Tag Archives: Keir Starmer

Britain, Government, Politics, Society, United States

Vilifying Trump will backfire

TRUMP’S SECOND PRESIDENCY

IT is truly amazing that with a population of 335million, the United States could not find two better presidential candidates than Donald Trump and Kamala Harris.

How dispiriting it must have been to choose between a narcissistic 78-year-old convicted criminal and a deeply unconvincing vice president.

But that was the choice in the run-off for the White House and the voters have spoken. In the final reckoning, they elected Mr Trump as their 47th President – perhaps the most dramatic comeback in the nation’s political history – who romped him with a landslide victory. Both the Senate and House of Representatives will now be controlled by the Republicans.

After he was removed from office in 2020 his supporters attacked the Capitol and he has since been found guilty of multiple felonies.

Mr Trump’s reputation seemed to lie in tatters, yet the majority of Americans have given him a second chance. He has confounded his enemies, who desperately hoped his previous term had been an aberration from which the American people would awake.

Democrats will be feeling lost and bewildered at how their nation could have put such a man in power again. Practically every major institution – from Hollywood to the achingly liberal media – denigrated him.

Yet the voters defied them, showing once again just how far out of touch these powerful elites have become with ordinary people. 

Instead of asking themselves how on earth America could have voted for Trump, they should be asking why the masses didn’t back Ms Harris.

Her campaign was a clinical study in negativity. Preposterously, she described her opponent as a fascist – and by implication tarred his supporters with the same brush. Nor could she separate herself from the unpopular President Joe Biden. His handling of the economy has been hopeless, with inflation and rising prices hammering family budgets.

The Democrats failed to listen to anger at mass immigration. And it is in thrall to the radical race-based progressive policies that alienate so much of Middle America.

Yes, Donald Trump threw his fair share of brickbats and derisory comments, but he also offered optimism and is a known quantity. In his first term, he oversaw impressive economic growth, started no wars, and stood up to Iran and China.

So, in the end, the election wasn’t the tighthead finish all of the pollsters had predicted. It was a resounding and thumping victory, giving Mr Trump huge power to push through his policy agenda. Particularly now that the Republicans have control of both Houses on Capitol Hill.

In many ways, Britain ought to be well positioned after his victory. With a Scottish heritage and investments here, he has far more affection for these islands than Kamala Harris does.

Labour’s student politics will soon put paid to any goodwill. Mr Trump was angered by the party sending staff to campaign for the Democrats, and he will be aware that Labour politicians have hurled gross insults at him. Most notable was David Lammy, now British Foreign Secretary, who, as a backbencher, described Mr Trump as “a woman-hating, neo-Nazi sympathising sociopath”.

In opposition, these remarks were ill-advised. Now he is holding one of the most important Office’ of State, they look indefensible and deeply damaging.

The UK-US “Special Relationship” has always ebbed and flowed, but if Labour doesn’t mature it will wither on the vine.

Sir Keir Starmer’s statist tax rises, failure to properly fund defence, and the headlong dash for Net Zero are already misaligned with US policy. If the PM doesn’t tread carefully, the rift with Mr Trump could damage Britain’s economy and security. The President-Elect has already said that Labour is “too Left”.

The UK and the world need to show restraint and generosity towards the next president – vilifying him out of hand will surely backfire.

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Britain, Economic, Government, Politics, Society

Starmer needs to recalibrate the mood

LABOUR PARTY

ELECTED to office less than three months ago, the Labour Party has begun its annual conference – this year in Liverpool – already weighed down by incumbency: rows over gifts from wealthy party donors and tickets to football games as well as rifts about Keir Starmer’s chief of staff’s pay are feeding into the public disquiet. These come amidst the burden of government in difficult economic circumstances. Coupled with the low public trust and the needless surplus of gloom, the political honeymoon period for Labour is well and truly over. We knew change was high up on the political agenda for Labour, but since day one of government it has set out with the explicit objective of dampening expectations of how soon change might come. The gloom is palpable.

There is a degree of urgency for Starmer to recalibrate the mood with a sense of optimism and purpose. He needs to give the country reasons to be glad of a Labour government in ways that go beyond relief at no longer being governed by Tory rule. New governments often come to power blaming the last for what it has inherited. The PM has given the nation an unvarnished account of the dismal legacy left for Labour; a bleak audit that covers a record of political and financial maladministration.

Conservative ministers, driven by ideological fanaticism and self-serving cynicism, squandered energy and vital resources on ill-conceived, unworkable policies. Public services were starved of the means by which they could effectively operate. With that in mind, it is easy to see that Sir Keir has a difficult job because the country is in a dire mess. Putting things right will take time. Nevertheless, that morose message has been bitterly soured by a performance of fiscal discipline, delivered without a hint of uplifting accompaniment.

The prime minister says things will get worse before they get better. His chancellor, Rachel Reeves, cites “black holes” in the budget, withdraws winter fuel payments for all but the poorest pensioners, and continually pledges that there is more pain to come. Ms Reeves’ argument is that government departments under the Conservatives overspent by £22bn in the budget and that deep cuts are needed to compensate. This is a self-imposed restriction that stems from ill-advised fiscal rules. The force of that constraint, and the zeal with which it is applied as austerity across Whitehall, is also a matter of political choice.

The government’s strategists argue that adherence to Tory spending limits was a “non-negotiable” condition of persuading the public that Labour could be trusted on the economy. Possibly, possibly not. There is no way to test the counterfactual scenario, where Ms Reeves could have fought the election with a wider range of tax-raising options still open. However, the decision to lean into unpopularity so hard, so fast, and without a countervailing narrative of hope looks like very poor strategic judgment.

