Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[Sheilbh]

I like of what I have heard and read of Starmer's speech. I think it is helped by the fact that ultimately, it is true: Reform, and the centrist view Labour represent, they ARE different ways of looking at the world, and people need to decide which one they want.

I think it was good - I also really, really liked Shabana Mahmood's framing of this. I think Lammy got slightly ahead of himself. But I think it's the right argument, framed in the right way. It's an argument they need to be making consistently, with policy announcements too. It can't just be, which is the way of this government, disconnected one-off speeches and policy announcements. One thing that slightly struck me from the clips I've seen of Starmer's speech was that it was very English.

Having said that, Starmer has now basically defined his success as leader as the ability to beat Farage which is moving onto his territory and allowing Farage to set the terms of politics. There will also be a test in the May local elections (and Senedd and Scottish Parliament elections) where I'd expect Reform to do well.

But the fundmentals are unchanged. The government is failing and Starmer's leadership is part of the problem. In many ways I've been struck by how we've adhered to the traditional formalities of a failing leadership: leadership speculation and discontent running into a party conference; first couple of days all the talk is about the splits and divisions and possible challengers (especially with one roaming round the fringe like Andy Burnham); party faithful start talking about how the country just need to see the "real" Keir; the leader's speech gets billed up as "make or break" - it goes well, the crowd love it, the leadership talk dies down. A month later the leadership is back in crisis because the fundamentals haven't changed (I'm always reminded of IDS' "the quiet man" speech which was rapturously received in the conference hall one month before he was deposed). If Starmer actually starts doing things with his 170 seat majority it might shift - if it's more drift then he's already at record low approval ratings, they will drift lower and he will be removed (and he should be).

Reform and Labour different ways of viewing the world....more could be made for this. It applies for the hate and tolerance thing. But even more so it applies for their views on the world.  Farage and co represent rats on a sinking ship. Squabbling over what few resources there are. The world can never be a better place. You just have to make sure you get the biggest share of what pie there is.
Labour should really be embracing more of the New Labour energy that things actually can be better. We don't need to fight over dwindling resources. We can bake more pies.

Maybe.

When New Labour came into office the economy was growing at 3% per year. The national debt was at 37.5% of GDP. Inflation was at 2%. We were a net energy exporter meaning that a key price input was largely under domestic control. We had one of the youngest populations in Europe. We were about to have a decade of growth where in GDP per capita terms (including real term) the economy not only grew significantly faster than the rest of Europe but also faster than the US. And asset prices were about to go on a massive run - particularly housing - so people who had bought homes were about to do very well. Prices in 1997 (adjusted) were about the same as they were in the 80s as there'd been a dip in the early 90s following Black Wednesday - by the time New Labour left office they had more than doubled.

That is a material context that makes the politics of "everyone wins" quite easy. It's, as the Irish used to frame it about "sharing the proceeds of growth" - in Ireland largely through tax cuts, in the UK through a better resourced public sector. I would add there were issues within that decade as everyone winning started to have costs and contradictions. Obviously there's a downside to that huge increase in housing costs in terms of people trying to access the market. The debt was rising before the financial crisis. And things really shift in the second term. In 2005, Mervyn King gives his speech saying the "NICE" (non-inflationary continuous expansion) decade was coming to an end. In the same year we become a net energy importer which means we're more exposed to global energy costs and balance of payments start to matter again. It's also around that time (a little earlier actually) that there is a huge explosion in consumer credit (powered by asset prices increasing too), so a lot of the consumer spending becomes powered by debt and household debt goes from about 90% of GDP to about 160%.

That's a very different context from now. On growth the UK is doing okay-ish - on course to have the second fastest growth in the G7 (after the US) in 2025. But that's still at about half the rate it was in 1997. Inflation is the highest in the G7 and particularly sticky in the UK (again, balance of payments, currency and that we rely on imports for a lot are key here). After the crash (which doubled the national debt) plus covid and energy guarantee following Russia's invasion (which increased by about 25% again), we now have debt as a share of GDP at between 95-100%. The population is aging (but still relatively young in a European context) and the old age dependency ratio is increasing - there's also been a big increase in the long term sick. House prices are very regionalised but broadly plateauing, but rental costs have skyrocketed (in part this reflects the last government's measures increasing the tax burden on landlords, followed by this government increasing the regulations in that area which means landlords are selling up - I personally benefit from this as I bought a flat that used to be a rental).

