Britain: Labour conference 2024 – a harbinger of storms to come

Starmer’s government has been one of crisis since day one – rocked by riots, rebellions, and scandals. All of this overshadowed this year’s party conference, spoiling the celebrations that the Labour leaders were expecting. But worse is yet to come.

[Originally published at communist.red]

Protests over Palestine. A snowballing scandal over grubby freebies. And clashes over cuts to pensioners’ winter fuel allowance. Welcome to the latest annual conference of Starmer’s Labour – the party that hubristically promised to bring about political stability and decency after 14 years of Tory chaos and corruption.

The Labour leaders were hoping that their first conference since coming to power would be a celebratory affair; a chance to parade the party before the establishment and the capitalist press, showing how much things have changed since the troublesome Corbyn days.

Instead, this year’s event in Liverpool has been dogged by disruption, dodgy dealings, and division, providing a microcosm of the turmoil that Starmer’s government has already experienced since the 4 July election – and which it will continue to face in the months and years ahead.

Out of touch

Problems were mounting for Keir Starmer and co. before delegates had even arrived.

Over the last week, revelations have unravelled about the grotesque amount of lavish ‘gifts’ that the Labour leaders have received from wealthy donors – most notably from multi-millionaire media mogul Lord Waheed Alli.

Starmer alone is estimated to have accepted over £100,000-worth of designer clothes, sporting and concert tickets, and other such corporate perks.

Deputy PM Angela Rayner, meanwhile, shrugged off questions about donations that she and her cabinet colleagues had accepted – including a five-day stay in Alli’s Manhattan apartment – by saying that “all MPs do it”. Well that’s ok then!

Starmer and his team have attempted to sweep the story under the carpet, with pledges that Labour ministers would not be taking any free clothing in the future. But the damage is already done.

With a drip feed of shocking stories emerging almost every day, this scandal has become Labour’s #partygate.

The hypocrisy of all these out-of-touch capitalist politicians is sickening.

Boris Johnson and the Tories seemingly saw no problem with boozing it up in Number 10, while the rest of the population stayed at home, alone and isolated, in order to protect against the pandemic.

Similarly, while the elderly shiver in the cold this winter, Starmer and his cronies will be wrapped up nice and warm in their fancy gear, rubbing shoulders with the super-rich at VIP events, and heating their homes and offices at the taxpayer’s expense.

They are all a bunch of liars, crooks, and thieves – living on another planet from the rest of us.

Blood on their hands

The question of Palestine has also overshadowed this year’s Labour Party conference.

On Saturday, thousands of protestors marched through the streets of Liverpool to denounce Labour’s complicity in the genocidal slaughter taking place in Gaza, calling on Starmer and his government to end all arms trade with Israel.

Rather than heed these demands, however, Labour officials doubled down – banning the use of the words ‘genocide’ and ‘apartheid’ from a Palestine solidarity fringe event, for example.

Undeterred, pro-Palestine protestors decided to spray paint ‘genocide conference’ on the walls of the venue. This proved a little more difficult for conference managers to censor.

Yesterday, meanwhile, Chancellor Rachel Reeves faced heckles from the audience while she attempted to deliver her speech on the party’s economic programme, with one activist dragged away by security as he called out the government’s continued arms sales to the murderous Israeli regime.

While a small number of delegates applauded this act of defiance by this young demonstrator, the majority clapped at his violent removal – an indication of how Labour has been transformed into a reliable champion of the establishment’s interests.

“This is a changed Labour Party,” Reeves stated in response to the interruption. “We are not a party of protest.”

“We changed the party,” Starmer repeated in reply to similar jeers during his speech today. “This guy’s obviously got a pass from the 2019 conference,” the Labour leader smugly quipped.

Yes, Labour has certainly changed. Just like the good old days of Blair’s imperialist adventures in Iraq, Labour is back to being a party of warmongers – and proudly so, it seems.

