The Labour party has won over 400 seats (out of 650) in the 2024 UK General Elections, and Keir Starmer is expected to replace Rishi Sunak as Prime Minister. The Conservatives, in power for the last fourteen years, have suffered a rout, losing over two-thirds of their seats. The SNP has collapsed in Scotland, mostly to Labour, and the Liberal Democrats have gained over sixty seats.
I get what a lot of you guys are saying about Starmer and the Labour government not being as left wing as Corbyn. I would also like someone who would use this majority to implement some really hardcore leftist policies.
But please can we just take a step back and look at what he wants to do:
Massive amounts of NHS funding
Nationalised green energy
Tax private schools
Allow regulators to hit company executives with criminal charges
Nationalise the railways
Increase the minimum wage to a living wage
Free school meals
I don’t know about you, but that seems at the very least, left of center. Sure, he’s not making drastic sweeping changes right off the bat. But this country needs an era of stability, whilst we make small but consistent steps in the right direction, and that’s what Starmer will give us
Still let’s not forget the right-wing policies from their manifesto:
Increasing military spending by 13 billion
Increase police funding
More border security force to “stop the boats”
Build more prisons
Pour money into polluting industries (car gigafactories, steel production, “carbon capture”)
Keep oil and gas production in the North Sea for decades, with the only focus on jobs and none on environmental issues.
So yeah I guess it’s better to have an authoritarian social-ish democratic state than an outright fascist one but that’s not a very high bar and will only work until the climate crisis boils us all alive :)
That’s a great wish list, but I’m not sure how many of those will happen. Increased NHS funding is sadly unlikely given your economy and xenophobia against immigrants. I’m hoping you get increased support for green energy, free school meals and rail nationalisation, and at least a modest raise in the minimum wage. Cheap, clean energy, educated and healthy children, and an affordable and reliable transport system can do so much for the economy.
If you would get to know just one, single thing about blairites, that one thing would be to know that regardless what they promise, they do austerity and neoliberalism.
It goes a lot farther than that. From the Cass Report to the HS2 to the genocidal approach towards migrant refugees (deliberate sinking of boats in the Mediterranean), Starmer’s Labour party has demonstrated very little interest in reversing Tory policy.
They campaigned as moderate administrators of Tory extremist platforms and they are positioning themselves to continue to looting of the UK with a liberal demeanor.
They’ll increase policing and call it a day.