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Opinion

A Belligerent Pauper State

22 Sep 2024 6 minute read
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves at the Labour Party Conference in Liverpool. Photo Peter Byrne/PA Wire

Ben Wildsmith

The Labour conference opened today on a curious note. Ten weeks after the election, Leader of the House, Lucy Powell, reassured delegates that the new government wasn’t the same as the one they had just annihilated.

The counter-narrative to this week’s stories of freebies and questionable donations was first on the agenda.

‘Don’t let anyone tell you we are all the same, conference, because we are not,’ Powell affirmed.

At a fringe event, meanwhile, Mick Lynch of the RMT called for Rachel Reeves to abandon the Tory fiscal rules that bake austerity into government plans.

‘They cannot keep the bosses and media happy every day. They’ve got to step out of the straitjacket they’ve put themselves in economically with these fiscal rules. They’ve got to be bolder. It’s got to start with Rachel Reeves changing her position. If you use Tory fiscal measures, you’ll get Tory results.’

Defensiveness

An event that should be celebratory, given the majority Labour has achieved, seems uneasy and marked by defensiveness.

On one hand, conference was treated to Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Darren Jones, suggesting that Labour should be aiming for five terms in power, taking us to 2049. Those who detected a hint of self-doubt in that brittle grandiosity could shelter under the wise counsel of Sunderland MP, Lewis Atkinson.

Worrying over how the party presented itself to working-class voters, Atkinson urged delegates to follow his own example. He had, only last Friday, campaigned in a council estate wearing his Sunderland AFC shirt. It was part of his determination not to ‘be visually a turn-off to working-class voters’.

Can we pause for a minute, here? Between being asked to speak at conference and mounting the rostrum today, Mr Atkinson must have sat down to write his initial draft, reworked it, run it past his colleagues and loved ones, then finally had it approved at the top level of government.

Is it not a matter of wonder that nobody involved in this process had the compassion to tell him, ‘Lewis, love, you’re sounding like a right wanker here, cut that bit out.’?

If you’re despairing that the new government represents any change at all, however, you should be careful what you wish for.

In one very consequential way, Labour is charting a drastic new course.

A couple of weeks ago, we saw a carefully choreographed period of political theatre regarding the use of UK Storm Shadow missiles for strikes inside Russia. Anonymous sources were quoted as claiming that a deal had been done to allow this move, preparing the way for Foreign Secretary, David Lammy, to travel to Ukraine for talks with US Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken.

We were alerted that a joint visit to Kyiv was unprecedented because of security concerns, priming the pump for a major announcement. The following day, Keir Starmer visited Washington to meet with the animated corpse of Joe Biden and the press gathered to hear the big reveal.

Act of war

It never came. Russia had told the United Nations in session that the use of NATO weapons on Russian territory would be considered an act of war. The Americans, mindful that UK missiles contain American components, judged that threat to be serious.

Today, Lammy used a fringe conference speech to urge allies to demonstrate ‘nerve and guts’ over Ukraine.

This, you’ll agree, appears to be a role-reversal for the UK in its dealings with America. The accepted wisdom has been that the UK’s natural position, vulnerable as it is, lies in reminding its bellicose ally of the virtues of caution.

Now, it seems, our government is being reined in by the White House.

Labour’s positioning on this is baffling for several reasons. Leaving aside the UK’s particular vulnerability to Russian reprisals, the policy is at odds with the government’s wider modus operandi.

Ukraine is spoken of in moral terms, as a duty we must uphold to retain our national integrity. In the same speech, however, Lammy explained that weapons sales to Israel will continue, despite that nation facing charges of genocide in the International Court.

Granny-freezing careerists

It stretches credulity that the granny-freezing careerists of Keir Starmer’s Labour are seized with moral fury over one of these wars, to the point of exposing us to existential threats, yet so nuanced over the other.

Additionally, we’re broke, aren’t we? The means testing of winter fuel payments to the elderly was sold to us as unavoidable as, had it not been enacted, there might have been a run on the pound. The parliamentary debate on the issue, upon which no Welsh Labour MP rebelled, took place the day before David Lammy’s trip to Kyiv.

On that trip, he pledged an additional £600 million in funds for Ukraine, over and above the £3 billion annual stipend already agreed. That figure accounts for half of the savings made by cutting the payments to pensioners.

