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September 18, 2024 - 5:30pm
A few years ago, when Labour was in opposition, I wrote a brief internal policy paper for the party as research for what was later published as “Labour’s Covenant.” In it, I argued that “Dark clouds gathering on the furthest edge of the world provide a dramatic backdrop to a Labour message that Britain requires a concerted period of national renewal, centred on resilience and state capacity.” Indeed, the perilous state of global affairs presented “a rare opportunity for Labour to use the new international situation as the justification for a progressive, interventionist domestic program to rebuild state capacity.”
The published covenant, Labour’s blueprint for government, indeed affirmed that “National reconstruction would involve reshoring key manufacturing capacity,” and that “instead of outsourcing the externalities of production, a national economy will manufacture more of the goods, like steel, that are currently produced in carbon-intensive ways abroad, at home, to higher environmental standards.” This is a good and sensible goal, for which I can claim little personal credit: it is simply common sense. Yet in power, Labour appears to be breaking its covenant with the British people.
Allowing Belfast’s historic and strategically vital Harland & Wolff shipyard to fall into administration for want of a £200m loan is a short-termist case of “Treasury Brain” redolent of the Tories at their worst. That the most likely buyer, Spain’s Navantia, is a state-owned enterprise highlights the British state’s allergy towards nationalising strategically vital industries, even as we stand teetering on the brink of great power conflict. The Labour government appears keen to escalate the Ukraine war, against American and European caution, towards a direct confrontation Britain is manifestly unprepared for.
It is all part of a worrying pattern: like the High Court’s quashing of the planned new Whitehaven mine for coking coal — vital for domestic steelmaking — the basic building blocks of national resilience in an increasingly uncertain and unstable world are being frittered away, in a manner entirely inconsistent with Labour’s manifesto commitments. As the International Relations theorist David Blagden observes, without Whitehaven we will be forced to “use Chinese coal instead, via imported steel,” which will “increase China’s power to coerce us, further weaken UK industry, and lead to higher net carbon emissions.” As with the collapse of Britain’s steel industry — and with it the ability to produce primary steel from scratch, a vital capability in building national resilience, particularly in wartime — the Labour government is overseeing a dangerous diminution of national industrial capacity, and a correspondingly growing dependence on foreign powers, including major strategic rivals.
It appears that Labour, while no less hawkish than the Conservatives in plunging Britain further into the centre of international quarrels than our closest allies are comfortable with, is simultaneously willing to see Britain become more dependent on the goodwill of foreign powers than ever before. Its climate policy, however well-intentioned, is proceeding backwards, launching headlong into a green energy transition whose capacity is far from certain without first building up the necessary resilience to ensure a stable energy supply. Worse, all of this is taking place in the most threatening international situation almost anyone living has ever known.
The central task of British governance is a simple one: making Britain a richer and more secure country than, after decades of failed policy, it currently is. Instead, Labour policy seems set on making Britain poorer, less resilient, and even more exposed to global risk. Like Harland & Wolff’s most famous product, we are rapidly approaching the iceberg, more clearly in view with every passing day: the time is running out for Starmer to steer us safely away to our promised destination.
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SubscribeI think you will find that you are preaching to the choir here at Unherd Aris.
Amen!
Absolutely.
Not quite. Although the echo chamber tendencies of Unherd are there.
For some reason Aris’s piece brings to mind
“A Statesman’s Holiday”. With Aris as the protagonist; and Lammy, Starmer, Reeves and Rayner as the Tall dames.
___________________________
I lived among great houses,
Riches drove out rank,
Base drove out the better blood,
And mind and body shrank.
No Oscar ruled the table,
But I’d a troop of friends
That knowing better talk had gone
Talked of odds and ends.
Some knew what ailed the world
But never said a thing,
So I have picked a better trade
And night and morning sing:
Tall dames go walking in grass-green Avalon.
Am I a great Lord Chancellor
That slept upon the Sack?
Commanding officer that tore
The khaki from his back?
Or am I de Valera,
Or the King of Greece,
Or the man that made the motors?
Ach, call me what you please!
Here’s a Montenegrin lute,
And its old sole string
Makes me sweet music
And I delight to sing:
Tall dames go walking in grass-green Avalon.
With boys and girls about him.
