’s core in 2019, with those the party now needs to win over, involves primarily a robust, far-reaching economic offer, which contains within it a big offer on the environment. In recent times, both the Democrats in the USA and the left alliance in France – very different political formations - went forward on that basis.
Amidst headline-grabbing policy and the attacks on the Tories, Keir Starmer’s speech contained some passages that point to future arguments and tensions.
Keir Starmer warned the conference that Labour’s mission required “the courage to make very difficult choices. Particularly when managing the country’s finances.” He set out his framework for “sound money” and warned that “we should be clear about what that means. It means not being able to do things – good Labour things – as quickly as we might like. That’s what responsible government looks like.” Whilst many will see this as a continuation of the well-rehearsed line that Labour can be trusted on the economy, it sends a signal to Labour’s base that “good Labour things” will not necessarily happen, or will be delayed. There is little doubt that after fifteen years of Tory governments a Labour government would face huge pent up pressure to move quickly. Delay to the delivery of good Labour things will undoubtedly cause extremely big tensions.
Equally, Keir Starmer’s leader’s speech also contained a warning about the public services:
“But we have to be honest. I would love to stand here and say Labour will fix everything. But the damage they’ve done – to our finances and our public services means this time the rescue will be harder than ever.
“It will take investment – of course it will. But it will also take reform.”
In explaining what he meant by reform, Keir Starmer stuck to language that hardly anyone could disagree with. But Labour politicians and trade unionists in particular will be very alert to a formulation that combines lowering expectations with a message around reform of the public services. So as Labour moves towards finalising its programme for government, the unions and the left will be looking for further assurances over the relationship of the private sector to the public services, and around accountability and oversight of those services.
Furthermore, at a number of points the leader’s speech talked about recruitment of staff in the public sector - but then did not directly address how that could be resolved in terms of the level of pay for the workforce.
In fact working people in both private and public sectors do not yet have a sense of how Labour would deal with the huge downward pressure on wages. The conference voted that Britain should have both a higher minimum wage of £15 an hour and for pay to at least keep pace with inflation. All of this again points to a potential set of tensions under an incoming Labour government.
Such a Labour government is an increasingly plausible outcome and the wider left in British society needs to prepare for this eventuality. The Tories’ ratings on the economy have been on the slide for the best part of a year. The cost of living crisis is reshaping British politics. But at the same time a Labour government is not a given and it would be a mistake for anyone in the party to depend on winning by default.
Keir Starmer’s speech today is an indication that real dividing lines being laid down - and also that in a number of key areas there is a big debate to be had.