I think that is a context in which politics and spending is significantly more zero-sum. It's not about sharing the proceeds of growth, because there's not enough to share. It's about choosing - and Starmer, and the Labour movement at this point, and the soft left press like the Guardian do not like making choices. A one off wealth tax is not going to fix this. MMT is fantasy nonsense for a country like the UK (always reliant on the kindness of creditworthy strangers). This should be something Labour can be hard-headed about, as Nye Bevan put it, "the language of priorities is the religion of socialism" - but this government isn't. Similarly the way to a less zero-sum politics is through growth - but I don't see anything like the energy required on that. Although I think there are positive signs - apparently Starmer and Reeves have been reading Abundance (which is about the US, but I actually think far more applicable, relevant - and actionable - for the UK). There's reports that Reeves is going to propose pulling out of the Aarhus Convention and is pushing for quite sweeping reforms to unlock growth, particularly around planning. I saw Steve Reed signing MAGA style red baseball caps with "build, baby, build" on them. But we'll see if urgent action actually follows as opposed to dither, reviews, consultations, process for another year.

I would add that I think the pessimistic side has a reasonable argument that we are moving into a zero-sum world more broadly and that to a large extent it's out of the control of the UK (or most other countries). The world is getting older. Climate is only going to intensify (in the near term - longer term it all depends on China and India's decisions). I think we're in an era of great power competition again where there will be shocks like the impact on energy and food markets by Russia invading Ukraine, or things like covid. I think all of those are structural changes that will shift politics from a more "win win" framing to one about distribution: who benefits, who pays, what's the trade off. And it's not clear that avoiding that would even be good (particularly thinking of climate). I think British (and Western) politics has spent a long time in a fantasy world and needs to get real quick - or it'll happen through a crisis. I think one bigger question should be what does a left wing politics look like in a world more along those lines.

[Sheilbh]

Sort of related to the above and what I was saying on ID cards.

There was polling on ID cards in the summer which had net support of 35%, 53% in favour and 19% against. As I say I suspect that was always mile wide and inch deep which is why you need to make the argument.

But polling out today showing  that support has fallen to a net of -14%, 45% opposed (and 32% strongly opposed) with only 31% support. They have become "Keir Starmer's ID Cards" and he's deeply unpopular. Only 13% of voters are satisfied with his performance as PM to 79% who are dissatisfied - so a net rating of -66% which is a record low for this question (worst than previous lows by Sunak and Major).

That's why I'm not convinced his speech necessarily matters. But it also makes the point that if they're making that argument they need to make it. We can see this with ID cards - details briefed to the press and then announced.

But they didn't do any work in advance outlining where and how ID Cards would be useful (Cameron referred to this as "rolling the pitch", Blair as "framing the argument") - but also what hasn't happened is any sustained follow up. I've not really seen much of anything from the government spelling out the benefits, explaining why this government IT project would be different, rebuffing the arguments against.

Josh Glancy in the Times commented on this pointing at Blair - when Blair increased tuition fees it was very unpopular (but he had a majority) and carried a possibility of a big revolt. He did a Newsnight special being interviewed by the toughest interviewer on the BBC, he did a Question Time (like a town hall special) with young people and parents. There were big internal debates too and Blair wanted them because he thought it flushed out objections and sharpened his argument. There are similar stories with Thatcher (in both her case and Blair's this was true until they went mad after winning three elections). You test a policy to destruction internally so you have the best arguments to go out and convince the public. In both cases Thatcher and Blair were kind of energised by opposition - they liked being on stage, they liked being in an intellectual fight for what they were doing.

