Sir Keir Starmer positions himself as PM-in-waiting as psychodramas engulf Westminster and Holyrood
As the Conservatives in Westminster tied themselves in knots over whether to back the Privileges Committee condemnation of Boris Johnson and the SNP’s Humza Yousaf sought to revive independence plans with his party still in crisis, Sir Keir Starmer went to Leith in Scotland to set out his mission to turbo-charge renewable energy in the UK should he become PM.
His target is for Britain to produce all its electricity from low-carbon energy sources – nuclear, wind and solar – by 2030. To do it is a bold plan to borrow £100bn+ over the course of the next parliament to transition the country away from fossil fuels to green energy.
By far Labour’s single biggest spending commitment, the party had pledged to borrow £28bn-a-year to fund the flagship green transition programme, but has since scaled back borrowing plans amid growing concerns about taking on debt as the cost of borrowing rises on the back of higher interest rates.
Instead, Labour will gradually ramp up borrowing to that level in the “second half of the parliament” if it wins the next general election.
But the plan is still huge – undoubtedly the single most radical policy of Sir Keir’s Labour government should he win the next election. Labour’s green subsidies amount to more in relative terms than US President Joe Biden’s own green economy plan – the inflation reduction act – which has earmarked $37bn in subsidies.
The money will be used to launch a state-run company GB Energy to invest in renewables, with £2.5bn in direct subsidies to green energy providers who contract to manufacture in the UK – the ‘British jobs bonus’ as Sir Keir puts it. He says it will create nearly 500,000 new direct and indirect jobs.
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Starmer outlines energy plans
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The driving purpose of the plan is to drive down energy bills – with Labour claiming that it will take £1,400 off average bills if it can hit the 2030 target.
It is also about transforming the economy in order to better fund public services.
Sir Keir is clear that this is the sort of “activist industrial policy” Britain needs for the longer term, but for voters looking to Labour to commit money to schools, hospitals and transport in the next election, this could prove a hard sell with the amount Labour is willing to borrow to subsidise green technologies dwarfing other commitments for public services.
“We are going to put money into public services,” explains one senior Labour figure. “But we have to grow the economy as the first step. Being clear about stable finances and sticking to it is the best way to turnaround the country.”
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‘We are doubling down not backing off’
But while the level of borrowing has raised eyebrows, and afforded the Conservatives a “borrowing bombshell” attack line, the plans to block new oil and gas developments in the North Sea as part of the renewables revolution has provoked widespread criticism from industry and union figures fearful of widespread job losses.
Douglas Ross, the Scottish Conservative leader, on Monday said Labour’s plans put “tens of thousands of Scottish jobs a risk”.
The criticisms have prompted another policy tweak as Sir Keir promised not to revoke any fossil fuel extraction licenses granted before the next general election, even though it could take years before those new fields begin producing.
This allows the Labour leader to insist existing jobs in oil and gas are not at risk, but there’s no doubt that as production is gradually wound down, this will be a momentous shift for a sector that supports nearly 200,000 jobs in the UK.
There is also the question of whether the Labour leader can actually deliver what he is pledging in this five years. Sir Dieter Helm, professor of economic policy at Oxford University, who has advised the government on energy policy over many years, said last week the goal was unlikely to succeed on the current trajectory.
When I pressed Sir Keir in an interview in Leith on Monday if the “clean power by 2030” pledge was a guarantee or a target he demurred, he said it was his “ambition” and he believed to be “doable”. Not an explicit guarantee then, and for good reason.
There is also a question about credibility and commitment after the Labour party U-turned on its promise to borrow £28bn-a-year from the beginning of the parliament in order to scale up renewable industry.
‘Doubling down’
The leadership has insisted it is still totally committed to the plan, but has had to scale back commitments in the near-to-medium term as the high cost of borrowing hits against Labour’s fiscal rules (no borrowing to fund day-to-day spending and net debt must be falling as a percentage of GDP at end of the rolling five-year period).
When I asked Sir Keir on Monday if the U-turn on the financial commitment in the first half of the parliament showed – as with Brexit, tuition fees, and re-nationalisations – that he can’t be trusted to keep his promises, he said it showed the opposite, that he was “doubling down” on the plan.
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“It is a matter of trust,” he told me.
“Rachel [Reeves] – we set out fiscal rules two or more years ago. Inflation is in a completely different place to where it was… but at the same time as we work through our plans and set out what we want to do in years one, two and three, it is clear we can ramp up to that £28bn and when I say to people in the sector, I want clean power by 2030, they don’t say you’re backing down, they say that’s a real challenge.”
On the timing of this announcement, there is of course a risk that Sir Keir’s missions get drowned out by the dramas back in Westminster. There was some discussion about whether to pull the announcement, but in the end Sir Keir decided that he wanted to get on talking about how he might lead Britain than, to quote one ally, get “bogged down in the psychodrama” of what’s going on in Westminster.
“Doesn’t it speak volumes that the Labour Party is today launching a plan for the next generation of jobs, whilst the Tories are squabbling back in Westminster, and the SNP are preaching about promises they’ve broken?” observed the Labour leader when I asked him about the current state of his rivals.
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Sir Keir wants to use these “mission statements” to position himself as a leader-in-waiting as the current prime minister Rishi Sunak finds his agenda hijacked by the failings of his predecessor and party infighting once more.
But the agenda on Monday is very much about parking Labour’s tanks on the SNP’s lawns too, given that there is no route to Number 10 for Sir Keir that doesn’t go through Scotland. Locating GB Energy in Scotland is designed to firmly park his tanks on the SNP’s lawn.
