The UK Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rachel Reeves, needed the applause and affection of Labour members more than ever. Her policy of fiscal rigour, her decision to scrap universal gas and electricity allowances for pensioners, and the fact that she also spent a few thousand euros from donors to the party to renew her wardrobe, as she has admitted, had made her the lightning rod of an irritated and pessimistic base, just over two months after a historic electoral victory.
“Let me say one thing very clearly: there will be no return to the age of austerity. The years of Conservative austerity were utterly destructive for our public services, for investment and for growth,” Reeves told the party conference in Liverpool on Monday, to the applause of hundreds of delegates who breathed a sigh of relief at hearing a message of firmness.
The most powerful woman in the government after the prime minister could not help but look slightly panicked when an activist interrupted her speech, minutes after it had begun. “We are still selling weapons to Israel,” or “Climate catastrophe is at our doorstep,” the man proclaimed, before being forcibly taken away by security services.
The delegates’ applause did just enough to drown him out. Labour urgently needed an injection of optimism, not an image of division. Reeves’ strategy has worked, if success is to be measured by all the times when applause has interrupted his speech.
Starmer’s team has finally understood that the strategy to get out of the hole it finds itself in consists of three steps that need to be explained and repeated. First, attack the legacy of 14 years of Conservative governments. Second, justify the tough decisions that must be taken. And third, undoubtedly the most important part, announce a more optimistic future than the one proclaimed until now.
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Reeves delighted the delegates by announcing the appointment of a Commissioner for the Investigation of Corruption during the Pandemic. “I will not look the other way when it comes to those who used a national emergency to line their pockets. I will not let them off the hook,” said the minister, who estimated that “the amounts given away to friends and donors of the Conservative Party amounted to billions of euros.”
Economic blow for pensioners
Reeves has been at pains to explain his economic strategy and to assure that better times would soon arrive. But he has not given in on the decision that has most irritated thousands of Labour members. Starmer’s government, which accuses the Conservatives of leaving behind an extraordinary hole of more than 26 billion euros, has put an end to the universal aid on the gas and electricity bills that British pensioners received. It will only be maintained for just over a million of them, the most economically vulnerable. The rest, nearly 10 million, will stop receiving a subsidy that ranged between 240 and 360 euros during the winter.
“I know that not everyone in this convention center or in the country agrees with that decision. But I am not going to back down for political gain or personal convenience,” Reeves said. “I think it is the right decision, given the economic circumstances we have inherited.”
Some of the most critical of the decision decided to reach out to the minister after hearing her. Like the mayor of Manchester, Andy Burnham, very popular among the Labour rank and file. “I think she has managed to raise the spirits of the members, and that is good,” Burnham admitted to Morning Express as soon as he left the plenary session. “Now I trust that, for the Budget that she must present in October, she will have some kind of nod to the pensioners that will calm their spirits,” he suggested.
Cruel, relentless rain has helped the government, reducing to a few dozen the number of pensioners who had turned out to demonstrate outside the Labour conference, called by the powerful Unite union. “They have to realise that they have made a mistake. We all make mistakes. In politics, you can choose and rectify. They must reverse this disastrous decision,” said Joe Rowan, one of the organisers of the powerful union, while a few demonstrators nodded, barely protected by umbrellas and raincoats.
Labour members representing Unite at the Labour conference have registered a motion calling for a halt to the benefit cuts, but the party leadership has manoeuvred to move a vote on the proposal, which is likely to succeed even though it is non-binding, to take place on Wednesday, when many delegates will have already begun to return home.
“I am the Minister of Health and, therefore, the most qualified person to understand that patients may complain about the taste of medicine, but they are also capable of understanding that they must take it in order to improve their health,” explained Wes Streeting, one of the most popular members of the Government and followed by Labour activists, in the corridors of the Congress Palace, with an example that was not very improvised.
Reeves’ speech attempted to revive the message that led Labour to victory on 4 July: the promise of economic growth. “My budget will be a budget of economic growth and investment,” the minister said, to dispel the idea of a future of cuts. “You must believe me when I tell you that I am more optimistic about the future of the United Kingdom than ever before,” she proclaimed to applause.
The ball was thus passed to the Prime Minister, who applauded from the presidential table in Congress. Starmer will have to finish the job on Tuesday and explain to his people, and to all Britons, what his vision for the country is for the coming years. And convince those who voted for the Labour Party that he intends to launch a “national renewal”, as he promised, and not simply, as his critics accuse him, to rebuild the economic legacy of the Conservatives.
