With a general election – and the prospect of forming a government – now firmly on the horizon, the Labour party has no shortage of long-standing policies that it is quickly seeking to recast, review or revoke entirely.
Sir Keir Starmer’s earlier pledges to abolish tuition fees, increase taxes on higher earners and scrap the two-child benefit cap have all been unceremoniously dumped. Other commitments, such as a £28 billion per annum ‘Green Prosperity Plan’, have been significantly watered-down, while proposals for a tax raid on US tech giants have shifted to a wider review of business rates.
This is, in many ways, a natural and prudent process for a party that – for the first time in more than a decade – is seriously contemplating actually having to implement its commitments. In strained economic circumstances, the Labour party is determined not to write policy cheques it cannot cash. Yet this zest for revising the party’s prospectus is, it seems, not limited to expensive policies alone.
In recent months Starmer has not shown himself particularly enamoured with devolved decision making either.
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