July 17, 2024 - 7:00am
Today’s first King’s Speech of the new Labour government will be a telling moment of what the party most wants to achieve while in office. Passing legislation is the slowest and most cumbersome aspect of ruling, but it is what most deeply entrenches a lasting legacy.
With a large majority and significant goodwill still enveloping the party, the new PM will never find it as easy to get his programme through as now. The bills unveiled will be a sign not just of his priorities, but of what he feels he needs to do to maintain the support of his party and the electorate.
Much of what has been trailed so far plays to Labour’s strongest supporters. The promised expansion of workers’ rights — with an end to zero-hour contracts and extension of statutory sick pay — should please unions and low-paid workers, even if some have criticised Keir Starmer for watering down certain aspects in the face of business lobbying. Similarly, the rollout of GB Energy and Great British Railways will underpin some of Labour’s flagship promises on the environment and transport.
Other bills, however, might prove more controversial within the PM’s own party. Starmer intends to beef up the role of the Office for Budget Responsibility. This might assuage markets, but it is an acknowledgement of fiscal limitations which could anger those on the Left who favour turning on the spending taps. Equally, new laws to tackle people-smuggling and anti-social behaviour might score well with the public but run the risk of raising hackles on the Left.
Perhaps the biggest challenge lies in planning. Labour has promised to unlock new levels of housebuilding and has attracted a bold Yimby-caucus among younger activists. Some of them even became MPs a fortnight ago. The leader will have to balance this, however, against the parochial instincts of newly elected MPs, Nimby constituents, and a scepticism of development within some quarters of the Labour Party. Tackling the housing crisis is a key part of Labour’s push for growth and higher living standards; being coy about it could fall flat, but boldness could have big political costs.
Elsewhere, the party leadership is likely to use the speech to mitigate some of the factional impacts of other decisions it’s making. Already, Labour has angered LGBT campaigners by continuing to implement the ban on puberty blockers. A ban on conversion therapy, likely to be included within the speech, could be a way to placate the progressive section of the party.
The speech is the first real set piece of Labour’s new government. Fights are unlikely to erupt now but in a few months, perhaps when MPs are settled into Westminster, things could change. When the honeymoon is over, factions could rise up through proposed amendments and battles over the details of bills. Getting legislation through Parliament can be a long slog, but it’s also essential to making the sort of lasting changes a new government can’t just undo with the stroke of a pen.
The King’s Speech is the real foundation of Labour’s time in office. The bills unveiled will show how Starmer wants to support those who elected him and what he wants his legacy to be. It will preview the political fights yet to come, and perhaps might be the first determinant of whether Labour’s time in power is a success or a failure.
John Oxley is a corporate strategist and political commentator. His Substack is Joxley Writes.
Mr_John_Oxley
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SubscribePassing legislation is the quickest and least cumbersome aspect of ruling, and it is what least deeply entrenches a lasting legacy.
Any government with a majority can write and pass laws. It is the state’s courts that decide whether “international law” takes precedence and whether the laws are “legal” or not. It is the state’s civil service that decides the interpretation of laws into policy. It is the state’s organisations and bodies that decide the efficacy and competence of how a policy is implemented. It is the dominant state media that shapes how that efficacy and competence is seen by the public.
It turns out laws are just a confetti of words. Words that can be blown away, erased or rearranged or reinterpreted a million times over. The state meanwhile, the leviathan, is permanent and omnipresent. It is changing the state’s placeholders and the state’s values that is the slowest and most cumbersome aspect of ruling, but it is what most deeply entrenches a lasting legacy.
Starmer inherits a state already ideologically supportive. His ministers won’t find any opposition from the courts or the civil service or the state organisations and bodies or the BBC. By the stroke of a pen his Energy Minister has just decreed the destruction of hundreds of thousands of acres of high quality agricultural land and habitat for the direct benefit of Labour’s biggest donors without any need for law or judicial review, immediately accepted by the civil service without resort to yet another impact assessment, and championed by the BBC.
The Labour legacy is already assured because the state is Labour.
He is Gorbachev. You will see. The 30 Year Revolution is marching quicker toward its 1989,/90 Moment.
Woo hoo! Sir Kneeling & Co will ban smoking!
He has played his thin hand. He can talk all he likes about growth but is caught on the horns of a terrible dilemma. He and his Socialist Labour Party are Mr & Mrs Anti Growth. He defended Newts over Houses only a few months ago. It is his beloved EU laws and regulations that have killed off growth and enterprise. He cannot retreat from addiction to bureaucratic overload diktat and malaise in a ow protected broken public sector What big pro growth ideas did we get today? Unions like the Perma Strike Railwy loons granted greater powers to pummel SMEs. A set of joke dud new Quangos with pathetically thin token kitties all primed to be rodgered by laughing City Finance sharks. His Big Active State is Rach’s latest rip off from leftie economists who have left us with a 100bn debt bill per annum. He is going to be a tortured dog chasing a tail he set on fire.
With such a huge majority, the PLP will split into two or three recognisable factions.
I have read that Labour backbenchers are already proposing to move amendments to the Kings Speech because it does not yet abolish the 2 child cap on benefits.
And so it begins.
He is a mass of contradictions … let’s devolve power to local people but then deny local people say over planning decisions. Let’s introduce over 30 new regulatory bills but get growth. It’s a head spinner and candidly were we still in the UK i would be very nervous.
I think this is a fair comment, but on the other hand almost every government has its contradictions including Margaret Thatcher’s.
In reality have to please the electorate, the markets, your own political activists – who have worked to see you elected, major funders (eg the unions) etc
“ Labour has angered LGBT campaigners by continuing to implement the ban on puberty blockers.”
I am not part of these campaigners, but I have heard that LGB do not all agree with T.