Keir Starmer’s Labour conference speech had two main tasks: to dispel the air of gloom around the party and to signal a clearer sense of political direction. Did he succeed? Up to a point.
In his address to the delegates in Liverpool on 24 September, we heard more about how things will get better (as opposed to merely worse) and the ambitions that define this government. But the speech was still darker in tone than some advance briefings had suggested. Its most striking line was Starmer’s assertion that “taking back control is a Labour argument”.
That was an act of political cross-dressing – appropriating Dominic Cummings’ Brexit campaign slogan – but also a serious ideological assertion. Starmer isn’t the kind of politician to make grand pronouncements (unlike, say, Tony Blair), but he could have declared: the state is back.
He hailed the launch of the publicly owned GB Energy (discussed in my interview with Ed Miliband), the radical extension of workers’ rights and the planned renationalisation of the railways. But he also took his argument about control into less comfortable territory for Labour.
The reason the Conservatives failed to control immigration, he declared, is because they are “the party of the uncontrolled market”. There’s something in this: the unspoken truth is that high immigration wasn’t a bug but a feature of the Tories’ economic model. Low-wage employment helped disguise the structural weaknesses of the UK economy: a lack of training and investment.
Starmer vowed that “decisive government” would address the “great forces” reshaping communities: migration, climate change, crime and insecurity at work. This is a challenge to both left and right: the left relish controlling industry but are squeamish about controlling immigration and crime; the right have the reverse problem. Starmer, however, is happy to be interventionist in all directions: celebrating public ownership, building more houses and prisons, imposing new restrictions on smoking and junk food.
Yet there’s a tension here (one recognised by No 10). In his first speech as Prime Minister, Starmer promised a politics that will “tread more lightly on your lives” (a line he’s used repeatedly). This is largely a vow to avoid the chaos and disorder that came to define the Tory years. But to plenty of observers it seems at odds with an increasingly interventionist state.
That’s why Starmer is usually careful to qualify his argument: government isn’t an end in itself but a means to an end. As he put it in his 2023 conference, “We have to be a government that takes care of the big questions so working people have the freedom to enjoy what they love. More time, more energy, more possibility, more life.”
This is an argument for an enabling state, not an intrusive one. But maintaining that balance is a constant challenge – witness Starmer being forced to rule out earlier pub closing times. If Labour is to avoid being seen as irredeemably gloomy, he will need to talk far more about how he wants to enable joy as well as prevent harm.
This piece first appeared in the Morning Call newsletter; receive it every morning by subscribing on Substack here
[See also: Volodymyr Zelensky takes his war to small-town America]
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