6 hours ago
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I reckon it’s time to call it. The threat to freeze personal independence payment (Pip) disability benefits shows that the fears voiced in the run-up to the general election were well founded. Keir Starmer’s government, cratering in the polls, with Reform snapping at its heels, is in serious trouble. Weekend reports suggested the latest cuts are being reconsidered after a backlash from Labour’s own MPs, charities and campaigners. It’s all vintage Labour, swinging between collected callousness and then flustered chaos.
Prior to the election, sceptics were told to keep the faith. Focus on the prize of getting the Tories out. It’s all three-dimensional chess, to whisper to rightwing voters. Starmer’s caution and inconsistency is only pragmatism, which could turn to radicalism in office.
But you don’t hear that much any more. The radicalism not only has not transpired, but something else, something cold and stomach-sinking, has emerged: a government clear in its intent on making savings by targeting the most vulnerable in society – the sick, disabled people, mentally ill people. This isn’t simply a locking in of the austerity state Labour inherited, but an extension of it.
Cuts from those who need it most have been rebranded as “fairness”, in a sort of performative determination to show that this government is not a soft touch, no siree. It is a move that has pushed 1 million older people into skipping meals after their winter fuel benefit was cut. One that has maintained the two-child limit. And one where immigration raids closely resembling those carried out at the height of the Tory crackdowns are the norm. A choice has been made to not launch a more fair and progressive tax system, but to ringfence the rentier class instead – as everyone downstream from asset-rich capital is pummelled. As David Edgerton noted, the “party hates Tories, but it seems to love Tory panaceas”.
And on that, Wes Streeting recently called Labour’s record so far a “painful” watch for the Conservative party, as the government is doing all the things the Tories “only ever talked about”. “What is the point of the Conservative party?” he said the public must be asking. The corollary of that question is: if the government is doing work the Conservatives could only dream of, then what is the point of the Labour party?
Well, the point, it seems, is to be as not-Labour as possible, and that purpose was fashioned in a battle against those on the left of the party, rather than its desire to be the canny custodian of leftwing politics once in power. It is as simple as that. The argument that the party shields its passion for equality and redistributive politics no longer holds when there is no election to fight, and when all the signs and sounds coming from the government strongly suggest a self-congratulatory steeliness. “Pearl clutching” is how one government insider is said to have described some MPs’ concerns about cuts (with echoes of the “shaking off the fleas” comment from another insider in 2023). You could try to divine what is in the party leadership’s soul and still hope against hope that there are some residual values that are being thwarted by poor formulation of solutions. But does it really matter any more? The purpose of a system is what it does, not what it claims to do.
There is another, not mutually exclusive, explanation for the party’s troubles – those in charge are arrogant and just not very good. The “freebies” scandal is a clear example of this exceptionalism and a poor ability to read the room. For a government that came to power in a nation traumatised by Tory corruption, refusing to apologise because actions were technically not illegal does not exactly signal the arrival of an administration that isn’t just as out of touch – cutting benefits while going to concerts and receiving nice clothes. And now, with spectacular timing, it emerges that the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, reportedly accepted free tickets to a Sabrina Carpenter concert earlier this month.
Beyond that, there is in Starmer particularly an almost eerie vacancy – not so much not reading the room as not being in the room at all. He squares up to crises by offering up yet more “sleeves rolled up” platitudes. And yet, despite Labour’s poor performance, the party still seems to benefit from what is a defining feature of English political culture – memory holing, where facts from the past are suppressed, erased or forgotten. The goalposts shift, again and again. Expectations diminish, again and again. Hopes for a renaissance rise, again and again. Maybe another “reset” will turn things around.
Perhaps we can look away from domestic trials and hail in Starmer, finally, a statesman on the global stage who can keep Donald Trump on side while supporting Ukraine. Starmer has “found purpose abroad” that could unlock the purpose he needs at home, too. He could even “use his new foreign policy to kindle radical domestic reform”. This Starmer has been right there, for months, years now, yet still attempts are made to conjure up another Starmer around him. The fact that he is a leader described in a damning book as a passenger by some in his own party – remote and broadly a vehicle for the ambitions of others – was explosive ordnance that just didn’t go off.
The price of maintaining the illusion that the penny will finally drop, that leaders will come good, is high – and is never paid by the failures who flee the scene then reappear with lucrative columns, podcasts and consultancies. It is paid by the citizens who inherit the consequences of political failure, and cannot escape them. Today, with Reform waiting in the wings, the price of not raising the alarm on a Labour party that will not change course will be nothing short of catastrophic.
I am reminded of a saying I first heard on the radio after Trump’s 2016 presidential victory, and which has since become a slogan among young activists: “You get to die of old age, but I’ll die of climate change.” The worst that can happen to Labour is that it succumbs to electoral defeat, while the worst for everyone else is having to battle with an extreme rightwing movement that, with the implosion of the Tory party, is a historically new, poisonous and advancing force.
There is unlikely to be a continuation of the cycle, where Labour hands over to Tories and we begin again, hoping that this time the status quo can be managed with whatever new cast of characters, with the illusion of salvation on the horizon. Brexit, “growth”, “securonomics” – the tricks are running out. The cycle was always a spiral. After this there is only the abyss. This is it.
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Nesrine Malik is a Guardian columnist