The party’s henchmen might have tried to scrub off activists’ Gaza-related graffiti. But Starmer and Reeves, desperate to prove their loyalty to western imperialism, aren’t even trying to wash away the blood on their hands.

Austerity by another name

The main priority for the Labour leaders – this week, and ever since they arrived in Downing Street – has been to reassure their big business backers.

Speaking at the party’s main corporate-orientated event on Monday (priced at £3,000 per ticket), Keir Starmer told his 500-strong audience of CEOs and business leaders that “wealth creation is the [Labour government’s] number one mission”.

“I want you to invest in the UK and make a profit,” chimed in business secretary Jonathan Reynolds, in a further effort to woo the assembled crowd of capitalists.

The main priority for the Labour leaders – this week, and ever since they arrived in Downing Street – has been to reassure their big business backers / Image: The Communist

The Financial Times, meanwhile, the organ of UK finance, reported that the Prime Minister “told executives that if they were struggling to get a response from the government or find the right person to talk to they should contact his office directly”.

The same paper also noted that the contents of Reeves’ conference speech was warmly received by the representatives of big business, including the British Chambers of Commerce and the Confederation of British Industry, the disgraced lobbying group.

And no doubt they would have been similarly impressed by Starmer’s keynote speech today, which repeated the motifs earlier introduced by the Chancellor: that the Labour leaders are prepared to take the “tough decisions” needed to “fix the foundations” of British capitalism.

Having been criticised by establishment figures for painting too ‘gloomy’ a picture of the UK economy in recent weeks, damaging investors’ confidence and enthusiasm, Reeves and Starmer both tried to strike a more upbeat tone from the conference platform.

“My optimism for Britain burns as bright as it ever has done,” the Chancellor stated on Monday. There is “light at the end of the tunnel”, the PM promised.

Furthermore, Reeves assured that “there will be no return to austerity”.

But what on Earth do they call their Dickensian cuts to energy subsidies for vulnerable pensioners? Or their decision to maintain the Tories’ two-child benefit cap, which keeps an estimated 1.6 million of the country’s children in poverty? If these policies aren’t ‘austerity’, then what is?

No, this isn’t austerity, the Labour leaders tell us. Instead, these attacks on the working class and the poor are euphemistically described as a “framework of fiscal stability” and “economic responsibility”.

“A rose by any other name would smell as sweet,” Shakespeare’s Juliet tells Romeo. And austerity by any other name still stinks – however Starmer and Reeves try to spin it.

Storm and struggle

Starmer’s Labour may take us all for fools. But ordinary people will not be so easily duped. And nor will workers and their families take these attacks lying down.

Already, the Labour leadership is facing a backlash to their winter fuel allowance cut, with affiliated unions such as Unite and the CWU pushing a motion of opposition to this cruel measure at conference.

Worried about the embarrassment this could cause, party officials have manoeuvred to move the vote to tomorrow, in an attempt to shut down the debate and muzzle any voices of dissent.

But whether it takes place on the conference floor or on the streets, there will be a wave of resistance to this big business government’s onslaught against the working class.

Delegates in Liverpool can be silenced and ejected. But workers and youth – organised and mobilised – will not be suppressed or subdued.

Yesterday, for example, the RCN union announced that nurses have rejected the government’s pathetic pay offer. And other public sector workers could well follow suit.

Starmer and Reeves can arrogantly congratulate themselves all they like from the podium, in an effort to impress their chums in the City, their pals in the capitalist media, and the rest of the British establishment. But their smirks and smiles will quickly be wiped away by the coming storms.

Next month’s Budget will confirm what is already clear to most: that a tsunami of cuts and attacks is heading for working-class communities; that Britain is entering into a new period of turbulence and upheaval, which will leave no stone unturned.

This summer’s far-right riots and social explosions; the collapse in support for Starmer and his government over the past few months; the scandals and splits that have recently emerged at the top of the Labour Party: all of these are a harbinger of the titanic and tumultuous events that will shake Britain in the coming years.

So strap yourself in. It’s going to be a bumpy ride.