Labour will soon be consumed by the Left-wing Blob it gave birth to

Rachel Reeves and Keir Starmer
Rachel Reeves and Keir Starmer

As the late French fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent once put it: “The clothes are the message.” When it comes to the Left, such a statement couldn’t be more true. In the throes of Cool Britannia – when the London members’ clubs for creatives were banning ties and the indie rave scene singing that attire had “to be loose fit” to enable liquid freedom of movement – Tony Blair stalked the halls of Downing Street in open-neck shirts and comfy chinos.

During the Corbyn era, the “Labour look” was suffused with anti-corporate contempt, with its leader sporting 80s shell suits, “Lenin” caps, and ill-fitting suits. In contrast, the fashion at this year’s Labour conference scintillates with sly splendour – all neon Stella McCartney blazers and Armani tortoise-shell spectacles. Outside the gates, the usual Trotskyists chant against the “Israeli genocide” and “Sir Kid Starver”. But the conference arena is a symphony of surreptitious self-expression: in between speeches, the main stage clinks with the rose gold hardware of Michael Kors handbags. Windowless fringe events on the New Deal whiff of Calvin Klein’s gender-neutral CK One.

This is all to say that there is something disquietingly furtive about Starmer’s Labour. It is as if they are not quite willing to reveal their true selves; to state who they are and what they believe in. Some claim that the party’s rapid descent into sleaze and Machiavellian power plays is a sure sign that Starmer is not up to the job. Then again, most government honeymoon periods come to an end prematurely. After bungling a donations row involving Bernie Ecclestone, Tony Blair was yellow and gaunt by the autumn of 1997. Margaret Thatcher’s Cabinet was racked by infighting and Whitehall plunged into confusion, as she proved naively vague about apportioning roles, and overworked herself. A rocky start is not necessarily a sign of an inevitably weak government.

And yet, one gets the feeling that there is something profoundly amiss with this Labour administration. The temptation is to attribute Labour’s chaotic start to the weakness of its leader. The source of the problem may in fact be much worse – namely the duplicity of the movement that would rather endure sleazy headlines than show the country its hand. One might speculate that this is because Labour simply doesn’t have a grand vision. The darker alternative explanation is that it does – but it isn’t ready to quite reveal it for fear it will scare the middle class.

True, the Chancellor yesterday announced an end to “trickle down and trickle out economics”. But the clunky choice of words suggested she didn’t dare openly say what she really meant – namely that Thatcherism and globalisation are dead and Britain is returning to socialism. The Chancellor spoke of a Britain able to realise the “untapped potential” of its citizens, not held back by inept cronyism, Little England’s Brexit red tape and systemic inequality. This is a bold – and potentially powerful – attempt by the Left to redefine freedom fundamentally, from a matter of individual rights and state non-interference, to a quest to liberate humankind from systemic obstacles. Yet Labour doesn’t dare explicitly lay out its new philosophy.

Labour needs to find some “red meat” to distract the news hounds at conference. But when it comes to its ideological mission, it is petrified that the truth might be difficult for people to digest – or worse, that powerful figures in the business world and government blob might choke. So it plays it safe.

Keir Starmer and his chancellor could point out that Britain, and the wider West, is approaching a historic turning point, with government and unions starting to do the unthinkable and sing from the same hymn sheet. They could have pointed out that – after decades of attack from Left-wing economists, as well as ideological U-turns by the IMF and OECD – the Thatcherite belief that countries need flexible labour markets while overpowering unions are an obstacle to growth is on the cusp of being overturned. He could declare Thatcherism finished, and that a new age beckons. Yet, intriguingly, Starmer is unwilling to admit this – or at least not quite yet. It is telling that the Chancellor blandly declared she is “proud” to give the public sector a pay rise as it is the “right choice for retention”.

Labour may be fearful that it will spook investors who are already rattled by No 10’s performative pessimism. After militantly suppressing their convictions to survive the Corbyn terror, the Starmerites have developed a compulsive and pathological aversion to stating what they believe for fear it will be their downfall. Starmer is also concerned about upsetting the Treasury bean counters. The Government may be gambling that as the global orthodoxy continues to shift – perhaps helped along by the rise of blue-collar populism on the Continent and a victory for Kamala Harris in November – the British establishment will naturally drift further to the Left. All it needs to do for now is tread water, and pay lip service to fiscal rectitude while pilfering pensioners to line the pockets of its union chums.

Of course, the risk is that without a strong sense of mission, Starmer’s government won’t survive long enough to see in the revolution, becoming quickly overwhelmed by scandal and swallowed by the Blob. Indeed, No 10’s mishandling of the winter fuel payment policy is a warning sign. Its acceptance of the off-the-shelf proposal, apparently without even bothering to ask how the most vulnerable would be cushioned, speaks to a government that will mindlessly take orders from the Treasury. Given a confrontation with the Treasury over the UK’s commitment to mass immigration seems inevitable, such an attitude could well prove its downfall.

If Labour prematurely implodes that will be no bad thing for the country. The insanity of Trussonomics was the belief that we could push through unfunded tax cuts while simultaneously doubling down on a multi-billion-pound energy bailout support package at a time when the debt pile was ballooning. But the equally foolish conceit of Reevonomics is that a country that is already in a doom loop can impose wealth taxes to fund more public spending.

The self-proclaimed socialists, stalking the corridors of power with their distressed Balenciaga satchels, may not be in control for long. Without a confident mission for change, they could find themselves in the same trap as their Tory predecessors, drowning in sleaze and clinging to power for power’s sake.