Keir Starmer and the shadow cabinet at the Labour manifesto launch (Picture: Labour Party)
Keir Starmer launched Labour’s manifesto on Thursday to praise from bosses—and heckles from climate campaigners.
Starmer said Labour is “pro-business” and the “party of wealth creation”. Iceland supermarket chief executive Richard Walker—a former Tory donor—gushed that Labour has “the most pro-growth, pro-business treasury we have ever seen”.
But the start of Starmer’s speech was interrupted by Alice, a protester from Green New Deal Rising, shouting, “Same old Tory policies.”
Starmer didn’t announce any new policies—instead, he reiterated Labour’s pro-business stance. The centrepiece of the Labour manifesto is “economic stability”, which means no policies that might upset bankers, bosses and the rich.
“You cannot play fast and loose with the public finances,” Starmer said in his speech.
Spending pledges in Labour’s manifesto are minimal. They include a promise to set up Great British Energy (GBE) and the National Wealth Fund.
GBE will create a publicly-owned power company that will compete with private corporations. It will receive only £8.3 billion of funding over the next five years—and there are no plans for nationalising utilities to run them as a public service.
The manifesto’s green pledges are a similar story. Labour’s National Wealth Fund will invest in green energy, but it amounts to just £7.8 billion over the next parliament.
The National Grid’s operating profit was £4.8 billion from 2022-23, but again the Labour manifesto leaves private profit untouched.
Labour isn’t even going to raise taxes on the rich or corporations to pay for GBE or the wealth fund. It will cap the rate of corporation tax at 25 percent for the entire parliament. And there will be no increases to capital gains tax, which is levied on rich people’s profits from selling shares and second homes.
Instead, Labour would fund infrastructure through the current windfall tax on oil and gas companies. It talks of a “crackdown” on people who dodge tax through “non-domiciled” status, when the rich live in Britain but are legally registered elsewhere.
Alice, the protestor, said that, “We need better, the climate can’t wait. The climate can’t wait we need a green new deal now.”
Labour’s “New Deal for Working People” is tenuous. It includes banning fire and rehire practices, ending zero hour contracts and repealing the 2016 Trade Union Act that placed turnout thresholds on strike ballots.
But Labour has given big business an effective veto. The manifesto states, “We will consult fully with businesses, workers, and civil society on how to put our plans into practice before legislation is passed.”
Starmer made clear a Labour government would build on the Tories’ attacks on migrants—rather than taking on the racist lie that immigration is a threat. Labour’s new Border Security Command would ensure “failed asylum seekers can swiftly be sent back” in a continuation of the Tories’ scapegoating of migrants.
The manifesto says Labour wants to reduce net migration. Its commitment to get the “NHS back on its feet” forgets how reliant the health service is on migrant workers.
And Labour won’t give a huge injection of cash to the NHS or kick out the private companies that leach off the health service. Instead, it wants health workers—who are already overstretched through understaffing—to do more.
The party’s commitment to 40,000 more NHS appointments each week will be achieved “by incentivising staff to carry out additional appointments out of hours”. It has also removed the words the NHS “is not for sale” from its manifesto.
Despite Starmer’s claims that this is “a plan to change Britain”, he’s committed to not upsetting the rich and bosses.
Millions will vote Labour on 4 July to boot out the hated Tories and in the hope of seeing change after 14 years of attacks on working class people. It’s right that many people expect more from Labour Party. But we’ll have to fight a Starmer government from day through strikes, protest and mass mobilisations to win the changes we need.
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