Labour is done. If they stick with this morally bankrupt leader, who promised us Corbyn’s policies with a more sophisticated management, then the party is over.
We were promised country first but what Keir Starmer has delivered instead is Tory-lite – with chaos, nepotism and sleaze. Keir and his backroom boys have attacked pensioners, abused party members and arrested peaceful protesters with trumped-up charges of terrorism.
Today, we have seen the consequence of that locally in the results in the Queen’s Park by-election.
During the stewardship of Nancy Platts and myself of Brighton and Hove Labour, we grew the party to win election after election, including in Rottingdean where Labour had never been elected before – or since.
I’ve knocked on every door in Brighton Kemptown and Peacehaven. We built a movement by acknowledging that our country is broken and in desperate need of radical change, along with building progressive alliances – as when the Green Party stood down for me in 2017.
Instead, we’ve seen a hostile takeover of Labour by Starmerism, including here in Brighton. His political project has only ever been about destroying the left.
I was a casualty – and what we are now witnessing is that, beyond internal factionalism, the project was nothing but nasty and hollow.
Starmer has no plan for the change we so desperately need. Instead, he and his allies installed their puppets: Chris Ward MP in my seat and then Simon Charleton as the losing Labour Party candidate in Queen’s Park, blocking the preferred candidate of local members from even being able to stand.
The people of Brighton are now turning on this shallow movement. They’re standing up and demanding better.
They’ve voted for the Greens in Queen’s Park and I’m certain Starmer’s puppet Chris Ward MP wouldn’t finish at the top if there were a general election now.
Changing the leader won’t be enough. Labour needs to see a dramatic shift in policy and personnel. Without it, the next election will be gifted to Reform by Labour’s ineptitude.
I know that lots of local Labour members are good hard-working people and I’ve many friends nationally trying their best and, despite Starmer, they’re achieving good things.
But unless Starmer and the cronies who have been put into positions, including locally, are gone, I see no chance that Labour can recover in time, no chance that it will be a credible alternative to Reform and no chance that socialists and working people will want to vote for Labour in the future.
What Queen’s Park shows us is that it’s not about north or south, Brexit or Remain, or liberal or conservative, but that people need hope, radical alternatives and justice.
Labour is offering us none of this and until they do, they’re finished.
Lloyd Russell-Moyle is the former Labour MP for Brighton Kemptown and former Labour councillor for East Brighton on Brighton and Hove City Council.
Well said Lloyd, if you have a mind to, why don’t you stand again in Kemptown as an Independent.
Very good points. It is time the Labour party was recovered by normal Labour people from the bunch of ghastly chancers and zionists that now run it. If Labour is unable to reform it will become exitinct – perhaps that is the Starmer/McSweeney plan? The elections in Wales and Scotland next year will be a pointer. It is highly probably that Deform will do well and Labour will be wiped out. That is the point when Labour members need to take back control.
If Lloyd is predicting a Reform landslide Labour are in serious trouble. Great!
Slight taste of sour grapes. Reading this I wouldn’t be surprised if Lloyd ran again as an independent/your party/Green, although it seems he rejoined Labour earlier this year. I voted Green in Kemptown at the last election, but believe some good people need to stay in the Labour party to depose Starmer and make sure a more sensible socialist-minded candidate takes over. Not sure how the local Greens would take to LRM trying to win back his seat, but this time as a Green- they can certainly win it without him next time. Stay in Labour, Lloyd.
Didn’t like him or his policies then/now.
I had a good opinion of Lloyd until I read this.
It’s not clear whether he is trying to re-write his own history, or else to position himself to get in line for a new job, perhaps under Corbyn’s breakaway party.
We might remember that Starmer got elected when Corbyn didn’t, and in any general election the winner tends to be the party that grabs the centre ground. The recent polarisation of politics does nothing for most people – or for the economy.
As far as bi elections go, people will always use the opportunity to express their anger or frustration – and that is seldom a signal for the government or council to change their longer term approach.
I’d add that dragging the Labour vote more to the left will do nothing to combat the current ascendancy of right wing views. And note that we’ve yet to see any new party leader offer any new policies that would actually resolve the country’s economic issues.
And unfortunately we are left with personality politics. Corbyn was constantly trashed by the right-wing press, and that same oligarch-run media are now busy undermining Starmer, just as they did with Angela Rayner and Mandleson. But those of us still on the left but recognising the centre ground would rather have a dull bank manger of a leader, like Starmer, than a liar and a snake oil salesman, like Johnson or Farage.
I sometimes worry that people have simply watched too much trash TV – and so they now want a game show host as leader, like a Trump.
It’s ironic that Trump’s appeal is much like that of a drag queen. He looks sensationally odd, and the appeal is you never know what he will say next, just to outrage you.
