In a rare rebuke to Blairism, Keir Starmer recently admonished “times in the recent past where Labour was afraid to speak the language of class at all”. Labour was, after all, founded 123 years ago as the political wing of the working class. But is its leader’s mea culpa a rhetorical flourish or rooted in substance?
A key test is its “new deal for working people”, a set of proposals to deal with the low pay, insecurity and disempowerment baked into the working lives of millions, not least by strengthening trade union rights and introducing basic rights for all workers from day one – and all in the first 100 days of a Labour government. After Starmer’s abandonment of so many of his key pledges, this stands as the party’s last transformative offering.
