A government without a plan – where next for UK politics?

Dr Keith Darlington

Does the Starmer Labour Party have a coherent government plan? The answer seems to be a resounding no.

In opposition, Starmer wanted to be all things to all voters. He became known for his U-turns and for being vague and ambiguous on many policy issues. UK Labour claimed they had the solutions to our problems but never told us how it would happen.

Now that they are in government, it's even harder to know how it will happen because their approach is always to distract attention away from themselves by blaming the Tories for everything but offering very little in the way of a solution. Over several decades, the UK has been on a declining path, whoever is in power. In the last 25 years, governments have been elected with large majorities—sometimes large landslides—yet we still have chronic underinvestment, low productivity, and declining living standards relative to the rest of Europe .

In this article, I will demonstrate with the examples below that Starmer’s Labour is not proposing enough to bring about any significant change from the previous government.

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Port Talbot steelworks

Stephen Kinnock and Jo Stevens, both hold Welsh constituency seats, and have spent much of their time during BBC interviews in recent weeks rubbishing the Tories when commenting on the closure of Port Talbot Steelworks. Yet, it is now clear that, in government, their deal for the steelworks is no different from what the Tories offered despite saying otherwise before being elected.

For example, Vaughan Gething told a press conference earlier this year that the shedding of about 2,500 jobs was “genuinely avoidable” if the UK Government would “engage” with the Welsh Government. However, we now know that UK Labour had no plan to do anything significantly different from the previous government.

The economy
Before the General Election, Starmer and his acolytes constantly told us that growth was the key to the future success of the UK economy. Growth, Growth, Growth was the mantra of Starmer and Reeves. We were told they would grow the economy but never told how.

However, growth cannot happen without impetus, and Labour’s other pronouncements would be incompatible with growth. For example, they told us they would stick to the previous Tory spending limits. Furthermore, they would not consider any changed relationship with the EU that could provide any new trading impetus. This means that they have tightly bound the UK economy, so the scope for growth would be very limited.

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Contradictory

This all sounds like a contradictory mess that was bound to stoke up difficulties when in government. And so it has because we now see that the removal of the Winter Fuel Allowance for some pensioners has backfired spectacularly.

Starmer will struggle to live this down, and we are only a few months into this government. This was not even in their manifesto, and it has the look of a government wanting to show that they are ready to take tough decisions rather than being part of a plan.

This action has other consequences because it looks like austerity (in all but name), and this was not in the script.

Labour appears to be bereft of a plan to move the economy forward other than hoping that time alone will bring improvements.

The NHS
It is a similar story with the NHS. In a speech given by Starmer on September 12th , he stated there would be no money without reform. However, as so often is the case, he has not clarified what exactly he means by reform. He also said that there would be an emphasis on prevention of illnesses by banning sugar ads and smoking outdoors and called for a move away from large hospitals to smaller local community units.

He said it would take 10 years. Very convenient because this implies that the electorate would have to elect him for another term.

However, this is a very meagre offering from a party that once prided itself on the NHS. Furthermore, many NHS managers say that the NHS problems cannot be solved without dealing with social care. They believe that a lack of social care can cause a backlog in the NHS, as hospitals sometimes cannot discharge medically fit patients. Yet, social care was omitted entirely from Labour’s manifesto!

UK politics is not working

UK Labour has been in office for less than 100 days and has nothing to offer that is significantly different from the previous Tory government. It is little wonder that it is all going badly wrong for Starmer. He lost one Labour MP (Rosie Duffield) and became the most unpopular PM in record time.

However, the UK government is the only country that still uses the much discredited First Past The Post (FPTP) voting system, apart from Belarus. To their credit, our Welsh government is about to change its electoral system from FPTP to a form of proportional representation. UK Labour should take a leaf from Welsh Labour’s book and consider doing the same.

FPTP must go

Labour won a landslide victory only because of our flawed electoral system. Labour only got 1 out of 5 of those eligible to vote and polled just 33.7% of the voters who turned out.

Even the turnout was at a record low. This is an appalling indictment of our failing democracy. Labour and the Tories are beneficiaries of our flawed system because of the geographical distribution of their support. Both parties will resist change, but we now live in a multiparty age, whether they like it or not.

Even when elected with landslide majorities, both main parties have failed to arrest our decline; a changed proportional voting system at least enables other voices to be heard with the possibility of new thinking.

One thing is clear, our politics is broken, and something needs to change. Mark Drakeford, to his credit, along with Plaid Cymru, realised this was also a problem in Wales. He had the courage to make the change and ensure that the next Senedd election to be held in 2026 will use a more proportional voting system.

If UK Labour cares about our dying democracy and country, they should take a leaf out of Drakeford’s book and implement a fairer proportional voting system. It's worth a try because our two-party majority politics is no longer working – whoever is in power.

Dr Keith Darlington is an author and retired university lecturer from Wales