I’m under no illusions about the threat Putin’s Russia poses to the UK and its allies. I am, however, mightily confused by a government that is simultaneously alarmist about it whilst leading the charge into its consequences.

We are telling the world, Putin included, that we are so economically ruined that we can’t heat our homes. Meanwhile, we are urging escalation on the dog-end of an American administration that could conceivably be replaced by a suspected Putin ally in less than two months.

The rebuttal to most conspiracy theories is that people fail to factor in the directionless incompetence of governments when constructing them.

In this instance, we should hope that explanatory factors are being withheld from us because presenting the UK as a selectively belligerent pauper state cannot surely be the government’s intention.


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Richard
Richard
17 days ago

Are you saying that it’s “belligerent” to give the Ukrainians the help and support they need to fight for their survival?

Ben Wildsmith
Ben Wildsmith
17 days ago
Reply to  Richard

I’m saying it is curious that the UK should be ahead of its allies in this regard, given the desperate straits our government claim we are in.

Richard
Richard
17 days ago
Reply to  Ben Wildsmith

Surely moral leadership is something to be commended. Let’s hope that the rest of Ukraine’s allies soon follow their lead

Ben Wildsmith
Ben Wildsmith
17 days ago
Reply to  Richard

So your analysis is that Putin is murderous, insane or both but it’s fine to override American concerns that he would attack the UK on the basis of morality. Not only have I not been democratically consulted about this, I’m morally compromised if I question it.

Old Curmudgeon
Old Curmudgeon
17 days ago
Reply to  Richard

When you talk about moral leadership are you including selling weapons to Isreal? I think Ben Wildsmith does make a valid point.

Richard
Richard
17 days ago
Reply to  Old Curmudgeon

That’s what is known as “whataboutery”! Anyway whilst legitimate criticisms can be made of Israel, there is no way in which they can be remotely compared to Putin. Putin is a brutal dictator who is intent on destroying Ukrainian nationhood, Isreal is a democracy that is fighting a murderous organisation that openly wants to kill all Jews.

Mawkernewek
17 days ago
Reply to  Richard

I’m quite sure that Netanyahu is even keener on destroying Palestinian nationhood than Putin is of Ukraine.

Richard
Richard
16 days ago
Reply to  Mawkernewek

Whatever you think of Netanyahu (and I am no fan of him) he is a democratically elected politician who can be peacefully removed at the ballot box. The same cannot be said of Putin.

Mawkernewek
17 days ago
Reply to  Richard

Ask someone in Gaza and the West Bank (other than Israeli settlers) whether they got a vote.

Richard
Richard
16 days ago
Reply to  Mawkernewek

It is Hamas who has denied the people of Gaza another election since they took power there in 2006

Johnny Gamble
Johnny Gamble
17 days ago
Reply to  Richard

Was Zelensky elected?
Why are you only saying half stories, The present Ukrainian government took control with a coupe that contained fascist elements in 2014.
I don’t support Hamas yet under International law Palestinians have the right to resist occupation and genocide carried out by the Zionist Israeli government.
As I have said before not all Jewish people are Zionists.

Richard
Richard
16 days ago
Reply to  Johnny Gamble

Do you support the right of the Ukrainians to resist occupation and genocide carried out by the Putin Russian government?

Ben Wildsmith
Ben Wildsmith
17 days ago
Reply to  Richard

Ukraine 31,300 casualties/ population 38 000 000
Gaza casualties approx 40 000/ population 2 000 0000
Israel casualties 1640/ population 9 500 000

Your ‘moral leadership’ in maths.

j91968
j91968
16 days ago
Reply to  Ben Wildsmith

Calm down, calm down, calm down. I am staggered at how safely housed, well-fed, comfortably-off men (who have no intention of ever fighting for anything they believe in) think they can second guess how countries engaged in a war ought to behave.

Old Curmudgeon
Old Curmudgeon
16 days ago
Reply to  Richard

We are still giving £3billion which is not inconsiderable. Cutting the payment to pensioners is unavoidable yet another £600,000,000 was found whilst Starmer was on a visit.

Mawkernewek
17 days ago
Reply to  Richard

Wouldn’t moral leadership be creating a peaceful solution?

Richard
Richard
16 days ago
Reply to  Mawkernewek

And what would your proposed “peaceful solution” be? Surrendering to Putin’s demands?