So Starmer’s win had nothing to with Johnson and Trusse’s legacy and the utter implosion of the Tories under Sunak? And Corbyn’s defeat had nothing to do with going up the uniquely talented electoral campaigner Johnson?
Labour is a democratic socialist party, it has been dragged to the right by Thatcher and now Farage, but I would agree that it is probably too late for them to go back now, a pivot to the left would give Farage even more fuel. Starmer made his mistake regarding Reform when he ran for the leadership, yes, many on the left saw this coming a mile off.
The trouble is that the center ground is unimportant, it is not electorally viable with five parties contesting for votes under FPTP.
Here’s the mistake you are making:
“The trouble is that the centre ground is unimportant, it is not electorally viable with five parties contesting for votes under FPTP.”
If there are indeed five parties now fighting for a ‘first past the post’ (FPTP) election, then the one that wins over the centre ground will in fact be the winner.
Ha ha ha. Starmer is a liar, idiot!
Labour was always going to find government difficult. It wants to spend money and do things – but there isn’t money to spend. When Labour came in, we were already at a very high level of taxation – the highest in many decades. Labour then put up taxes by tens of billions – but this has just slowed growth and jobs, unemployment has risen. Labour has found the Laffer curve – putting up tax rates can lead to lower tax income.
What can Labour do from here? Likely, they will go to the left when Starmer/Reeves are pushed out. However, what can they do? They can’t borrow more – or we’ll have a financial crisis that will make Truss’s budget look like a minor blip. They won’t be able to raise more money through taxes – although they may raise tax rates, that won’t produce more money and likely other harms such as more unemployment (as Reeves has already proved).
My view, the only option is for the government to spend less or get far more growth. I don’t see Labour pushing business or growth as they just don’t get what it’s like to run a business and risk your own money (their jobs tax demonstrates this). I also don’t see Labour cutting – they failed to agree that welfare spending would only increase by a large amount rather than a really large amount!
Labour needs a major rethink and a way to deliver some of their promises. They have failed in virtually every area. A traditional jump to the left, as LRM suggests won’t do it, we need to break away from the left/right model. If not, I agree that Reform will be the next government, likely for a generation as both Labour and the Tories will have been written off.
Nick, I’d agree that Labour has boxed itself in fiscally, but I think part of that comes from fear of being honest and bold about progressive taxation. The UK isn’t uniquely over-taxed; what we’ve got is a system that leans heavily on workers and consumers, while wealth, land and unearned income are still lightly touched.
Then, investment in housing, energy and services, the kind that lowers bills and welfare costs over time. Without that shift, we’re left with the same squeeze on households and the same political vacuum that Reform is capitalising on. Their paper-thin policies sound good but lack any depth and fold like origami under any scrutiny.
I agree Benjamin that Labour has got itself in a bind. They could and should have been honest during the election. Stated that the NHS needed more to catch up and other services needed more for a while. Justified a (say) 2p national insurance and 1 or 2p income tax increase for a few years. If they’d got that right, they would have been elected, there could still have been business growth, allowing a tax reduction towards the end of the parliament. Instead they misled, taxed businesses and destroyed growth
I don’t agree that there are magic sources of tax to get from wealth, land and unearned income. I think this is an illusion – used to hope that we don’t need to cut spending or borrow more. The Tories have already raided these cupboards over the last decade. Looking at these three one by one
Starting with wealth taxes. If someone becomes wealthy from their own work in their own lifetime, they have already paid tax on this. Should we tax them again retrospectively? If so, why work hard? If people don’t work hard and pay tax, that harms everyone. What about wealth that is inherited? This is now much more heavily taxed than before. Wealth can’t flow down generations (which in itself slows growth. Why work hard to pass wealth onto your family when much will be taken in tax? Why not relax, do less? Again, not good for UK growth or productivity). For those with multi-million or billion wealth, they can move out of the UK easily. Thousands already have. So, yes, you could aim for more tax from them. But you run the risk of losing all the tax they currently pay if they leave. And billions of tax already lost this way
For land – again taxed on sale, capital gains and inheritance. More so than most countries. Labour’s plan to tax family farms on death, likely to lead to their break up, is cruel and will hurt our food security and environment while generating little, if any, extra tax.
Taxing unearned income. We already do this (taxes on savings, shares, rental property). All increased over the past few years. Again, I can’t see many options from here. Yes, landlords could be taxed more. But they are already averaging under 5% return, so many are selling up and putting money in the bank to get similar results without the risk. Increase taxes on landlords and they will pass this onto renters as certainly as increasing taxes on beer leads to higher prices in pubs.
