Welcome to openDemocracy’s weekly email, which this Saturday looks at the unhappy scenes on display at this week’s annual Labour Party Conference in Liverpool.
In recent weeks, Keir Starmer suffered a wave of resignations and firings from his top team, leading his MPs to discuss the possibility of replacing him, while Andy Burnham, Labour’s Northern king-in-exile (or, the Manchester mayor), appeared to be mounting a leadership challenge. His government has also faced criticism for a controversial, unexpected policy on a new digital ID scheme (more on this later in this newsletter from our editor-in-chief, Aman Sethi).
And while it may have been the Labour conference, Reform UK was the headline act. “In the fringes and bars, delegates talked about little else,” our correspondent Seth Thévos writes. Polls show Nigel Farage’s party would stand a good chance of winning if an election took place tomorrow – a problem that Labour’s factions can’t agree on how to tackle.
The largest (and least powerful) faction, Seth explains, believes that “Labour’s lost voters are not deserting the party because it hasn’t yet humiliated enough immigrants; they’re leaving because 14 months ago, they voted for a Labour government to do Labour things – and are baffled and disillusioned as to why so little of that has happened.” Well, quite.
So why is Starmer’s Labour failing to do those things? It could have something to do with the considerable influence corporate power has exerted over it in the years leading up to and since its election victory; millions have flowed into the party’s coffers from the City, while consultants and lobbyists have sent their staff to work within the party and help set its direction. This trend was on show once again at conference, where lobbyists were deployed from every sector to bend the ears of ministers and advisers.
Whether blatant or cloak and dagger, the influence enjoyed by corporate interests over this government is significant, and that doesn’t happen by accident. We’re also including a piece from our archives that I wrote last year in this newsletter, which reveals how Labour was subject to a massive lobbying bonanza ahead of the election, which didn’t need to be declared under Westminster transparency laws that require only the lobbying of members of the government to be recorded.
And just as the public had no right to know who had Labour’s ear while it was in opposition, we won’t know who is trying to influence Reform’s policy platform ahead of the 2029 election. Reports suggest the City is already stepping up its efforts to court Farage’s party, and my recent analysis on Reform’s finances (which I discussed further on openDemocracy’s In Solidarity podcast, which is also included in this newsletter) finds the party draws a significant amount of its support from finance.
Starmer finished the conference with a well-received speech that took aim squarely at Reform. It seems to have assuaged the concerns of some in his party for now, but it will be only a temporary reprieve unless his government can make good on its new promise to ‘Renew’ Britain, a message that was plastered all over the conference in a clear indication of Labour’s new strategy: kick out at Reform while aping them. | 