It's a bit like why Starmer gave government time for the private member's bill on assisted dying his explanation is that he made a promise to Esther Rantzen. Or the welfare cuts - there's absolutely a case and piece of work on welfare reform but it needs a lot of work and you need to build the argument; those cuts were decided last minute because the Treasury needed to make the numbers add up leading to a government with a majority of 170 having to u-turn or face defeat because of internal rebellions. You can't win arguments you're not making. So that speech was good. If it is an isolated speech followed by another two or three month period of minimal activity or comms it will mean nothing.

I keep on thinking about that Patrick Maguire article about Starmer's time in Northern Ireland on human rights law and quietly ticking things off a list and moving things forward in airless conference rooms. The message at that time was not flashy but perhaps effective. I now suspect it's more that that is about his level - he is, at best, an effective middle manager/bureaucrat able to progress items on an agenda. But he's not a leader.

Edit: On this, I hadn't realised but listening to Steve Richards and Starmer didn't mention ID cards in his speech which is really weird. Big announcement, a u turn, apparently a key policy on a number of fronts and controversial but not followed up.

[Tamas]

You are probably right but then who orchestrated the cleansing of the Labour Party from the Corbynites?

[Sheilbh]

Sorry - not sure I get what you mean?

I would say though I think that is sort of Starmer's original sin. I don't think it's the source of it all, but I think all of the stuff about trust, about who he really is or what he really believes chimes because he became leader running on a Corbynism without Corbyn platform. He then purged Corbyn and the left from Labour and has been in charge of the most brutal (and in at least one case possibly criminal) advancing of loyalist candidates for election and really brutal party discipline. Either Starmer's whole leadership run was the most ruthlessly, cynically effective operation in recent British political history, or he was a clean skin who has actually been run by other people behind the scenes (I would note the people in Number 10 who compared Starmer to someone sitting at the front of a DLR train pretending they're driving it).

I'm not really sure there's a middle option there. And I think that still slightly runs through everything - he gives a speech on an "island of strangers", he then does an interview apologising for it and saying he hadn't read the speech in advance etc.

Daniel Finkelstein in the Times had a piece about this divide today actually - I'll try to find.

[Jacob]

Indeed.

In general the nihilistic/fascist right represent that sort of view in society - I have given up, it sucks, now lets make sure it sucks for others as well. I don't know what the new positive message that can overcome that with everything that's going on, but I feel like one could (and definitely should) be found.

I think the message is actually pretty easy - it's variations of "let's make things better" and "people are actually pretty decent" and "people have more in common with one another than differences that require us to screw each other over" (okay that's a bit unwieldy, but the sentiment holds, I think).

The real problem is taking believable action (and being seen as taking believable action) to attempt (and ideally succeed) to deliver on those messages; as opposed to just being pleasant sentiments to keep you content while you're being screwed over.

"Hope", "change", "decency", "working together for the common good", and "competence" are all perfectly solid messages that resonate. It's just that you need somewhat believable plan to deliver and show some progress. This, IMO, is the reason the GOP's strategy of "no collaboration with Dems ever" has been so successful; it undermined the delivery piece; it's the reason why Trump and MAGA are so intent on dismantling everything Obama ever did even if they don't oppose the content of it; and it's the reason why Starmer is not doing so hot right now. It's the delivery (or at least the perception of delivery), not the message.

Say what you will about "spite", "abuse and oppress people who are different", "rules for thee but not for me", "suck up to our leaders ego", and "barely painted over white Christian nationalism" - but at least MAGA is delivering on a significant part of their slogans.

[Tamas]

Yeah, good points

[garbon]

Just saw due to change on online appointment booking, my gp surgery no longer will allow walk-ins

[HVC]

Probably a terminology difference, but how does walk in surgery work

[Sheilbh]

Yeah I think the action point is key - and why I think Abundance is actually still relevant.

There's two sides to it. One is the sort of positive taking action side. I cannot think of a significant achievement by the government in its first approaching 18 months. That's a problem and that's entirely on them. We're not America, we don't need the Tories or Reform to play along and the government has one of the biggest majorities in British history - and we have a sovereign parliament. Literally the only constraint they have are themselves - and I think that's been the problem.

