How conservative is Labour?

Chancellor Rachel Reeves made growth the new Labour government's "national mission" in a speech at the Treasury today.

After the socialist leadership of Jeremy Corbyn, Labour under Keir Starmer has been "rebuilt as a business-friendly centrist party", said Philip Aldrick on Bloomberg, and its answer to the UK's "myriad problems" is delivering economic growth. Yet, its manifesto suggested that it "will largely stick to existing Tory spending plans".

In this "age of consensus", Labour's "fundamental criticism of the Tories is their lack of competence, rather than their policies", said David Edgerton, professor of modern history at King's College London, in The Guardian. "The whole premise of Keir Starmer's Labour is precisely that it needed to hug Tory dogma tight, perhaps to the point that it believes it."

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What did the commentators say?

Labour has been "telling Britain it is now a conservative party – and we should believe it". It claims to be "the party of wealth creation and growth, not redistribution or equality", said Edgerton, and does not seem to "differentiate between good and bad types of business – all business is good". Even Brexit is accepted.

Starmer's working-class background was frequently highlighted on the campaign trail, yet his party's manifesto failed to win endorsement from Unite, historically Labour's biggest trade union backer, ahead of the election. 

The party's focus on class and private education might simply be "a way of signalling that their hearts are in the right place and they're left-wing, while actually pursuing an economic policy that's pretty fiscally conservative", said Rory Stewart on "The Rest is Politics" podcast.

Just like "49-day Tory PM Liz Truss before him, Starmer has based his entire strategy on Britain achieving significantly higher economic growth", said Politico. In a bid to achieve this, Reeves today overturned the Tories' decision to water down its own compulsory house-building targets. A 2019 pledge to build 300,000 new homes a year was amended following a Tory backbench rebellion last year.

Labour is also working on its more progressive promises: Wes Streeting, the new health secretary, has planned talks with striking junior doctors, said The Independent – a step forward in the battle to reduce NHS waiting lists. And on Saturday, in his first press conference as prime minister, Starmer called the Rwanda deportation plan "dead and buried before it started", said The Telegraph, following through on manifesto pledges to scrap the scheme.

What next?

We shouldn't forget that election night also brought victory for Reform UK, giving it five seats in Parliament and a record-breaking number of votes, said Paul Mason on openDemocracy. As seen in the US and Europe, right-wing beliefs such as those of Reform's leader Nigel Farage are on the rise. Starmer's conservative-leaning financial plans are "are better problems to have" and the party's move to the right may have been "based on an unflinching realism" about voters. 

"The left-wing case for Starmer amounts to this: in a world where democracy is in peril, and where conservatism is merging with the far right, he stands a chance of making the UK a place of resistance and a model for the rest of Europe."

But Labour's "bid to be all things to all people", said Aldrick on Bloomberg, "may be easier on the campaign trail than in office".