September 22, 2024 - 7:35pm
The founder of the influential Blue Labour movement has warned Keir Starmer and the Labour Party that Reform UK, and the disenchantment that won Nigel Farage’s party four million votes in the last election, must be confronted.
Speaking at a fringe event at Labour conference in Liverpool, Maurice Glasman made clear that the reasons why so many voters opted for Reform had not disappeared since Labour’s “landslide” election victory. He told a packed room — made up of many former party members — that the “disenchantment is real and we have to find a way of reaching out” to those voters.
Lord Glasman, the architect of the Blue Labour movement which stresses the importance of workers’ rights and social conservatism, said that he was considering debating Reform leader Nigel Farage. In a vote, the room almost unanimously decided in favour of him doing so. “We have to interact with those concerns,” he said, before adding that now might be the time to think about making Blue Labour an official group with paid membership.
At the Reform conference on Friday in Birmingham, Farage was steadfast in his proclamations that the “Conservative brand is bust” and that Labour is his main target. Farage claimed that Reform can turn large swathes of the Red Wall turquoise, as evidenced by Reform’s first MP Lee Anderson’s re-election (Anderson initially defected from the Tories). And the Blue Labour contingent seems worried that might come true without proper intervention from the Labour Party leadership.
“This is going to be a long government,” Glasman said. “We’re weeks in and it feels like years,” he added.
There is overlap between Blue Labour interests and Reform. A crucial point of agreement centres around industrial policy. Both parties agree that British workers will pay a huge cost for Net Zero policies. Today, Glasman lamented the Labour Party’s apparent lack of a clear industrial policy and its failure to stand on the side of domestic production. “When we meet this time next year, if there isn’t a clear industrial vision, we could be in a severe place,” Glasman warned.
Another point of agreement between Blue Labour and Reform is their disapproval of the expansion of the judiciary, quangos and the increased power of lawyers over elected politicians. At the Reform conference, there were many references to Tony Blair and Peter Mandelson’s 1997 constitutional changes — Reform MP for Great Yarmouth Rupert Lowe denounced it as “malignant legislation” to much applause.
Similarly, a member of the Blue Labour audience brought up the recent example of the Cumbrian coal mine which was scrapped after lawyers acting for Angela Rayner’s Housing, Communities and Local Government department said that initial planning permission should not have been granted due to the mine’s emissions. This is despite the fact that the UK will most likely import the coal instead with ultimately higher total emissions.
At its first annual conference as the party of Government in 14 years, Labour is mired in both a donor scandal and a cronyism scandal. As such, Glasman predicted that the populist revolt would not be over: “Reform is not something that can be ignored.”
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SubscribeI don’t know; listening to what people want would set a very dangerous precedent.
I’m sure there must be another photo of Farage that could have been used for this story. Either the media think they’re being funny or they intentionally run photos of figures on the right using what “could be” a Nazi salute.
Glasman gets it. The others are in the usual ‘we can perfect the workers’ leftist wonderland.
Does he get it?
Is industrial policy the main reason for raise of Reform?
Not really.
It is mass importation of low IQ savages from Muslim countries and Africa.
Interesting choice of photograph of Farage…purely accidental, no doubt…
No, very deliberate.
Yes, a cheap shot.
I thought exactly the same – as no doubt the editor intended. This sort of ‘smear’ journalism is disgusting! I don’t subscribe to Unherd to access such cheap-skate rubbish!
It is very telling that UnHerd used that photo of Nigel Farage looking like he’s giving a Nazi salute. I had assumed this was not a propaganda sheet for more left wing messaging. There are plenty enough of those already from the BBC on down. Whoever smirkingly selected that picture should be sacked.
“Whoever smirkingly selected that picture should be sacked.”
Well said! Hear! Hear!
I’ve cancelled my sub.
I missed it totally. Maybe because Nigel couldn’t be more different than herr hitler. At a glance he appears to be waving goodbye to his favourite pub and promising to come back soon.
‘…Maurice Glasman made clear that the reasons why so many voters opted for Reform had not disappeared since Labour’s “landslide” election victory. He told a packed room — made up of “many former party members — that the “disenchantment is real and we have to find a way of reaching out” to those voters….’
And?
Did Glasman spell out “the reasons”?
Did he mention the scale of illegal and legal migration?
Or, like with the author of this piece, is migration not allowed to be mentioned anywhere in a Labour conference, on pain of instant expulsion?
Actually migration is always mentioned – you cant escape from it. The reason by Blue Labour are infinitely superior to Reform though is because they’re aware that its the other Four Freedoms of Movement that do the harm – those of Capital, Goods and Services – Farrage and his party are still all in on those, despite their grandstanding on migration.
Your inability to spell Farage correctly casts doubt on your ability to get anything else right.
It wasn’t a landslide at all by percentage that actually voted for them…. It was more a squeak.
A quick wiki visit has got me up to speed with Blue Labour and it seems immediately obvious to me that it cannot ever effectively operate within the modern Labour Party.
You might also want to check out The Full Brexit site re a left perspective on Brexit & all those related issues. I’m very much with them myself.
Reform as just offering re-heated Thatcherism – still in love with 3 of the 4 freedoms of the EU.
https://www.thefullbrexit.com
Maurice Glasman has always been my hero. It’s a great shame IMHO that his voice isn’t given more volume in the Labour Party. The choice of photograph for Nigel Farage is frankly in appalling taste.
In any context, the decision to use that picture of Farage is puerile.
Yes, what the hell is going on at Unherd?
How did a Blue Labour meeting even take place? The website for Blue Labour hasn’t been updated for several years – and there is no e-newsletter, even if you sign up. Isn’t Blue Labour just Maurice Glasman? Introducing a paid-up membership scheme for a Blue Labour group is fine – but will it ever happen?
There’s a full party for it now anyway, people would be better off joining the SDP.
Lee Anderson originally defected from Labour, where he was a Councillor and a Labour MP’s agent, before he defected from the Tories.