A poll out over the weekend suggested Labour was on course to take 26 seats in the next general election – an incredible change in fortunes from the single seat it picked up in 2019 – as the departure of Nicola Sturgeon and her subsequent arrest (she was released without charge) over the police probe into SNP finance leaves the party battered and bruised.
“Nicola Sturgeon not being first minister obviously provides a space and an opportunity that simply wasn’t there before,” acknowledges one senior figure.
“But there’s no rule that anybody disillusioned with either the Tories or the SNP necessarily swaps columns to us. Anyone who thinks we can flatline is heading for defeat at the next election. We’ve got to go up at the end, which is why we’re going to continue in this way.”
World
Egypt: Two Britons believed to be among 16 missing as tourist boat sinks after being ‘hit by large wave’
Two Britons are believed to be among more than a dozen people missing after a boat sank in the Red Sea off the Egyptian coast.
The yacht, called Sea Story, had 44 people on board, including 31 tourists of varying nationalities and 13 crew.
Authorities are searching for 16 people, including 12 foreign nationals and four Egyptians, the governor of the Red Sea region said, adding that 28 other people had been rescued.
Preliminary reports suggested a sudden large wave struck the vessel, capsizing it within about five minutes, governor Amr Hanafi said.
“Some passengers were in their cabins, which is why they were unable to escape,” he added in a statement.
Survivors rescued from the Sea Story in Marsa Alam. Pic: STR/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock
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Passengers rescued from sunken tourist boat
The people who were rescued only suffered minor injuries such as bruises and scrapes with none needing hospital treatment.
A Foreign, Commonwealth and Development office spokesperson said: “We are providing consular support to a number of British nationals and their families following an incident in Egypt and are in contact with the local authorities.”
The foreign nationals aboard the 34-metre-long vessel, owned by an Egyptian national, included Americans, Belgians, British, Chinese, Finns, Germans, Irish, Poles, Slovakians, Spanish, and Swiss.
Sea Story had no technical problems, obtained all required permits before the trip, and was last checked for naval safety in March, according to officials.
The four-deck, wooden-hulled motor yacht was part of a multi-day diving trip when it went down near the coastal town of Marsa Alam following warnings about rough weather.
Officials said a distress call was received at 5.30am local time on Monday.
The boat had left Port Ghalib in Marsa Alam on Sunday and was scheduled to reach its destination of Hurghada Marina on 29 November.
The Sea Story had 44 people on board. File pic: Dive Pro Liveaboard
Some survivors had been airlifted to safety on a helicopter, officials said.
The firm that operates the yacht, Dive Pro Liveaboard in Hurghada, said it has no information on the matter.
According to its maker’s website, the Sea Story was built in 2022.
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The incident comes after the Egyptian Meteorological Authority issued a warning on Saturday about turbulence and high waves on the Red Sea.
The organisation had advised against maritime activity for Sunday and Monday.
Some tourist companies have stopped or limited operations on the Red Sea due to the potential dangers from conflicts in the region.
A motion has been filed to drop the charges against Donald Trump of plotting to overturn the 2020 US presidential election result.
Mr Trump was first indicted on four felonies in August 2023: Conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction of and an attempt to obstruct an official proceeding, and conspiracy against rights.
The president-elect pleaded not guilty to all charges and the case was then put on hold for months as Mr Trump’s team argued he could not be prosecuted.
Special Counsel Jack Smith. Pic: Reuters
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On Monday, prosecutors working with special counsel Jack Smith, who had led the investigation, asked a federal judge to dismiss the case over long-standing US justice department policy, dating back to the 1970s, that presidents cannot be prosecuted while in office.
It marks the end of the department’s landmark effort to hold Mr Trump accountable for the attack on the US Capitol on 6 January 2021 when thousands of Trump supporters assaulted police, broke through barricades, and swarmed the Capitol in a bid to prevent the US Congress from certifying Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory.
Mr Smith’s team had been assessing how to wind down both the election interference case and the separate classified documents case in the wake of Mr Trump’s election victory over vice president Kamala Harris earlier this month, effectively killing any chance of success for the case.
In court papers, prosecutors said “the [US] Constitution requires that this case be dismissed before the defendant is inaugurated”.
They said the ban [on prosecuting sitting presidents] “is categorical and does not turn on the gravity of the crimes charged, the strength of the government’s proof, or the merits of the prosecution, which the government stands fully behind”.
Mr Trump, who has said he would sack Mr Smith as soon as he takes office in January, and promised to pardon some convicted rioters, has long dismissed both the 2020 election interference case and the separate classified documents case as politically motivated.
Trump supporters try to break through a police barrier at the Capitol in Washington. Pic: AP
He was accused of illegally keeping classified papers after leaving office in 2021, some of which were allegedly found in his Mar-a-Lago home in Florida.
The election interference case stalled after the US Supreme Court ruled in July that former presidents have broad immunity from prosecution, which Mr Trump’s lawyers exploited to demand the charges against him be dismissed.
Mr Smith’s request to drop the case still needs to be approved by US District Judge Tanya Chutkan.
No date had been set for a trial.
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At least 1,500 cases have been brought against those accused of trying to overthrow the election result on 6 January 2021, resulting in more than 1,100 convictions, the Associated Press said.
More than 950 defendants have been sentenced and 600 of them jailed for terms ranging from a few days to 22 years.
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