Labour came into office, after 14 years in opposition, without a real analysis of where the country was or any clear idea of what they wanted to do. The one idea they had was, I think, catastrophically wrong. That one idea was that the problem was populism. Actually all of these Tory complaints (which were just ever-escalating complaints not matched by action) about the "blob" and how impossible it was to change anything were wrong. The complaints about our impartial civil service and precious independent institutions were the problem and it was just populism. Labour came into office with that idea, spent the first six months expanding the remit of or establishing new independent institutions - and the last twelve months regretting it as they keep running into sand trying to do anything and discover those independent institutions are part of the problem of doing anything. I'm still not convinced that Starmer and Reeves (despite being enthused by Abundance) have the analysis or intellectual resources to really challenge that because I think they're both institutionalists to their bones.

The other bit is the sort of defensive, pushing back side and I saw some positive signs on that very recently.

So Reform announced a morally disgraceful policy that would strip people with indefinite leave to remain of that status. This initially played out as normal. The main headlines on the Guardian were about "breach of human rights law". The Lib Dems pointing out the reasons you couldn't do this. Zia Yusuf, Reform's policy chief was asked about this facing legal challenges and had a very clear and accurate answer: "the fact these questions are even asked in a country like this is just a function of learned helplessness[...] The answer is primary legislation and Parliament being sovereign." He's right. But I think that same mistaken analysis applies here because it frames opposition to Reform and indeed to reform often around things you "can't" do. I think the politics of "can't" is a huge driver of populists who say you can. And they will point to Trump cutting southern border crossings by 85%+ as a positive - they'll basically say no-one else is willing to do things, it's not nice, innocent people will get caught up but it's better than four more years of inaction.

But, I think, the bigger thing - which I did find positive - was that the politics of "can't" and of constraints is not a values argument or an argument on the issues. It's the same as talking about the media. Push back on the thing itself - which is actually what happened on the Reform policy pretty quickly and you saw them under pressure pretty quickly. But that populism analysis that is so focused on constraints and process and protecting blockers in the system is part of the problem because it just reinforces the sense that mainstream politics and the state is impotent. And I think after a certain point the dam will break.

So I think mainstream politics really needs to move on both fronts. It needs to deliver and act, but it also needs to be making arguments and pushing back on the substance of issues and on values not on constraints, or "how" things are done, or process. This is where I think Blair is right, if the mainstream becomes the parties of the status quo and the radical right and left become the parties of change then the mainstream will lose because people aren't satisfied with the status quo.

I am not convinced Starmer is equipped to make that leap.

[garbon]

Probably a terminology difference, but how does walk in surgery work

What about your MP's surgery?

[Tamas]

Probably a terminology difference, but how does walk in surgery work

"surgery" in the UK also means just the GP's place of practice. Also an MP meeting constituents.

Yeah.

[Sheilbh]

Dentist's surgery too - I feel like it's basically the same as "clinic" so if you can use that surgery will probably work.

Although I've never heard of a walk in GPs surgery

[HVC]

Ah you wacky Brits

[garbon]

Although I've never heard of a walk in GPs surgery

You don't get immediately seen. It is walk-in to hopefully get assigned an appointment that day.

[Josquius]

Maybe.

When New Labour came into office the economy was growing at 3% per year. The national debt was at 37.5% of GDP. Inflation was at 2%. We were a net energy exporter meaning that a key price input was largely under domestic control. We had one of the youngest populations in Europe. We were about to have a decade of growth where in GDP per capita terms (including real term) the economy not only grew significantly faster than the rest of Europe but also faster than the US. And asset prices were about to go on a massive run - particularly housing - so people who had bought homes were about to do very well. Prices in 1997 (adjusted) were about the same as they were in the 80s as there'd been a dip in the early 90s following Black Wednesday - by the time New Labour left office they had more than doubled.