Labour’s election manifesto contained plenty of reasons to expect a substantial departure from a grim status quo. A marked progressive shift was promised in the areas of workers’ rights, a robust commitment to net zero, improved relations with the rest of Europe and, perhaps most significantly, readiness to embrace a more interventionist model of economic management, including public ownership of utility companies.

The Starmerite script contains rather too much fiscal conservatism, but the hope on the left of the party is that there is a social democratic framework at its core. That would express the opposite of the Tory conviction that government’s main function is to facilitate market supremacy and then get out of the way. Many Labour MPs, activists, and Labour supporting people in the country will feel unsure which of the two strands – cringing continuity or bold departure – will dominate. Keir Starmer’s task is to answer in terms that give hope of meaningful change to come.

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Britain, Government, Immigration, Politics, Society

Stopping the small boats. Labour is doing well.

ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION

TWO MONTHS after taking office, there are tentative signs Keir Starmer and the Home Secretary, Yvette Cooper, may just be starting to get to grips with the Government’s most significant – and seemingly intractable – problem. Stopping the small boats.

Recent headlines have been telling a very different story. “Migrant crossings top 20,000 so far this year,” announced the BBC in the last few days. “Record numbers of people have crossed the Channel in small boats since January,” declared the Guardian. Neither headline was from a media outlet exactly famed for highlighting the perils and extreme dangers of illegal migration.

But inside the corridors of Government, they’ve been crunching the numbers, and they paint a different picture. The line Labour’s political opponents have been trying to peddle is of a new liberal administration losing control of the nation’s borders by axing the deterrent supposedly provided by the much-maligned Rwanda deportation scheme.

Yet, in reality, the actual figures show Starmer performing slightly better than his predecessors.

Our new Prime Minister hit the dubious milestone of 6,000 new arrivals on August 27, the 54th day of his premiership. Liz Truss reached it after just 29 days, Rishi Sunak after 38.

Similarly, the period between the start of the year and election day saw the highest number of small boat arrivals on record, with more than 13,000 people landing on Britain’s shores.

But since then, the rate of new arrivals has actually fallen – it is currently 25 per cent lower than the 25,000 who had arrived by this stage in 2022. And that’s despite the warm weather and calm seas of the past month.

Ministers believe there are several reasons for this positive turnaround. The first is a decision to redeploy the huge resources the Home Office was funnelling – and failing – to get the Rwanda flights off the ground. One of the first acts of the new Home Secretary was to move 300 officials off the Rwanda scheme, and on to ordinary deportations.

This produced immediate results. Although it was implemented with little fanfare, on August 23 a flight left the UK with 220 illegal migrants on board. Ministers refuse to reveal the destination for reasons of diplomatic protocol, but it represented the biggest single-day deportation in British history. It was processed without the last-minute legal wrangling and recrimination normally associated with previous removal efforts. Ostensibly, one of the reasons for this improved efficiency is the burgeoning working relationship between the Home Secretary and the Director General of Immigration Enforcement, Bas Javid.

Mr Javid, a former police officer, impressed Ms Cooper during the “access talks” that took place before Labour entered office.

Javid, the brother of the former Tory home secretary, Sajid Javid, made two important recommendations that Cooper has decided to implement. The first was to focus on the removal of illegal migrants from those countries with “low grant rates”. In other words, those nations where there is virtually no chance of an asylum request being approved and options for a successful legal challenge are much more limited.

The second was to align those removals with enhanced operational intelligence on where those particular illegal migrants are operating within the black economy. For example, it was discovered a large number of those with low grant rates are working in carwashes, nail bars, and some specific areas of the hospitality sector. So, the decision was taken to start prioritising raids on those sectors. And it’s working.

A third component of the Government’s strategy is down to Keir Starmer’s own personal “obsession” with smashing the people-smuggling gangs. It’s one of those issues that invariably takes him back to his time as Director of Public Prosecutions: he’s wholly committed with stopping the boats. The Prime Minister is convinced we can take these gangs down, smash them, and destroy their business models.

As part of this process, Labour’s Eliot Ness believes the key is not just preventing the smugglers from launching their boats from the beaches of France but tackling their operation “upstream”. In particular, he has demanded a new emphasis on targeting the corridor that operates between Germany and France and is used to transport the large dinghies that carry the migrants to the South Coast of England. A crackdown on human-traffickers is very much a priority for Sir Keir Starmer’s Government. Mr Ness is the US lawman whose team of Untouchables brought down Al Capone.

Analysis by the National Crime Agency indicates the clampdown is already having an impact. The larger dinghies operated by the smugglers carry an average of 50 people. Since 2018 there have been 32 instances of boats with higher occupancy rates, and a third of those have been intercepted since the election.

In addition, UK and French border officers have noticed an increasing number of engine failures and dinghies failing to make it out of French waters.

This shows the smugglers are finding it more difficult to secure the boats and equipment they need to facilitate the crossings – helped by shutting the German corridor. But the fight with the profiteers in human misery is set to be a protracted one. The Prime Minister, Home Secretary, and their Cabinet colleagues are a long, long way from declaring victory.

They are well aware that the traffickers will adapt their own tactics. And there’s a recognition they are in part at the mercy of the elements, with a mild autumn and winter potentially reversing the successes of the summer.

There’s also an acceptance within Government that to really break the people-smugglers’ stranglehold some major new deterrent policy may have to be unveiled. With the Rwanda scheme deemed a costly shambles, Labour might have to look at some sort of offshore processing model in order to send a firm signal.

Rishi Sunak famously pledged, “We will finally stop the boats”. His failure to do so cost him his premiership.

We will not be hearing Keir Starmer making the same rash promises. But, there is no doubt, Labour believe they are in a war with the small-boat traffickers. And, so far, in these early days of rule, they are doing a good job in smashing the gangs.

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