Prospects for Labour victory in the UK

What can a Keir Starmer government achieve, and what obstacles stand in its way?

After the warm welcome of its first edition in November 2022, FEPS and Karl–Renner-Institute organised another iteration of the new feature of the Next Left Research Program: the Next Left Lectures. Lord Roger Liddle, member of the House of Lords, presented the second lecture on ‘Prospects for Labour victory in the UK:  what a Keir Starmer government can achieve and what obstacles stand in its way?’

He described the UK Labour (LP) Party’s evolution in the last few decades. He addressed Brexit, its reasons, and its consequences for the British people. Much of the lecture was devoted to Keir Starmer as the leader of LP and his agenda for the upcoming election. In the opinion of R. Liddle, Labour has the opportunity to rebuild its identity and win over the electorate. In response and ahead of many upcoming elections in the EU, Thijs Reuten, MEP S&D, highlighted how important it was for the Next Left to show that it understood voters’ concerns and is taking decisive actions to address them.

According to Roger Liddle, the heart of the Labour programme must be a modern industry policy and comprehensive public service reform. Labour policy should thus follow two key principles:

• ‘invest to grow’: Labour has already committed itself to a significant programme of investment in climate transition. The hope is that this would help create in Britain a new generation of industries at the forefront of the clean energy sector.
• ‘invest to save’: Ring-fenced spending on public services, which would make their provision cheaper in the long run and reduce pressures for future spending.

He concluded by explaining that, for Starmer’s Labour to be more than a one-term government, “Labour has to demonstrate a coherent long-term strategy to be the kind of social democratic government that inch by inch tackles the hard boards of injustice in our society.”

Programme

10h00-11h00 Open Lecture taking place at the European Parliament (Hybrid), chaired by Andreas Schieder, MEP of the S&D Group 

11h00-12h00 Expert meeting discussion at the European Parliament

12h00-13h00 Lunch break at FEPS headquarters

13h30-15h00 High-Level conversation debate at FEPS headquarters (Hybrid)

This event first took place at the European Parliament and then continued at FEPS HQ, Avenue des Arts, 46, 1000 Brussels

The Next Left Lecture and strategic colloquium are the new features of one of the longest-existing FEPS initiatives, the Next Left Research Programme. The latter has been run since 2009 with the support of Karl–Renner-Institute and many other FEPS members, with the ambition to contribute to progressive thinking, propose innovative paths, and help reinforce social democrats on the local, regional, national, European and global levels.

For more information, please write to Ania Skrzypek, FEPS Director for Research and Training (ania.skrzypek@feps-europe.eu) and/or Céline Guedes, FEPS Project Officer (celine.guedes@feps-europe.eu).