That is a material context that makes the politics of "everyone wins" quite easy. It's, as the Irish used to frame it about "sharing the proceeds of growth" - in Ireland largely through tax cuts, in the UK through a better resourced public sector. I would add there were issues within that decade as everyone winning started to have costs and contradictions. Obviously there's a downside to that huge increase in housing costs in terms of people trying to access the market. The debt was rising before the financial crisis. And things really shift in the second term. In 2005, Mervyn King gives his speech saying the "NICE" (non-inflationary continuous expansion) decade was coming to an end. In the same year we become a net energy importer which means we're more exposed to global energy costs and balance of payments start to matter again. It's also around that time (a little earlier actually) that there is a huge explosion in consumer credit (powered by asset prices increasing too), so a lot of the consumer spending becomes powered by debt and household debt goes from about 90% of GDP to about 160%.

That's a very different context from now. On growth the UK is doing okay-ish - on course to have the second fastest growth in the G7 (after the US) in 2025. But that's still at about half the rate it was in 1997. Inflation is the highest in the G7 and particularly sticky in the UK (again, balance of payments, currency and that we rely on imports for a lot are key here). After the crash (which doubled the national debt) plus covid and energy guarantee following Russia's invasion (which increased by about 25% again), we now have debt as a share of GDP at between 95-100%. The population is aging (but still relatively young in a European context) and the old age dependency ratio is increasing - there's also been a big increase in the long term sick. House prices are very regionalised but broadly plateauing, but rental costs have skyrocketed (in part this reflects the last government's measures increasing the tax burden on landlords, followed by this government increasing the regulations in that area which means landlords are selling up - I personally benefit from this as I bought a flat that used to be a rental).

I think that is a context in which politics and spending is significantly more zero-sum. It's not about sharing the proceeds of growth, because there's not enough to share. It's about choosing - and Starmer, and the Labour movement at this point, and the soft left press like the Guardian do not like making choices. A one off wealth tax is not going to fix this. MMT is fantasy nonsense for a country like the UK (always reliant on the kindness of creditworthy strangers). This should be something Labour can be hard-headed about, as Nye Bevan put it, "the language of priorities is the religion of socialism" - but this government isn't. Similarly the way to a less zero-sum politics is through growth - but I don't see anything like the energy required on that. Although I think there are positive signs - apparently Starmer and Reeves have been reading Abundance (which is about the US, but I actually think far more applicable, relevant - and actionable - for the UK). There's reports that Reeves is going to propose pulling out of the Aarhus Convention and is pushing for quite sweeping reforms to unlock growth, particularly around planning. I saw Steve Reed signing MAGA style red baseball caps with "build, baby, build" on them. But we'll see if urgent action actually follows as opposed to dither, reviews, consultations, process for another year.

I would add that I think the pessimistic side has a reasonable argument that we are moving into a zero-sum world more broadly and that to a large extent it's out of the control of the UK (or most other countries). The world is getting older. Climate is only going to intensify (in the near term - longer term it all depends on China and India's decisions). I think we're in an era of great power competition again where there will be shocks like the impact on energy and food markets by Russia invading Ukraine, or things like covid. I think all of those are structural changes that will shift politics from a more "win win" framing to one about distribution: who benefits, who pays, what's the trade off. And it's not clear that avoiding that would even be good (particularly thinking of climate). I think British (and Western) politics has spent a long time in a fantasy world and needs to get real quick - or it'll happen through a crisis. I think one bigger question should be what does a left wing politics look like in a world more along those lines.

I know you've said this before. The far right might actually be right as the world descends into an apocalyptic dystopia.
But really that's a self fulfilling prophecy. Elect people who actively want to destroy the world and that's the world we will get. Its really not too late though to make changes that avoid the worst effects- and doing this will make for a more prosperous country and world in itself.

True the world economy is in a worse state than in the 90s.... but this need not necessarily spell doom for working people. Globalisation unravelling does provide opportunities for jobs at home.
One big opportunity is in renewables. Places that best stand to benefit from these are pretty poor - coastal towns? hilly rural mining areas?
The idea of different energy charges for those who have the infrastructure near them makes a lot of sense and really should be pushed forth. With water too- there's a current little story in the news with people whinging about a reservoir near them which was promised would be nicely landscaped but...isn't.
Blyth one example of somewhere that is amazingly well placed with the Norwegian connector and very robust grid connections from the old power plant there.

