It looks likely there will be at least three contenders for the Labour leadership, possibly including the current incumbent, Keir Starmer. It’s fair to say we have some idea of what Starmer believes in, or not; but what would the others be like as prime minister? In due course we should see their respective leadership manifestos, but there are already some useful clues as to what life would be like under Wes, Andy or Angela.
Wes Streeting
Streeting is best thought of as a Blairite, evidenced not least in his long friendship with Peter Mandelson. Unlike Rayner and Burnham, he did not serve in Jeremy Corbyn’s shadow government, and he’s the least likely contender to work with the Greens. We know he has the instincts of a New Labour moderniser. The abolition of NHS England, and other reforms to the NHS he’s set in train, prove the point. We’re fortunate that in the aftermath of Corbyn’s disastrous 2019 defeat he authored a lively Fabian Society pamphlet entitled Let Us Face The Future Again, a self-conscious attempt to recapture the spirit of the victory in 1945, albeit usually in less socialistic terms.
Nonetheless, Streeting made some radical proposals:
- Increasing public spending with fiscal rules – which means he seems sure to be keener on borrowing than Reeves and Rayner.
- Capital gains tax taxed on the same basis as tax on income, meaning a tax on assets more aligned with that on wages.
- Replacing inheritance tax with a “lifetime gifts tax”, meaning a wider net of taxation on inheritance.
- Every public and private sector organisation with more than 250 employees having elected employee representation on their board and remuneration committees.
- Setting up a “ministry of migration”, and “give special status to EU nationals with freedom of movement maintained for those with proof of employment, as well as for students, scientists and for internal business transfers, as well as a ‘right to family’ to allow partners of UK nationals to live and work in the UK”.
- A “Good Work Commission” so employers, trade unions and government can agree on employment law.
The most impressive aspect of his pamphlet is actually how far-sighted it is, predicting – more than six years ago – conflict in the Strait of Hormuz, the rise of drone warfare, the impact of AI and our stagnating economy. He would likely do more to redistribute wealth and be keener on higher borrowing than Rachel Reeves. A self-confident candidate with a lot to be self-confident about.
Angela Rayner
Rayner was a fairly enthusiastic Corbynite in her time, and enjoyed rapid promotion under him to shadow education secretary. Perhaps she’s not forgotten her ambition from those days for an NHS-style National Education Service. Her 2020 deputy leadership manifesto continued no concrete policies, but was big on community politics, trade union activism and nostalgia for the days when Labour was a “movement”, not just an electoral machine. Her most up-to-date ideas are in a statement she published just after she was cleared by HMRC of breaking the law. These include:
- Spain and Canada as models to emulate – where economies grow “when governments stay true to labour and social democratic values”.
- “Immediate” but unspecified “action to cut costs for households and put money back into the everyday economy. This can be done within the current fiscal rules, by ensuring those who benefit from the crisis contribute more so that everyone can thrive”.
- A Fair Pay Agreement in social care.
- A “rising minimum wage must go alongside our programme to get young people into work”.
- Planning reforms to “unleash a building boom”.
- More devolution to mayors.
- Buses and trains being brought back into public hands.
- Tighter regulation of water companies (but not nationalisation).
- “Double down” on renters’ reform and end leasehold for good.
- Stopping the sell-off of local assets “from pubs to playgrounds”.
Rayner’s exoneration by HMRC won’t stop a section of the media highlighting past property-related controversies, or portraying her as left-wing, which she is. But her record as deputy prime minister under Starmer, accepting collective responsibility for welfare cuts and other unpalatable measures revealed a more pragmatic side to her politics, including a key commitment to “the current fiscal rules”. A very different style, but in substance not such a radical break with Starmerism.
Andy Burnham
The mayor of Greater Manchester has the great advantage of being a “clean skin”, having spent almost a decade making a success of devolved government in the north west. Even so, presiding over a mayoralty with a block grant from the Treasury is a very different proposition from running a G7 economy. He has a far longer track record at all levels of governance than his rivals, having served loyally as a minister in the Blair and Brown administrations as well as Ed Miliband and Jeremy Corbyn’s shadow cabinets. He has thus been a bit of a long-term political chameleon, championing amorphous concepts such as “aspirational socialism” and “Manchesterism”. The two manifestos for his previous failed leadership bids (2010 and 2015) aren’t much help now either in ascertaining his “true” beliefs, if any. But his close ally Clive Lewis has published a kind of proxy manifesto, with the following proposals:
- More borrowing to boost growth, rejecting “bond market dependency”. This is justified, it’s said, because it would be partly funded by “nationalising” the profits currently taken by private companies. Thus: “Bond markets prefer clarity, credible revenue streams, productive investment, and a state with a plan”.
- A “Nordic welfare state” that makes people more patriotic.
- Public control of transport, expanded social housing.
The conclusion of this brief delve into the minds of these politicians is that they are not entirely what might be assumed. It is Rayner, for example, who wants to maintain Rachel Reeves’ fiscal rules, and, from his pronouncements at party conference last year, Burnham who is more open to rejoining the EU, albeit “in my lifetime”. Streeting and Rayner more often seem to want to “move on” from Brexit, leaving Burnham arguably more European even than Starmer (and despite being lined up for a very “Leave” constituency, Makerfield). Although a centrist, it is Streeting who has been the least pragmatic of the trio, and likely the least willing to have anything to do with the Greens. Anyway, before too long there will be hustings and interviews and speeches that might tell us much more about these personalities, and how their plans actually differ from the 2024 Labour manifesto the country actually voted for.
