Starmer’s Labour rule changes to be put to party’s conference after bruising row

Published

3 years ago

September 25, 2021

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Sir Keir Starmer’s watered-down proposals for changing Labour’s rulebook will be put to the party’s conference in Brighton following a bruising internal row.

The Labour leader has been forced into retreat, amid opposition from trade unions and the party’s left wing, in his bid to alter the rules on how his future successors are elected.

Sir Keir abandoned an effort to scrap the “one member, one vote” system that saw Jeremy Corbyn twice elected to the Labour leadership.

But he has managed to put a revised shake-up of Labour’s rules to a vote at the Brighton conference, with a vote expected on Sunday.

Critics have accused Sir Keir of an attempt to shut out Labour’s membership and its left wing from future leadership elections, with allies of Mr Corbyn urging conference attendees to reject even the leader’s watered-down plans.

But Sir Keir said, if approved, his plans would put Labour “in a better position to win the next general election”.

The row threatens to continue to overshadow the beginning of Labour’s gathering in Brighton.

Sir Keir’s first in-person conference as party leader has been billed as hugely important to his hopes of shaking off critics and offering evidence that he can lead them to victory at the next general election.

A focus has also once again been thrust on Sir Keir’s relationship with his deputy, Angela Rayner, after she used an eve of conference newspaper interview to confirm she would be willing to stand as a leadership candidate in the future.

But there were signs that Sir Keir should be confident of asserting his authority at the Brighton conference by having his rules shake-up approved on Sunday.

Labour’s general secretary David Evans challenged his critics by calling a vote on his own position on Saturday, which he subsequently won by 59.05% to 40.95% to suggest Sir Keir and his allies maintain the majority support of delegates in Brighton.

This was despite Mr Evans facing heckles of “Oh Jeremy Corbyn!” as he asked members why they joined the party in his conference address.

Away from the internal party tensions at Brighton, Sir Keir and Labour shadow ministers will seek to use Sunday to focus on education and climate policies.

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In an interview with the Sunday Mirror, Sir Keir reiterated Labour’s pledge – which was also made in the party’s 2019 election manifesto – to end the charitable tax status of private schools in England.

It is calculated this could raise as much as £1.7bn in extra VAT and business rates revenues, which Labour would intend to use to boost funding for state school pupils.

“Labour wants every parent to be able to send their child to a great state school,” Sir Keir said.

“But improving them to benefit everyone costs money. That’s why we can’t justify continued charitable status for private schools.”

Meanwhile, Labour’s shadow business secretary Ed Miliband will use a conference speech on Sunday to announce that Labour would invest up to £3bn over the coming decade to make the steel industry greener.

Calling on Labour to become the “party of climate and economic justice”, Mr Miliband is expected to say: “As we respond to the climate crisis with all the transformation that entails, we have a fateful choice to make: We can try and put a green coat of paint on an unfair, unequal, unjust Britain.

“Or we can make a different choice. For a green Britain where there is an irreversible shift of income, power and wealth to working people.”

Politics

‘Politicians mess it up every time’: New pre-election pledges may not be enough

Published

2 hours ago

April 25, 2024

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'Politicians mess it up every time': New pre-election pledges may not be enough

June gives me a wry smile when I ask her if she trusts politicians. But it soon fades.

“They promise you the Earth, and you don’t see anything. And it’s soul destroying,” she says.

I meet her and husband Joe as they tuck into fish and chips in the town’s oldest chippy, the Peabung, which has served this town since 1883.

June tells me she really wants to trust politicians but they “just mess it up every time”. I ask Joe if he thinks politicians care about him? “Well hopefully they do. I’m not sure really.”

He stops to think for a moment. “I don’t really trust politicians,” he says.

The findings of a Sky News/YouGov poll are stark and echo how voters like June and Joe feel. The findings suggest voters no longer believe what politicians say.

In some places, there appears to be a deep loss of faith in British politics.

Shannon Donnelly has nearly 200,000 followers on TikTok and has used the platform to develop her Grimsby-based business selling personal safety equipment, such as panic alarms. I ask her if she trusts politicians.

“No – I think things like Brexit has massively changed people’s opinion. I won’t forget when they said all that money would go to the NHS.

“Now we seem to be in a worse position, but they still expect us to trust them. It’s crazy.”

The percentage of Leavers saying they “almost never” trust the government has leapt by 33 points (from 23% to 56%) since the last election. This is twice as much as the increase for Remainers.

Shannon’s lack of trust impacts on her livelihood and she says she doesn’t know which way to turn.

“For the business, obviously, it’s important to look at what they will do. We’re struggling. VAT is insane, overheads are crazy.”

Asked if people think politicians care about them, 83% of people asked said no, with just 11% saying they cared a little.

When asked how much do politicians care about your part of the country – there is a clear divide – 86% of people living in the north of England say they don’t care, whereas just 47% of Londoners say their elected representatives don’t care about their city.

Brian Wustrack owns the oldest fish and chip shop in Grimsby.

“They’re just not listening to the people that voted, it’s all a one-way system for them. They’ve lost touch with the people out there, especially the people in the North.”

The prime minister is still to announce the date of the next general election.

However, places like Grimsby and Cleethorpes are key election battlegrounds now. Support for the Conservatives may be fading but that won’t necessarily translate into strong support for Labour.

The Reform party is gaining ground in pro-Leave constituencies like this one, picking up their 2019 Tory voters.

But brace yourself for a raft of promises in the next few months.

The questions is will voters trust politicians to deliver on them.

