Overwhelming vote grants new leader strong mandate to take party in his own direction
Sir Keir Starmer has promised to rebuild the nation’s trust in the Labour party after winning a stunning victory to succeed Jeremy Corbyn as leader.
Related: A conference call with his defeated rivals – then Keir Starmer was straight down to business
Continue reading... As Corbyn prepares to step down as leader, Alvarez says Labour failed to ‘pull together’
Laura Alvarez, the wife of Jeremy Corbyn, has said she regrets Labour failed to “pull together” to win elections, condemning the media and his opponents in the party on his last day as leader of the party.
In a rare public statement, Alvarez said it had been “incredibly hard” for her to watch her husband vilified by the media and even harder to watch him be attacked by his own party.
Continue reading...Some MPs concerned over piecemeal approach and call for leadership election to be brought forward
Labour’s four-month leadership election to replace Jeremy Corbyn has hampered the party’s response to the coronavirus pandemic, according to some of its MPs.
Critics said the party’s leadership has been sluggish in responding to the crisis and Corbyn, as outgoing leader, has failed to command authority.
Continue reading...Change of official line is first admission that Kremlin may have distorted UK elections
Ministers have been told they can no longer say there have been “no successful examples” of Russian disinformation affecting UK elections, after the apparent hacking of an NHS dossier seized on by Labour during the last campaign.
The dropping of the old line is the first official admission of the impact of Kremlin efforts to distort Britain’s political processes, and comes after three years of the government’s refusal to engage publicly with the threat.
Continue reading...Prime minister says UK still in containment phase of coronavirus and not yet preparing to move to delay stage
Here are the main points from the press conference held by Boris Johnson. He was joined by Prof Chris Whitty, the government’s chief medical adviser, and Sir Patrick Vallance, the government’s chief scientific adviser.
We are now very close to the time, probably within the next 10 to 14 days, when the modelling would imply we should move to a situation where everybody with even minor respiratory tract infections or a fever should be self-isolating for a period of seven days.
It is absolutely critical in managing the spread of this virus that we take the right decisions at the right time based on the latest and the best evidence, so we mustn’t do things which have no or limited medical benefit, nor things which could turn out actually to be counter-productive.
We were all given an instruction not to shake hands and there’s a good reason for not shaking hands, which is that the behavioural psychologists say that if you don’t shake somebody’s hand then that sends an important message to them about the importance of washing your hands.
So there’s a subliminal cue there to everybody to wash your hands, which is, I think I’m right in saying ... far more important.
What you can’t do is suppress this thing completely, and what you shouldn’t do is suppress it completely because all that happens then is it pops up again later in the year when the NHS is at a more vulnerable stage in the winter and you end up with another problem.
This is what Boris Johnson said at the start of his press conference.
I want to stress the following things. First, we are doing everything we can to combat this outbreak based on the latest scientific and medical advice.
Second, we have a truly brilliant NHS where staff have responded with all the determination, compassion and skill that makes their service so revered across the world and they will continue to have this government’s full support, my support, in tackling this virus on the front line.
Continue reading...The next leader should focus on building support among young people, families and precarious workers around urban centres
The candidate who secures the mandate of the Labour membership in April will require humility and subtlety. Humility, because the size of the Tory majority is formidable; subtlety, because the electorate is changing in ways that suggest there is no easy path to revive Labour’s vote share.
To win the most seats at the next election, let alone form a majority government, the new leader will need to engineer a breakthrough in several parts of the country simultaneously, from politically ambivalent Cornwall to the new SNP strongholds in Scotland. Along the way, of course, large chunks of support will need to be clawed back in the so-called “red wall” areas of the post-industrial north and Midlands, which turned so decisively blue in 2019.
Continue reading...Frontrunner on 53% ahead of Rebecca Long-Bailey on 31% and Lisa Nandy on 16%
Keir Starmer has been predicted to win the Labour leadership contest in the first round with more than 50% of the vote, according to a poll by YouGov and Sky News.
The frontrunner’s campaign was given a boost by the poll, which is the first to sample trade unionists and registered supporters as well as party members. It showed Starmer receiving 53% of the vote, ahead of Rebecca Long-Bailey on 31% and Lisa Nandy on 16%.
Continue reading...Labour leadership hustings saw frontrunner criticised for party’s ‘tone-deaf’ approach
The contenders to become Labour leader have clashed over Brexit and compulsory re-selection for MPs in an occasionally testy hustings event, with the race to succeed Jeremy Corbyn intensifying as party members start to cast their ballots.
At Tuesday night’s event in Manchester organised by the Guardian, frontrunner Sir Keir Starmer came under sustained fire from Rebecca Long-Bailey and Lisa Nandy over what the latter called Labour’s “tone deaf” approach to Brexit, which they said helped contribute to December’s crushing election loss.
