Rachel Reeves, still chancellor, possibly even to her own surprise after a tumultuous year, asked the Labour conference to: “Have faith, because our party and our country have overcome greater challenges than this.” Her plea to keep the faith was made as much to the country as to her comrades.
Yet this was not a plaintive cry, but a defiant one. Her recent trials, a fiscal baptism of fire, seem to have galvanised Ms Reeves into becoming a more confident, assertive speaker. She dealt forcefully with a heckler accusing ministers of betraying Palestine, and she made a credible case for why it is wrong to say, as she repeatedly put it, “that there’s no difference between a Labour government and a Conservative government”.
From breakfast clubs to a new youth work experience scheme to NHS waiting lists to taking control of British Steel, she reminded her audience – both party and country – that this Labour government has, as well as policy mistakes and problematic personalities, some achievements to be proud of. Aside from a sentimental reference by David Lammy, there was scarcely a mention or even a sight of the former conference darling Angela Rayner, and Peter Mandelson is an Orwellian non-person.
Unnamed but skilfully eviscerated was the pretender, Andy Burnham, who is being eclipsed by the sheer number of cabinet ministers determined to marginalise him. Seizing on Mr Burnham’s possibly fatal quip about Britain needing to move “beyond being in hock to the bond markets” – though without actually quoting it – Ms Reeves reminded the party why it has historically won so few general elections: it is not trusted to run the economy.
She said the government would “never, ever squander” the trust Labour had earned to run the economy before the general election. She put it well, rejecting the Burnhamite notion that there’s a trade-off between economic competence and Labour values.
Even more robust than Ms Reeves was the refreshingly direct new home secretary, Shabana Mahmood. Like the chancellor, she is at the centre of the government’s attempt to “keep the faith” with the public and, frankly, win back the trust lost since the last election last year. Yet her speech should probably have been accompanied by a warning about the explicit language and graphic scenes about to follow.
Blunt to the point of inflicting shock on a complacent audience, Ms Mahmood spoke bravely about how she herself feels threatened by the way British patriotism is being perverted into racist ethno-nationalism, redolent of the “p***-bashers and skinheads of old”. Addressing widespread concerns about shoplifting, she said that she knew there was nothing “low-level” about this form of crime. She knew all about that, she explained, because as a child she helped put in the family corner shop, with a cricket bat behind the counter “just in case”.
Metaphorically, she then took a cricket bat to those who would dispute her English and British identity. She is no less keen than anyone in Reform UK to stop the boats and secure the borders, she says, because that is the best way to underpin a tolerant and open society. She senses that it is wrong to dismiss what happened during the Unite the Kingdom protest, because that “would be to ignore something bigger, something broader, that is happening across this country. The story of who we are is contested.” In Ms Mahmood, these forces have met their match.
Like her colleague in the Treasury, Ms Mahmood also gave notice that the decisions ministers will have to take in the coming months may not be entirely to the liking of the Labour membership, but there is no alternative, given the public mood and what the chancellor terms the “harsh headwinds” facing the economy.
These are Sir Keir Starmer’s key lieutenants in his attempt to carry his party with him through what are historic levels of unpopularity, to vanquish the nasty nationalism and false prospectus offered by Mr Farage, see off the racists and offer the British people the “change” they voted for just 14 months ago.
Sir Keir will follow their example in sharpening the choice facing the British people. He is expected to say that “Britain stands at a fork in the road. We can choose decency. Or we can choose division.” There will be times of even greater unpopularity in the next year for the party and internal strain as ministers get on with their jobs, many more appalling polls and lost elections. It will be as testing a time as the Labour Party has ever endured in government. Will their faith crack?