The Politics Hub with Sophy Ridge is going to be live in Grimsby tonight with a special programme in our Target Towns series. She’ll be talking about trust in politics with a live audience – that’s live tonight on Sky News at 7pm

ALL THE CANDIDATES IN NORTH EAST LINCOLNSHIRE’S LOCAL ELECTIONS

Croft Baker
Gemma Harney – Liberal Democrats
Marian Jervis – Labour Party
Graham Reynolds – Conservative Party

East Marsh
Lloyd Emmerson – Liberal Democrats
Barry Miller – Labour and Co-operative Party
Callum Procter – Conservative Party

Freshney
Tamzin Barton – Liberal Democrats
Tanya Brasted – Conservative Party
Paul Bright – Independent (part of Independents for North East Lincolnshire party group)
Paul Wood – Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC)
Samantha Wrexal Holborrow – Labour Party

Haverstoe
Stephen Hocknell – Liberal Democrats
Val O’Flynn – TUSC
Bill Parkinson – Conservative Party
Ian Townsend – Labour Party

Heneage
Brian Barrett – Liberal Democrats
Emma Clough – Labour Party
Tyrone Curran – Conservative Party
John Stiff – TUSC

Humberston & New Waltham
Ryan Aisthorpe – Liberal Democrats
Joe Carter – TUSC
Hayden Dawkins – Conservative Party
Pauline Kaczmarek – Labour Party

Immingham
David Barton – Liberal Democrats
Trevor Crofts – Conservative Party
Nathan Newton – TUSC
David Watson – Labour Party

Park
Robson Augusta – Labour Party
Zach Kellerman – Liberal Democrats
Dave Mitchell – TUSC
Daniel Westcott – Conservative Party

Scartho
Charlotte Croft – Conservative Party
Caroline Ellis – Liberal Democrats
Dan Humphrey – Labour Party
Val Pow – TUSC

Sidney Sussex
Andy Burton – Liberal Democrats
Alexandra Curran – Conservative Party
Mark Gee – TUSC
Edward Kaczmarek – Labour Party

South
Paul Batson – Conservative Party
Jane Bramley – Independent
Andrew Harrison – Liberal Democrats
Sheldon Mill – Labour Party
Bill Ward – TUSC

Yarborough
Les Bonner – Independent (part of the Independents for North East Lincolnshire party group)
Sam Brown – Labour and Co-operative Party
Phil Tuplin – TUSC
Christine Vickers – Conservative Party
Aharon Wharton – Liberal Democrats

Politics

A crisis of trust in our politics spells trouble for the government

Published

2 hours ago

April 25, 2024

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A crisis of trust in our politics spells trouble for the government

The morning after the 2019 general election, Boris Johnson pledged to people in the North East who had voted Conservative for the first time that he and the party would “repay your trust”.

That year was the Brexit election, and the Conservatives ultimately won because they and Mr Johnson were trusted to “get Brexit done” – Jeremy Corbyn was not.

Five years on, exclusive polling by YouGov for Sky News finds that since then, the number of people saying they “almost never” trust the British government to place the needs of the nation above the interests of their own party has nearly doubled – from 26% to 49%.

This spiralling level of distrust has been greatest for the bedrock of the Conservative’s electoral coalition – those who voted to leave the EU in 2016.

The percentage of Leavers saying they “almost never” trust government has leapt by 33 points (from 23% to 56%) since the last election – twice as much as the increase for Remainers.

It is the sort of people who live in places like Grimsby and Cleethorpes, which voted heavily to Leave the EU – by nearly 70% – who have lost most trust in British politics since 2019.

A disconnected politics

Our polling reveals a deep loss of public faith in British politics since the last election.

This is all the more remarkable given the “rally” in public trust enjoyed by the government at the height of the pandemic.

Nearly three-quarters of voters believe politicians don’t care what people like them think – this has risen from 51% to 73% over the past five years.

There has been a similar rise in the number of people who feel politicians in Westminster ignore the issues they care about – up from 50% to 67%.

A geography of discontent

Despite Mr Johnson’s pledge to repay the trust of new Conservative voters in the North, and promises of “levelling up”, there is a widespread view outside London that politicians in Westminster don’t care very much or at all about their part of the country.

The percentage of people saying politicians don’t care “at all” about their region is highest in Wales at 47% and the north of England at 39%.

This feeling is higher among Leave voters – 42% – than Remain voters -24%.

Five years of Conservative government has not delivered the legacy of trust hoped for by Mr Johnson.

‘They are all the same’

Perhaps most telling of all, the public currently see the parties as more like each other than at any election since 1964 – when polling records began.

Voters are more likely than ever before at 40% to say there is not much difference between Labour and the Conservatives, and less likely than ever to say there is “a great deal of difference” between them at just 12%.

This contrasts with 2019 when 47% of people said there was a great deal of difference between the parties.

Trust is about delivering on promises

Our research has found that across the world, one of the most important things needed for voters to consider politicians to be trustworthy is that they stick to their word and do what they say – so we asked whether the parties try to keep their promises.

Some 71% of people think the Conservative Party do not try to keep their promises, notably including 61% of 2019 Conservative voters.

Views on Labour are more mixed, with 47% of people saying they don’t try to keep their promises and 27% saying they do.

For the government, this deep public antipathy spells trouble for the next election.

In many parts of the country, voters feel politicians don’t care what they think or care about their area, ignore the issues that matter to them, and don’t offer a meaningful choice at the ballot box.

If Labour does benefit from a prevailing mood of public distrust at that election, its honeymoon may not last long as it will soon face the same winds of discontent.

Politics

Biden’s 44.6% capital gains tax proposal likely a ‘nothing burger’

Published

3 hours ago

April 25, 2024

admin

Biden’s 44.6% capital gains tax proposal likely a ‘nothing burger’

President Biden’s move to introduce a 44.6% federal capital gains tax probably wouldn’t affect most people in crypto, according to crypto tax commentators.