Continue reading...Some Democratic observers fear their party is following the British left’s road to defeat
British politics rarely intrudes into a US presidential election. In 1988, Joe Biden was forced to abandon his first bid for the White House after it emerged that he had quoted without attribution a chunk of oratory from the then Labour party leader, Neil Kinnock. In 2016, Donald Trump deployed Nigel Farage as an occasional mascot on the stump, the Brexit victory in that year’s referendum deemed a happy omen that populists could defy the odds and win. In 2020, a third name has surfaced, offered as a cautionary tale to a Democratic party that this week confirmed a septuagenarian radical socialist and longtime backbench rebel as its frontrunner. That name is Jeremy Corbyn.
“I don’t want the Democratic party of the United States to be the Labour party of the United Kingdom,” James Carville, the victorious manager of Bill Clinton’s 1992 campaign, told audiences on cable TV and in New Hampshire this week, warning that if Democrats nominate Bernie Sanders, they will almost certainly be following Corbyn’s Labour party to defeat.
Continue reading...Rolling coverage of the day’s political developments as they happen, including Boris Johnson chairing a meeting of the new cabinet and further government reshuffle developments
Q: If the UK goes into recession, how would that affect your plans?
Long-Bailey says the economy is vulnerable because the economic model is broken.
Q: How much would your policy on freedom of movement affect the wages of workers?
Long-Bailey says the UK will be out of the single market. She says she wants an immigration system based on values, not on targets.
Continue reading...PCS union chief Mark Serwotka says party must not lose ‘radical anti-establishment, socialist message’
A key ally of Jeremy Corbyn has said failing to elect Rebecca Long-Bailey to be the Labour party’s next leader risks turning the clock back to 2015 and the leadership of Ed Miliband.
Mark Serwotka, head of the civil servants’ union PCS, said that the other candidates – Keir Starmer, Lisa Nandy and Emily Thornberry – would either struggle to maintain the radical policies of Jeremy Corbyn or have failed to realise that prevarication over the party’s Brexit policy was a key reason for the devastating 2019 defeat.
Continue reading...Emily Thornberry accuses Boris Johnson’s administration of ‘shameful betrayal’
Labour has condemned the government for praising Donald Trump’s vision for Middle East peace, with the shadow foreign secretary, Emily Thornberry, calling it a “shameful betrayal” of previous UK support for a viable two-state solution.
In an urgent Commons question on the plan, which has been condemned for granting Israel the bulk of its wishes but only offering a Palestinian state under severe restrictions, Thornberry called it “a monstrosity” and a guarantee of future violence.
Continue reading...Rolling coverage of the day’s political developments as they happen
Here is the Times’s Steven Swinford on the significant of the PMOS’s comments on fishing.
No 10 spokesman suggests access to Britain’s waters for EU fishing boats *will* be the subject of negotiations over future trade deal
‘We are taking back control of our waters
‘It will be for the UK to determine for the best interests of the UK who fishes in those waters’
The PMOS is not talking about some of the post-Brexit Whitehall arrangements.
He says there will be 40 officials working in government taskforce on the EU future partnership.
Continue reading...Shadow Brexit secretary assured of place on final ballot after nomination by Usdaw
Sir Keir Starmer has guaranteed himself a place on the final ballot to become Labour’s next leader after becoming the first candidate to be backed by a second major trade union.
Usdaw, the retail union and Labour’s fourth largest affiliate, on Monday nominated the shadow Brexit secretary for leader and Angela Rayner for deputy leader.
Continue reading...Rolling coverage of the day’s political developments as they happen
Boris Johnson is due to speak shortly at the UK-Africa investment summit in London. According to a press release from Downing Street overnight, he will announce that the UK is going to stop using overseas aid to support coal mining or coal power plants overseas. No 10 says:
At the Summit, the prime minister will announce an end to UK support for thermal coal mining or coal power plants overseas, ending direct Official Development Assistance, investment and export credit.
This announcement forms part of the UK’s wider commitment to use its expertise and experience to help Africa transition away from fossil fuels towards renewable, sustainable forms of clean energy. In 2019 the UK went a record 83 days without generating electricity from coal. The UK was also the first major economy to set a legally binding target to reach net zero emissions by 2050 and Glasgow will host the COP UN Climate Change Summit later this year.
During the general election Boris Johnson told a radio presenter that HS2 would cost more than £100bn. The presenter expressed surprise, because the official budget for the project at that point was just £88bn. but Johnson stuck to his guns. He said he thought the final bill would be “north of £1oobn”.
Perhaps Johnson knew more than he was letting on. Today’s Financial Times says a leak of the review of HS2 by Doug Oakervee says it could cost up to £106bn. The FT story is here (paywall) and our own follow-up is here.
Related: HS2 costs could rise to £106bn or more, warns government review
I’m worried by the suggestion that there might be a delay in the north, or even that we might get some kind of second-class option, a mix of high-speed and conventional lines that it’s talking about.
And to me that would be the same old story. London to Birmingham, money is no object, and then all the penny pinching is done in the North of England.
This isn’t just about north-south rail. The point about HS2 is it lays the enabling infrastructure for the east-west links that we crucially need and most people here would say that those are even more important.
