Labour’s disastrous switch to economic nationalism

The government will ‘Buy British’ whenever possible. A new law would force every public body to publish the percentage of supplies bought from domestic suppliers. And Gareth Southgate will be appointed as the country’s new management tsar, tasked with turning every worker into a winner. Okay, I admit I made that last one up. The rest, however, were among the blizzard of policy announcements from Labour’s shadow chancellor, Rachel Reeves, over the weekend. Less than three months into her new role, she, along with Sir Keir Starmer, has clearly decided to shift Labour economic policy towards tub-thumbing economic nationalism.

But hold on. Is that really a good idea? Sure, it is easy to understand what she is up to. Reeves wants to move Labour away from its ‘Remain’ tag, ditch the party’s wonky economic globalism, and reconnect with some of those Red Wall voters who, the Labour party seems to have suddenly discovered, are a lot more patriotic than it previously realised.