‘When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.’ (Maya Angelou)
‘The Labour Party is a moral crusade, or it is nothing.’ (Harold Wilson, 1962 Labour Party conference)
There can be no doubt that the Labour government is in deep trouble. It is tanking in the polls, having lost half of its support in the 16 months since the last general election, an ‘achievement’ unprecedented in my lifetime. It is also clearly riven by personal disputes at the top and seems to have few policy ideas, except for simply copying Reform 2025 Ltd.
The government currently lacks vision, compassion, and basic political good sense. But is there an even deeper malaise here and if so, how deep is it and can it be cured?
Labour policies since coming to power
In one of the Labour government’s first major decisions, and in what turned out to be its first major mistake, it was reported in September 2024 that millions of pensioners would lose their winter fuel payments as government won a parliamentary vote for a cut, as it was said that “Shouts of ‘shame’ could be heard in the House of Commons chamber as the result of the vote was announced.”
This decision was made within three months of Labour coming to power, having promised change after 14 dreary years of Tory austerity. Then in a move in May 2025 the government finally admitted it would make changes to the policy, after spending months ruling out just such a U-turn.
In another cut to funding to vulnerable people, it was announced in February this year that Starmer had ‘caved-in’ to pressure from US president Donald Trump and decided to increase defence spending, paying for this by cutting Foreign Aid from an already paltry 0.5% of GDP down to just 0.3%
The seriousness of this move was underlined in November, when it was stated that Western aid cuts, including those made by the Labour government, could cause 22.6 million deaths; researchers say. The policy seemed also to be at odds with Labour traditions after the last Labour government had done so much to encourage Western countries to help countries in the developing world. The present government was beginning to look suspiciously un-Labour.
This feeling was reinforced in March this year when Labour announced its plans to “slash the welfare bill and push more people claiming disability benefits into work.” It was noted in a headline that one disabled person had said that she was “terrified” about the changes. It was stated that: “she claims PIP and Employment and Support (ESA) and lives with her brother, who is her carer. She is blind, has a hearing impairment, and has a genetic condition that affects her skull.”
Tellingly, the person in question told The Independent: “I grew up believing that the Labour Party was the political party for the everyday man/woman and as far as I’m concerned, being disabled doesn’t stop us from being as important as the everyday man/woman who isn’t disabled.” Understandably the policy caused a great deal of controversy, and it was announced in June that yet again the government had been forced into a U-turn.
Difficult ‘hard choices’
After the announcement of the Foreign Aid cut, Chancellor Rachel Reeves and Starmer both talked about regrettable hard choices. Yet as has been pointed out, what we have seen from the government is the opposite of making hard choices; they have made easy choices by choosing to cut support for vulnerable groups, including those who really don’t have a voice.
The real hard choices would have been concerned with narrowing the divides between rich and poor and North and South which remain as wide as ever. The government seems very reluctant to take on any powerful, vested interests…
This was demonstrated again in mid-November, when the government went firmly down the dark and dangerous Reform 2025 Ltd road, bringing in drastic changes to the asylum system which seemed to scapegoat asylum seekers, as being the source of all our problems.
So draconian was the new asylum policy announced by Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood that it was endorsed by the Tories, Reform 2025 Ltd, and even far-right activist Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, who was said to have welcomed the proposals, posting this on social media: “The Overton window has been obliterated, well done patriots.”
It certainly seems clear from the language used that Stephen Yaxley-Lennon thinks that the Labour government have rewarded the thugs who tried to set fire to a hotel full of asylum seekers last year and have continued to intimidate asylum seekers with further demonstrations outside hotels this year. This should concern all right-thinking people.
However, for all their draconian harshness and performative cruelty it has still been argued that the government’s new asylum policy is nothing more than a: “mix of hype, old policy and unachievable promises.”
At the same time a minister from the last Labour government, Chris Mullin, who had been a Sunderland MP, noted that on the one hand the government was cutting Foreign Aid, while on the other making it harder for those suffering from those cuts to come here. Mullin commented on X: “The only long-term solution is to help them become functioning market economies. Yet, ironically, those who feel strongest about migration are equally opposed to overseas aid.”
In the area of foreign policy, the Labour government has refused to accept that the war in Gaza has amounted to a genocide, while continuing to sell deadly arms components to Israel.
Then we have the ban on people showing support for the organisation Palestine Action, resulting in hundreds of ludicrous arrests, including some people in their eighties and even somebody arrested for wearing a t-shirt emblazoned with the words Plasticine Action.
I have wondered how spraying red paint on a plane actually amounted to terrorism. Was the plane traumatised by this event? Did it need counseling afterwards? There is also mounting evidence that people arrested in connection with Palestine Action have suffered what is described as “shocking mistreatment” in prison.
All in all, the Labour government has without any shadow of a doubt, badly let down millions of its voters, who voted in good faith in July 2024, for what they were promised was real change and what they were led to believe would be at least reasonably progressive policies. It is no wonder there is such utter disillusionment with the government. And that brings us to another area of concern.
Why there must be change
It has been argued that since becoming leader in 2020, Keir Starmer has been acting as little more than a frontman for a ruthless, right-wing political project, headed by the man who is his current chief of staff in Number 10, Morgan McSweeeney, arguably the most powerful man in Britain.
It is further argued that, “with the shallow nature of this Labour project now clearly in its final throes, this episode is part of a multi-episode series bringing together how this happened and what can be done to bring the Party back into the hands of those who have its best interests at heart.”
It is beyond any argument that the Labour government is in deep trouble politically as recent opinion polls show that it is consistently polling at below the 20% mark, a level of support unknown to Labour since its breakthrough as a major party one hundred years ago. Much of its support had gone to the Greens and the Lib Dems, while the hard-right Reform 2025 Ltd party under Nigel Farage, are now consistently polling in the lower-to-mid thirties in percentage terms.
Indeed, it seems clear that Labour taking to the right, and aping many policies and attitudes common to Reform 2025 Ltd has only legitimised and normalised their policies and made Reform 2025 Ltd more popular.
Can it be turned round?
The simple answer to that is yes, but not without a drastic change of direction and the removal of both Starmer and McSweeney from the leadership of the Labour Party, along with a number of prominent cabinet colleagues, such as Rachel Reeves, Liz Kendall, and Shabana Mahmood. So incredibly unpopular is both the government and especially Starmer himself that nothing else will save the government now.
Once this has been done then Labour will have a chance, as it has been convincingly argued that for all the surge in support for Reform 2025 Ltd, there is still an appetite among the British public for progressive change and it is possible for a realistic and yet visionary left alternative to win a decade of progressive change making society fairer, greener and more cohesive than it is at present.
Labour under new leadership could start to implement positive change, which would be popular. Such as bringing utilities like water back under public control, establishing a fairer taxation regime to ensure that public services such as the NHS are properly funded, improving public transport, and not least use the kinds of ideas promoted by Andy Burnham, the successful Labour Mayor of Greater Manchester, to give all pupils a decent, fulfilling and worthwhile education.
We will see what happens in the upcoming budget. Meanwhile many people fear that the government as it is at present will fumble another opportunity to bring in progressive change and challenge the powerful vested interests that keep this country back.
The country is crying out for positive, progressive change. If Starmer and others at the top of the Labour party can’t provide it, then they should step aside, allowing for new leadership under someone like Andy Burnham and leadership that will work constructively with progressives in other parties.
The Labour Party must return to its role as a moral crusade. The opinion polls have made it clear for a year now what the alternative is and what a dark road we will be going down if progressives can’t work together positively and win.
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