This is about building a railway for the north, right across the north, for the rest of the century.
Continue reading...Rolling coverage of the day’s political developments as they happen
From Business Insider’s Adam Payne
Asked Nandy whether she’d work with the Greens/Lib Dems at future elections. She says she supports working “with the broadest possible alliance” but pours cold water on electoral alliances, telling me: “it’s a bit defeatist to say we can only win power through electoral pacts.”
This transition period stuff is catching. The Queen has just released a read-out of her talks at Sandringham about Harry and Meghan and it turns out that their breakaway is also going to involve a transition period. Doubtless there will be calls for it to get extended too.
Continue reading...Leadership hopeful stresses need for radical change, saying party must act ‘or it will die’
Labour must embrace proportional representation and learn to work with other parties among other radical changes, the leadership contender Clive Lewis has said, adding that the party “needs to modernise, or it will die”.
In a speech formally launching his campaign, the Norwich South MP said Labour needed to become less centralised and more collaborative, warning that debate was being stifled by “sectarianism and tribalism”.
Continue reading...Rolling coverage of the day’s political developments as they happen
The troubled Northern rail franchise faces financial collapse within months, Grant Shapps, the transport secretary, has said, as the government set out a timetable to tackle the “unacceptable services” for rail passengers in the north. My colleague Gwyn Topham has the full story here.
Related: Northern rail franchise could collapse within months, says Shapps
Nadia Whittome, the new Labour MP for Nottingham East, also says she is going to nominate Clive Lewis for Labour leader without necessarily planning to vote for him because she wants his ideas to be part of the debate. Lloyd Russell-Moyle is in this position too. (See 1.55pm.)
I have nominated @DawnButlerBrent for Deputy and @labourlewis for Leader to ensure both are on the ballot.
I haven't decided who I'll endorse but Clive's steadfast commitment to migrants' rights, and electoral reform and party democracy proposals, must be part of the debate.
Shadow business secretary secretary criticises the party’s strategy in last month’s disastrous election
Rebecca Long Bailey has announced that she is standing to become leader of the Labour party with a stout defence of Jeremy Corbyn’s political programme in the general election.
Widely seen as the favoured candidate of the left of the party, the MP for Salford and Eccles announced her candidacy on Monday night with a piece criticising the party’s election strategy and lack of narrative. She promised to defend policies within the party’s current socialist programme with “unwavering determination” in the article for Tribune magazine.
Continue reading...Rolling coverage of the day’s political developments as they happen
Ian Murray, Labour’s only surviving MP in Scotland, is preparing to enter the contest to become Labour’s deputy leader on a platform of constitutional reform and countering nationalism.
Murray, an arch critic of Jeremy Corbyn’s and an opponent of Brexit, is expected to signal his intention to run tomorrow after being asked to stand by other Labour MPs. His plans to run are thought to depend on getting sufficient early nominations, but it would fuel the brewing conflict between the party’s pro-Corbyn wing and its centrists.
There are no doubts that constitutional and nationalist issues are engulfing our politics. I have the experience and knowledge of dealing with both, and the Labour party has ducked this issue for too long. English nationalism from the Tories and Scottish nationalism from the SNP are squeezing the Labour Party and we must stop it.
[The] danger for our party across the UK is what I have been warning of since 2015. If we don’t tackle the big constitutional issues with reference to our own values and the national interest, then we lose our core purpose.
After listening to Angela Rayner’s speech this morning, my colleague Kate Proctor concluded it was hard to see why she was running for the deputy Labour leadership when she might be a strong candidate for leader. (See 12.23pm.) It is not hard to see why. It’s a good speech, with some compelling lines and a superb opening.
Here is the opening.
I wanted to make this speech here, on the estate where I grew up and lived for most of my life.
I talk about my background because for too long I felt I wasn’t good enough; I felt ashamed of who I was. It took me time for that shame to turn into pride.
We fell into the trap of describing a platform of revolutionary change. By the standards of recent politics, it was, and rightly so.
But actually, we could have told a simpler story.
Many of the friends I grew up with, my own family even, voted to leave the EU.
They felt like we treated them as embarrassing aunts or uncles.
There are also lines beyond which there is no dialogue and no compromise possible.
And the first line in the sand is antisemitism.
Nor should we take for granted the new voters we have won over, any more than we should have done those we have lost.
For all that’s said about London, we made no net advance in seats there either. We faced a fight to hold others like Dagenham and Rainham - a place that, like my own constituency, has so much to gain from a Labour government, but where too many people felt our party had lost touch with them.
Across Europe social democratic parties are collapsing.
The once mighty German SPD, the biggest and oldest social democratic party in the world is on 11 percent
I don’t pretend that I have all the answers. That is the point of being a collectivist. That by the strength of our common endeavour, we achieve more than we do alone.
That final sentence is a quote from the new Clause IV introduced by Tony Blair.
I owe much of my life to Labour.
The Labour governments that provided the welfare state, Sure Start, and the minimum wage, which gave me the help I needed to not just survive but succeed.
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