Apart from the right wing of the Labour Party, most political commentators have poured scorn on Keir Starmer’s latest relaunch, when he issued five ‘missions’ for a Labour government. Starmer’s advisers and policy wonks – we doubt he comes up with this garbage himself – are steering well clear of ‘pledges’ because Keir Starmer and ‘pledges’ do not sit well together.
The criticism of his five ‘missions’, however, is universally linked to the complete lack of substance in them. So that we cannot be accused of misrepresenting the leader, these are the five missions, as outlined in the briefing document, which is downloadable from the Labour Party website here:
- Secure the highest sustained growth in the G7, with good jobs and productivity growth in every part of the country making everyone, not just a few, better off.
- Make Britain a clean energy superpower to create jobs, cut bills and boost energy security with zero-carbon electricity by 2030, accelerating to net zero. We will set out measurable goals with similar ambition for the remaining three missions over the coming months.
- Build an NHS fit for the future by reforming health and care services to speed up treatment, harnessing life sciences and technology to reduce preventable illness, and cutting health inequalities.
- Make Britain’s streets safe by reforming the police and justice system, to prevent crime, tackle violence against women, and stop criminals getting away without punishment.
- Break down the barriers to opportunity at every stage, for every child, by reforming the childcare and education systems, raising standards everywhere, and preparing young people for work and life.
Not a policy, not a commitment, not a plan.
Readers can see for themselves, how the cupboard is bare. Starmer’s speech, in launching his ‘missions’, were all about how he is going to “fix” this, “reset” that, and develop “new thinking” on the other. But there is not a policy, not a commitment, not a plan, and nothing concrete.
While the right-wing faction ‘Progressive Britain’ called this thin mélange “a picture of a much brighter future for Britain”, most commentators – and Labour Party members – are desperately looking for the meat. Apart from vague platitudes of the ‘motherhood and apple pie’ variety, there is not a single solid economic or political commitment that identifies the Labour Party with its historical traditions. In fact, every single one of these empty platitudes could have been written by one of the special political advisers around Rishi Sunak, and no doubt some of them will be, as a general election draws near.
We don’t usually have much truck for the opinions of the right wing political ‘journalist’ and commentator, Andrew Neil. But on Starmer’s five missions, he gave a well-worded and excoriating summary of the Labour leader’s vacuity:
“It was a word salad of mind-numbing banality, replete with boilerplate platitudes (‘national renewal for a new national purpose’), management-speak gibberish (‘delivery-focused cross-cutting mission boards’) and meaningless drivel (a more ‘empowering, catalytic’ government). These are not the words of an Opposition leader connecting cleverly with the British people…”.
‘Labour must confront the broken economy’
Even former New Labour Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Ed Balls, noted that the ‘five missions’“would not be remembered” or “talked about on the doorstep”. That is putting it mildly. The General Secretary of Unite, Sharon Graham, made a much more trenchant and useful criticism in her statement:
“Labour’s ‘government on a mission’”, she said, “could be confronted with ‘Mission Impossible’ unless the party confronts the broken economy”. While welcoming a Labour government, as opposed to this one serving the interests only of vested interests, the Unite leader noted that the ‘missions’ outlined could only be delivered, “if the next Labour government is prepared to deal with Britain’s broken economy and its inherent inequalities…otherwise”, she noted, the Labour government would be “confronted with Mission Impossible.”
“Workers and communities cannot pay for the crisis. Keir needs to rule out austerity mark 2 and rule in dealing with rampant profiteering, using that money to pay for the black hole and the broken economy...”
This is really the gist of the problem. In its report about Starmer’s ‘missions’ the Guardian, noted in passing, that “after the speech, Starmer and the shadow chancellor, Rachel Reeves, hosted a roundtable meeting of business leaders, including Meaden and Prof Jagjit Chadha of the National Institute of Economic and Social Research”. We also note that this week Lord Sainsbury gave £2mn to the Labour Party. This is the man who was so vehemently opposed to Labour’s radical 2019 manifesto that he gave £8mn to Lib-Dems to help defeat Labour that year.
An economy rigged in the interests of the Few
What Sharon Graham is hinting at, but what needs to be spelled out loud and clear to Labour and trade union members, is that as long as a Labour government bases its economic policies on capitalism and the market, on the domination of the economy by the rich and the super-rich, then the system will continue to be rigged in the interests of the Few and not the Many. The logic of the Tory-lite policies espoused by Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves will simply lead to a ‘Labour’ version of austerity little different to the austerity we have now. And that will be bitterly opposed by most Labour Party members and trade unionists.
This ‘five mission’ announcement was possibly Starmer’s third or fourth ‘relaunch’ since his election as Party leader. The ‘Great British Bonds’ initiative in the first (or second?) has long since been forgotten. For Starmer’s advisers, it doesn’t really matter, because the real aim of this great and eminently forgettable ‘mission’ initiative – and there will be more relaunches – is simply to keep Starmer in the public eye as much as possible, and to remind the great voting public that he is still there.
That reminder is needed because although the Labour Party is miles ahead in the polls – because of a generalised revulsion at the chaos, incompetence, and corruption of the Tory government – Starmer’s personal ratings are almost as bad as Rishi Sunak’s. Fortunately for Starmer, at this moment in time the majority of potential voters are simply not discerning enough to see through his vacuousness or his increasing links with business interests.
That will change, particularly when Labour is elected in to office. But in the meantime, the Tories are tearing away at the living standards of the big majority of the population. The NHS, education, public services, railways, the national infrastructure, and the quality of life of workers are deteriorating at a rate of knots.
At the same time, in an unprecedented wave of strikes in modern times, millions of workers, across dozens of services and industries are desperately struggling to get pay rises that keep their heads above water. And this Labour leadership are looking the other way.
