Keir Starmer: The politics of a U-turn

Is it a good idea to change your mind?

Labor most recently moved into new headquarters, about 15 minutes from parliament.

I was invited there to interview Sir Keir Starmer about his decision to scrap his long-standing promise to spend £28bn a year on future green industries.

This is a U-turn with every angle of twist visible.

A figure of £28 billion has been announced for 2021.

It was then diluted for shipment, which was scheduled for last summer.

And this week it was finally binned.

This is because, in the end, the party felt tied down to numbers that could only be politically negative. Given their self-imposed economic rules, they would never be able to achieve that level of spending anyway.

Critics, however, said the numbers would lead to massive borrowing and tax increases.

In addition, government officials are publicly at odds and contradicting each other about whether the policy has failed. Something had to give, and pretty quickly.

But it is not a simple argument to ignore the headline numbers, as Sir Keir does, and yet try to argue unequivocally that the actual results are little different.

This figure, which is causing them great grief, even though it included a huge amount of money according to their projections, they had no real idea how to spend it.

But conservatives say Labour’s position is, at least in part, a condemnation of changes to Tory tax cuts that Labor itself supports but won’t reverse, and policies they continue to work on. sent me an email stating that they had doubts about the cost burden.

Labor counters that what about Liz Truss and her economic collapse?

All of this begs the question: Was it naive to think Labor would commit to £28bn in the first place?

But let’s get back to the question I asked in the first place. Is changing your mind a good or bad thing?

Keir Starmer said that of all the places she has worked, Westminster is the only place where changing your mind when circumstances change is seen as a bad thing. It’s also labeled “U-turn,” which I used earlier.

He believes that what he is doing amounts to a pragmatic change that acknowledges changing circumstances.

The Conservatives claim his views are changing permanently.

But the Conservative Party itself has made many changes in direction.

HS2, electric cars, station ticket takers and a bonfire of old EU-era laws, to name just a few.

Maybe the original idea was a good idea. Maybe it wasn’t.

But is switching from one to the other inherently bad?

The challenge for opposition leaders seeking to define themselves in the minds of voters is that they start from a low base of not knowing much about them.

When you change your mind drastically, like Keir Starmer did, the process of introducing yourself and outlining yourself becomes difficult.

You can be portrayed as believing in nothing.

Lord Keir’s opponents hope his broader change of heart can expose vulnerabilities, including on bankers’ bonuses, childcare in Britain and overseas aid, to name just three since he became leader.

They see £28bn as the latest case study.

Labor has calculated that it is better to be criticized for a U-turn in the short term than for months over a huge figure of £28 billion.

Perhaps it is also true that political opponents attack political parties in order to make a U-turn when they lack alternative means of attack.

Especially since a U-turn often, but not always, switches the opponent from their opposite position to yours.

The U-turn then resolves the differences.

That brings me to a phrase I’ve been struggling with in my head to describe Labour’s approach in recent months.

I first heard these words at a labor conference last fall.

Critics say Labor is losing touch with the Conservatives. They argue that that’s exactly what should matter.

For others, it’s about shaking off differences that can be weaponized by opponents.

After an awkward few weeks, Labor has withdrawn its pledge.