With any sort of clothes,
With a hat out of fashion,
With Old patched shoes,
With a ragged bandit cloak,
With an eye like a hawk,
With a stiff straight back,
With a strutting turkey walk.
With a bag full of pennies,
With a monkey on a chain,
With a great c**k’s feather,
With an old foul tune.
Tall dames go walking in grass-green Avalon.
Of course, this is correct about the Net Zero stuff. And Labour has always opposed the Whitehaven mine. That’s not news. A Labour fellow traveller really ought to know this.
But …
If Harland and Wollf were based anywhere else than Belfast, it would have closed down decades ago. “Strategically vital” ? Really ?
There comes a point with all these things where you’re simply throwing good money after bad.
But if Harland and Wolff is a hill a self-proclaimed supporter of “national reconstruction” chooses to die on, that’s his choice. But preferably not with my money.
Doesn’t real national reconstruction mean focusing on the industries of the future and less so on propping up those of the past ?
The Smith & Wesson Model 1 will kill you and all your advanced technology just as easily as it did 160 years ago.
I’m not sure that functional naval power is old news.
Net zero, as constituted by Ed Miliband, is simply incompatible with a highly industrialized economy and high tech sector, both of which are vital to the defence industry. Will be fascinating to see how this plays out, which is easy to say for me because I don’t live in Britain.
Slight correction – incompatible with high energy requirements. This means that cement making and steel making will have to go offshore and Britain will have to import. This is the real stupidity of NetZero – the government will meet its goals if we import most of our needs.
Why on earth would UnHerd ban the posting of a Yeats poem (A Statesman’s Holiday)?
Well ‘state capacity’ has certainly increased.
The Civil Service has added an extra 5-10,000 employees a year for most of the last 5 years.
Whether that’s been a national benefit I tend to doubt….
And all the extra administrators to deal with the paperwork and checks added by Brexit, both in public and the private sector. And a national benefit to that…?
If the critics of unnecessary bureaucracy voted for the stupidity of increasing business bureaucracy then one would suggest they have a bit of a blind-spot.
Give examples please. How many extra bureaucrats were needed to do what? Meanwhile, how many have been required to enforce DEI ideology? And how many are just the result of departmental empire building?
You need to stop making stuff up.
On Business – go and read up on what Chamber of Commerce has said on Brexit and the greatest imposition of bureaucracy on business ever.
No fan of EDI growth myself, but small fry compared to Brexit. And we still haven’t implemented all the border checks our side because of the hassle, cost and insufficient staff. Meaning whilst our exports go through all the checks, our imports don’t – thus giving foreign Businesses an advantage. Well done the Brexiteers for this brainwave! Poorer and tangled in paperwork. What a dividend.
Which Chamber of Commerce? Not that it matters. Export of goods to the EU never accounted for more than 4% of economic activity in the UK anyway – which is why we left – and it’s about the same now. I spent some time in Germany in 2013 and didn’t see a single Brtiish made product in the shops, on the street or in anyone’s home. I bet you drive a VW.
It may be true but 5-10,000 (assuming you mean 5,000 to 10,000) is quite a wide margin of error. Please provide links when using statistics.
Anti climate policy direction and for appeasing Putin – unfortunately not much new in this from this Author.
As regards the link to Harland & Woolf – it needs new owners and governance structure and giving it £200m until that’s sorted would be tipping the money down the drain. They have the FFS contract worth £700m but they haven’t delivered a major project in some time. You can well understand why the Govt hesitant.
We are being led by (supposedly well intentioned) lambs.
The lack of adult thinking is quite breathtaking. But oddly enough we are not alone, the sensible Germans seem to be committing national suicide too.
I’m growing to really detest this Labour Party.
Why is it that defence and energy responsibilities can be waved away, yet net zero is set in stone? Shouldn’t NZ be subordinate to national security?
“In it, I argued that “Dark clouds gathering on the furthest edge of the world”
And
“this is taking place in the most threatening international situation almost anyone living has ever known”
And
“we are rapidly approaching the iceberg, more clearly in view with every passing day”.
Aris generally writes excellent, intelligent stuff, including several points here, but clearly he’s been wearing a “THE END IS NIGH” sandwich board for some years now.
The Gods of the Copybook Headings