Linda Jones
Linda Jones
15 days ago
Reply to  Richard

An all out war with Russia is surely to be avoided. Maybe NATO and the EU could move back from the borders of Russia and allow a buffer zone to be created. It’s what was agreed with Gorbachev as part of the move to reunify Berlin in the 1980’s. It’s what Putin has asked for and is fighting for. Maybe NATO and the EU could show some moral leadership and comply with the promises they made to Gorbachev and Russia. It would save a lot of lives and remove the threat felt by the Russian people.

Richard
Richard
15 days ago
Reply to  Linda Jones

NATO were prepared to offer Russia a guarantee that Ukraine would not be joining them before the invasion and they still invaded. What makes you confident that Russia wouldn’t do it again and find another excuse if NATO did offer that?

Padi Phillips
Padi Phillips
17 days ago
Reply to  Ben Wildsmith

As we all know, the dire straits is a total myth. Sure, there are some financial issues, but simply reversing the directions of the flows of wealth from the rich back to everyone else at a reasonable rate (10% + tax on the wealth of the wealthiest) would deliver far more than the rather measly £22 billion they keep harping on about in a vain attempt to gaslight the electorate, who, Starmer & Co seem to have forgotten, sw through that £37 billion for a track and trace that didn’t work and all the other scams over the past 14… Read more »

hdavies15
hdavies15
17 days ago
Reply to  Padi Phillips

I cancelled that downtick that appeared under your comment. It seems that when it comes to Ukraine, Israel and so many other conflicts the old nonsense about morality gets trotted out sharpish. None of it is moral as the main driver has been UK Ltd’s ability to sell weapons of war to those countries. UK supplies victims and aggressors while making mealy mouthed comments about “seeking peace”. The biggest aggression of all is the attack on ordinary people in the UK which stepped up through the gears since 2008 with wealth being shifted out of their pockets and the public… Read more »

Alan Jones
Alan Jones
17 days ago
Reply to  Ben Wildsmith

If memory serves me correctly Ben the Americans were consistent in urging caution to the UK when the debate & then decision was made to set up a task force to reclaim the Falklands/Malvinas after the Argentine invasion in 1982. The present Labour government though, while appearing to want do the “moral” thing does seem to be following the pattern of a government with a near impossible task before it domestically & that’s to head for a conflict or war situation to divert attention. During the recent election the Labour party reiterated time & again the priorities of the voters… Read more »

Mab Meirion
Mab Meirion
17 days ago

They are having trouble bedding in, the fresh young players of the new production of ‘Carry on Britain’ so many lines fumbled and cues missed, but doing the right thing was avoided at all costs…

So like Sunak is Starmer …

It is uncanny, until you ‘get’ that they have to be attractive to the same ‘Fat Cats’, but their ability to do the wrong thing must be viewed as some kind of quality in our new Champagne Charlie Bullydom…

John Ellis
John Ellis
17 days ago

It seems to me that the hard reality underlying the saga set forth here is that the UK is really now pretty much ‘shot’ as a serious and significant player on the world stage. And, moreover, has been since at least the early autumn of 1956, when the USA sharply reminded Britain – and France too – of their real-time place in the post WW2 world pecking order in the context of the Suez invasion.. But since true patriotic Englishmen, and indeed women too, still decline to acknowledge that reality – ever buttressed in their imperial assurance by our celebrated… Read more »

includemeout
includemeout
17 days ago

The sight of rabidly militarist Labour politicians will not be new to those of us who remember the Blair years. But we’re not meant to notice that the people now pontificating about the need to defend the rules-based international order are the same ones who spent the 1990s and 2000s telling us that international law was outdated and irrelevant, and that Western leaders had the right to invade other countries whenever their precious little liberal consciences told them to.  The most charitable interpretation I can think of for the new belligerati’s reckless attempt at escalation in Ukraine is that they… Read more »

Charles Coombes
Charles Coombes
16 days ago

Pantomime season starts early this year.
New boss same as the old boss just got fooled again !

Shân Morgain
Shân Morgain
15 days ago

‘ If you use Tory fiscal measures, you’ll get Tory results.’ Thanks Mick (RMT) this deserves to be passed around and become a slogan. Added to which the idea that austerity ‘grows’ an economy is absurd. It’s usually said that national finance is not like domestic finance. Actually there’s a lot in common. If we cut the amount allocated to the weekly shop it does nothing at all to increase household income. If we borrow from a bank to invest in things like a more efficient fridge or washing machine, or solar panels, it’ll quite quickly save on house energy bills.… Read more »

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