Modernisation without Blair
Starmer’s conference speech as many have commented was briefed as Blair, but ended up sounding like a new muscular social democracy. Starmer believes he must present Labour as representing a new period of modernisation , but what was most stark about this speech is how he articulated what modernisation after Blair could look like. The project of modernisation that underpinned New Labour revolved around with what was seen as an economic truth that governments who tried to control wealth creation would end up tanking the economy through endless wage claims and militant unions. This was fuelled by the constraints they felt upon them post the Mitterrand experiment and IMF bailout of the late 1970’s. Thus New Labour outside of the public sector left the supply of jobs to the market and unprecedented redistribution to the state. The idea that a government could shape wealth creation was seen as antithetical to notion of aspiration. What Starmer achieved in his speech was to go beyond the New Labour formula by seeing the state shaping wealth creation as a pre-condition for aspiration. New Labour looked to depoliticise the politics of production whereas what Starmer did in his speech was to politicise it. This was a return to productivist social democracy of Atlee, Wilson and Corbyn. Productivity politics had dominated the Labour parties history in the post-war era but this was the most compelling account I have heard post-2008. The speech castigated the Conservative’s choice of putting the 1% , energy giants and the bankers first. If you closed your eyes you could hear Sander’s or Corbyn, but when you opened them there was Attlee cast as a populist. Integrity coupled with populist flourishes, and aspiration facilitated by productivism, is where Starmer can form a positive message to win.
A major question has been: who should Starmer be angry with; who is his Labour against? The thinking is that if you go hard on the ‘wealth creators’ , then you will never be able to appeal to a notion of aspiration. You will be seen instead to be putting a cap on aspiration. Before Truss’ meltdown, the ‘energy giants’ had been a potential target that could present Starmer with a means to cast the Conservatives as the establishment. The difficulty is that Johnson’s cakeism prevented these attacks — whether that be his hike in corporation tax or the U-turn of the windfall tax. Johnson was able to absorb these threats but because he could not ultimately make his mind up between Nick Timothy’s red toryism and the Adam Smith Institute’s Singapore on the sea, Johnson political economy was a complete mess. Never remaking the party in his image. The politicians who really grasped an embrace of Conservative productivism were Ben Houchen and Nick Timothy and to an extent Cummings. As I have written, in this rendering of productivism, the state becomes nation -builder, using the power of the state for the national interest. But Truss, by abandoning the cakeism of Johnson, has given Starmer the ability to have a clear enemy without looking behind his back: the ability to speak with clarity about the 1% without it seeming like an attack on aspiration. It has gave him the ability to speak with an authenticity which he had found hard to replicate before. Moreover, he has positioned the real wealth creators as working people. This is a theme Rachel Reeves has been developing for years: the primacy of the everyday economy. How he maintains who he is angry with will be integral to his political project. If Truss does go (or even survives), it may become more difficult to maintain a sense of insurgency coupled with the integrity and stability Starmer is trying to convey.
The green agenda is where we saw Starmer’s new rendition of modernisation really emerge. Here for the first time Labour started to nail how net zero is integral to both the everyday economy and security. Events in Ukraine have enabled net zero to be linked to the bread and butter issue of bills and the cost of livings like never before. Labour linking cheap bills to net zero is absolutely integral for getting consent for measures to come, but also for legitimising their distinct productivist answer to the cost of living crisis. But what was extremely novel is how Starmer linked this turn to net zero to the aspiration for the nation, a chance for national renewal: the white heat of this generation. Recasting net zero as a great project of national renewal, harnessing the nation resources to secure the prosperity of this and future generations. The slogan “British power to the British people” evoked Bennite romantic rhetoric for a self sufficient people decoupled from international corporate power, fused together with a line from a John Lennon song. This was far from Starmer the ‘technocrat’ but rather Attlee the populist. This call for energy independence riffs on the themes of self — sufficiency that has been a leitmotif of both the right and the left, from Trump to Melenchon. Great British Energy exemplified how Starmer’s politicisation of production fits together into the narrative he has established; we need to shape energy production to be able to shape the future of our nation, not only for a fair Britain and a more prosperous Britain but also a more secure Britain.
As with Labour’s famous 1945 poster with a big v for victory which looms over a set of suburban houses anchored by tower blocks, stating “now win the peace”, in this post-covid/Ukraine war moment Labour need to find a framing that can elevate this productivist message to other interventions they are making in actively shaping the economy.
The task for labour is how they continue to develop this new rendition of modernisation, one that was seen to be closed off a generation ago, but which in fact revives key themes of both Atlee and Wilson: that government shaping production was integral to building a fairer more productive society. There is fertile ground in numerous areas: from curtailing the power of financialisation, to making Britain into a more balanced economy, to interventions in the mortgage market, or using a golden share to take stakes in utilities. Starmer has once again found a means to fuse productivism with aspiration.
But Implementing a progressive agenda is not enough. If Labour does get into power it needs to create non reformable reforms , ones which their opponents can’t change. This ultimately is to do with reshaping the norms of society. Starmer needs to use this productivist turn to transform the economic fabric of this country but also its culture. There is no doubt about it: the world economy and his opponents’ misstep will play a large party in securing a Labour government, but it is not enough to rely on this. For the first time since 1997 Labour has found a compelling rendition of modernisation, combining elements of a myriad of labour political tradition from the 2017 manifesto to Blair’s appeal to middle England. Now they need to win the peace.
