UK Dumps Tories, Elects Blairite Labour

Sep 12, 2024 | by Helen Smith

Many people were shocked when the British Tory Prime Minister Rishi Sunak called a snap election for July 4 and quite correctly thought that it indicated that he was leaving the country in a shambles.  While Sunak bragged that he had wrestled the inflation rate down to 2 per cent, he left a legacy that had sunk the health care system, social services, and utilities to new lows.  It is not surprising then that the new Labour government, like the Tony Blair government of 1997-2007, didn’t offer much in the way of ending austerity in its 2024 platform.  Apart from the promise to re-nationalize the railways, there was little commitment to building up the public sector other than through private-public joint ventures which threaten to drain the public purse.

Keir Starmer’s Labour Government swept into government on July 4 because voters were opposed to the shambolic state of the Tories after 14 years of austerity and, significantly, because they shared Labour’s call to improve health and education in the country.  The Tories suffered the greatest electoral defeat in their 200-year history.  The Labour Party won 412 seats of the 650 seats in parliament for a resounding win under the first-past-the-post system.  Labour gained seats in Scotland previously held by the Scottish National Party that was rocked by a scandal, won most of its traditional constituencies, and gained ground in former Tory-held constituencies.  Anything seemed better than the Tories.  The Liberal Democrats garnered 71 seats. In Wales where Labour had ruled in the Senedd, Labour lost votes.  But not one Tory was elected in Wales. Despite the appearance of a popular landslide, Labour won only 34 per cent of the popular vote to the Tory’s 24 per cent.  The Conservatives lost many votes to the racist Reform Party of Nigel Farage, which captured 14.6 per cent, as well as losing seats to the LibDems.

The Labour Party under Keir Starmer is very different to its predecessor led by Jeremy Corbyn.  Under Corbyn‘s leadership and its left-leaning policies, party membership surged to over 500,000 members, making it the largest party in Europe.  Starmer’s leadership saw the loss of 130,00 members, and a significant number of those remaining did so reluctantly in the hope of influencing the party or hoping it would just change.  Corbyn, himself, was expelled from the party due to his pro-Palestinian and “peace in the Middle East” position, on the spurious grounds that he is anti-Semitic (rather than anti-Zionist) as determined by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition. Corbyn felt compelled to run as an Independent on July 4 and easily won in Islington North with 24,120 votes to the Labour Party candidate’s 16,873 votes. Six other Independents stood on an openly pro-Palestinian platform and won.

It was well known, prior to the election, that the Tories were leaving the country in an appalling economic state (Guardian, July 26). Labour leaders knew it and so did most of the population. The economic situation in many ways resembles the situation the country faced after World War 2. National debt is at an all time high at 99.5 per cent of GDP and living standards have started to fall.  On the positive side, one that the Tories kept emphasizing, the inflation rate recently fell to 2% and GDP grew .7 per cent which was higher than most of the countries in the Eurozone.  But prices are still rising. According to George Monbiot (The Guardian Weekly, July 19), Labour has emphasized that they will make changes to promote “growth, growth, growth”.  That is the new mantra, allowing the right wing to demonize “tax and spend” by associating it with “austerity”. Monbiot reports that the richest 1 per cent possess more wealth than the poorest 70% -- because the rich have been little taxed. Labour avoided the issue of wealth inequality by promising not to raise taxes.  It should be talking about raising taxes on the wealthiest and redistributing the benefits to the working class and the poor, the vast majority.

What were Labour’s first moves in office?  They committed the UK to 2 ½ per cent of GDP in defence spending at a recent NATO heads’ meeting.  They stopped the deportation of refugees to Rwanda (a good thing), but bolstered support for border security agencies to “stop the small boats” transporting refugees across the English Channel from France. Then they voted down the SNP’s bill against the 2-child cap on child benefits.  It did not go unnoticed though. Six Labour MPs voted against the party whip on the child benefit bill and were suspended from the party for 6 months, including former shadow Labour Chancellor John McDonnell. The back-bench revolt was supported by Jeremy Corbyn now sitting as an Independent. And there are other moves both inside and outside the party to fight for socialist policies.