I agree that Reform looks paper-thin at the moment. But they are attracting better people and they have a few years to add depth and make more than a one-man show. The promises by Labour (and Tories) sound good too – but as we’ve seen with Labour they have folded and have been paper-thin. Key promises, such as removing section 21 on “first day” in power still haven’t happened well over a year later. Labour, with these (in)actions, is opening the door to reform.
Nick, I think you’re right that Labour’s election pitch ducked the hard conversation about raising revenue, and the credibility gap is now hurting them. However, I would challenge that wealth, land, and unearned income are already empty cupboards.
For me, it’s about windfall gains, capital gains being taxed at lower rates than wages, and the fact that the UK has one of the lightest approaches to taxing accumulated wealth in the OECD. Even modest reforms, such as equalising capital gains with income tax, closing reliefs on carried interest, and tightening non-dom rules, raise billions without deterring hard work.
Even some simple progressive reforms like adding more council tax bands would be fairer than the current set-up, where someone in a £300k flat can pay nearly the same as someone in a £3m house.
I think we’re both aligned that Labour need to be bolder, because as you say, it opens up the door for Reform to fill that vacuum, which I honestly feel is to the detriment of England.
Benjamin. I’m for taxes that work, are fair and raise money. Things like increasing the rate of capital gains tax, equalising with wages, have been tried before. It didn’t raise much money and arguably lost tax revenue, as people held off selling assets. When reversed, and rates were dropped, capital gains tax income increased.
I think Labour are falling into a trap of doing things like this that please supporters and making it easy for the next government to reverse and make easy billions. Another example; stopping new oil and gas fields. Doesn’t mean we use less, just import it. So lower tax revenues now, job cuts. Next government likely to reverse – they will get credit for more jobs and tens of billions in tax revenue (and reduce carbon emissions as less carbon to use our own gas than import LPG for example).
Council tax needs a big update. If you look at family homes in Brighton now, some are band D, others band G. But similar price to buy/rent. How can that be?! The bands no longer reflect the price – and so are not fair. More bands may help – but just building on sand. Needs rebalancing – but so many people will win and lose from this – would be an electoral nightmare. Is it fair after people decide to rent or buy a house to dramatically change the annual tax paid on it?
Changing council tax bands or capital gains tax and similar are likely to raise a few billion pounds a year. With a need for £40-50bn by the estimates, more if Labour wishes for an end to the 2-child benefit cap etc, then they will need more. So suspect will come back to income tax or VAT rises for everyone. Maybe focused more on higher bands, but still painful.
It’s an interesting point made on CGT because the evidence shows there can be behavioural effects in the short-term, but over time, the Exchequer usually still gains if rates are set sensibly and loopholes closed.
Do you think that the cumulative effect of progressive taxation systems starts to make a difference, rather than just moving one lever, per se? And I’d gently suggest that at least with a reformed council tax or fairer capital gains treatment, the burden falls more logically than it does now.
What do you think?
I think the progressive effect of all the taxes, as well as red tape, has sucked a lot of energy out of people who build businesses, make money, deliver growth and so pay tax. This has led to a stagnant economy and delivered the opposite of Labour’s claimed number one priority – growth. Without growth, all that’s happening is discussions about how to divide up a dwindling amount of tax cake. With growth, the cake grows and more tax.
Currently the 10% of earners pay 60% of income tax. That’s a huge risk – especially if some retire, more abroad or do less. I have friends, at all income levels, who are doing less to avoid tax bands. A council staffer who works less days so they avoid the 40% band. A business owner who stops working sometime after Christmas (this year in January) so they don’t hit the VAT threshold and the extra costs/complexity this brings.
We need wholesale changes if we are to drive growth. Yes, capital gains tax and council tax could be amended but that won’t deliver the huge sums required and likely to reduce growth too. Labour needs some very different economic thinking.
I think you’ve articulated how unequal the UK is. To balance, the top 10% take around 40% of all income, so naturally, they pay more tax. Focusing only on income tax also ignores NI, VAT, and council tax, which are regressive taxes that fall more heavily on lower incomes.
A rebalance certainly comes across as being needed!
Well put Lloyd,
Starmer gets a parliamentary majority of over 160.
Russell-Moyle’s fave candidate gets the worse result for Labour since the 1930s.
Who’s the loser now??
Momentum attempted to take over the Labour Party by stealth, with their degree of leftness being slightly more left than the SWP. They were thwarted by Starmer and his people as they knew that being that far left would render the party unelectable again.
As mentioned above the British people prefer parties that are in the middle ground with left or right leanings, not big swings. This does not fit the narrative of the wannabe revolutionaries, thankfully.
There’s an argument to be made that the Conservatives lost by being terrible more than anything. We certainly have plenty of metrics we can use to assert that opinion. I think the British people chose a stable left over a chaotic right.