There's definitely aspects of its just distribution even in this. Less of the millionaire telling the man with £10 the man with £5 wants his money. Even just slightly more equal distribution to lower earners would have massive positive ripple effects.

I've heard the Abundance argument in the US and from my first hearing it I was into it. It makes a lot of sense as a path that should be taken. A solid offer that works for working people and doesn't rely on scapegoats.

I think the UK's relative smallness and unimportance is something that can really help us in this (though less so than for genuinely low population countries). Abundance for China?....yeah.... its long been said the world simply can't support a billion more Americans.
But 70 million?....far more attainable.

Again it all comes down to planning doesn't it. Make British infrastructure more affordable and housing denser.

Sort of related to the above and what I was saying on ID cards.

There was polling on ID cards in the summer which had net support of 35%, 53% in favour and 19% against. As I say I suspect that was always mile wide and inch deep which is why you need to make the argument.

But polling out today showing  that support has fallen to a net of -14%, 45% opposed (and 32% strongly opposed) with only 31% support. They have become "Keir Starmer's ID Cards" and he's deeply unpopular. Only 13% of voters are satisfied with his performance as PM to 79% who are dissatisfied - so a net rating of -66% which is a record low for this question (worst than previous lows by Sunak and Major).

That's why I'm not convinced his speech necessarily matters. But it also makes the point that if they're making that argument they need to make it. We can see this with ID cards - details briefed to the press and then announced.

But they didn't do any work in advance outlining where and how ID Cards would be useful (Cameron referred to this as "rolling the pitch", Blair as "framing the argument") - but also what hasn't happened is any sustained follow up. I've not really seen much of anything from the government spelling out the benefits, explaining why this government IT project would be different, rebuffing the arguments against.

Josh Glancy in the Times commented on this pointing at Blair - when Blair increased tuition fees it was very unpopular (but he had a majority) and carried a possibility of a big revolt. He did a Newsnight special being interviewed by the toughest interviewer on the BBC, he did a Question Time (like a town hall special) with young people and parents. There were big internal debates too and Blair wanted them because he thought it flushed out objections and sharpened his argument. There are similar stories with Thatcher (in both her case and Blair's this was true until they went mad after winning three elections). You test a policy to destruction internally so you have the best arguments to go out and convince the public. In both cases Thatcher and Blair were kind of energised by opposition - they liked being on stage, they liked being in an intellectual fight for what they were doing.

It's a bit like why Starmer gave government time for the private member's bill on assisted dying his explanation is that he made a promise to Esther Rantzen. Or the welfare cuts - there's absolutely a case and piece of work on welfare reform but it needs a lot of work and you need to build the argument; those cuts were decided last minute because the Treasury needed to make the numbers add up leading to a government with a majority of 170 having to u-turn or face defeat because of internal rebellions. You can't win arguments you're not making. So that speech was good. If it is an isolated speech followed by another two or three month period of minimal activity or comms it will mean nothing.

I keep on thinking about that Patrick Maguire article about Starmer's time in Northern Ireland on human rights law and quietly ticking things off a list and moving things forward in airless conference rooms. The message at that time was not flashy but perhaps effective. I now suspect it's more that that is about his level - he is, at best, an effective middle manager/bureaucrat able to progress items on an agenda. But he's not a leader.

Edit: On this, I hadn't realised but listening to Steve Richards and Starmer didn't mention ID cards in his speech which is really weird. Big announcement, a u turn, apparently a key policy on a number of fronts and controversial but not followed up.

I'm 100% for ID cards as a concept but yes, Labour completely ballsed it.
Really they shouldn't have made it a big policy announcement. it was never going to be a big support winner and was clearly red meat for the quitlings. It should have just been pushed through as a quiet reform to standardise the million different forms of government ID out there.
And physical cards please. Oh let there be physical cards. I've seen a fair few British people moaning that this would be terrible and is really horrid to foreigners...yet most foreigners I've ran into speaking about it actively want them.