is the UK heading for a Bidenesque Government?

Keit Starmer has been at great pains to reassure voters that the hard left is under control in his party and he is the choice for stability and unity. However, that's what Biden promised in 2020.

So back in 2020, Pandemic in full swing, political riots, ‘mostly peaceful protests’ and America decides to believe the Democrat message and votes in Joe Biden, who is presented to all and sundry as ‘a safe pair of hands’.

Since then Biden has proved to be anything but as increasingly radical policies, economic, social, Criminal Justice, student debt forgiveness and around gender are forced into law. So what happened? Why did Biden prove to be either unable to or unwilling to control the hard left in his party?

Thing is the warning signs have been there for everyone to see for many years now. Social Media, outrage culture, the implementation of DEI, the ‘new orthodoxy’ the capture of institutions, companies and organisations, the universal acceptance of radical gender policies as if there is consensus on the research behind them, the implementation of Critical Race Theory into every facet of American, and sometimes western life. These are all obsessions that have captured the ‘elite’ those with the ‘luxury opinions’ Matt Goodwin and Eric Kaufmann observe. Those who can afford to promote policies which soothe their guilt for their socio economic position in life, whilst never having to live with the consequences of those decisions. Under Biden, America 2024 is a nation far more toxic than it ever was under The Orange Eminence. We’ve seem antifa riots and the culmination of intersectional identity politics, Marxism, Islamic extremism in the spectre of antisemitism on a scale not seen since the 1930s.

Worse has been the elite’s reaction to this - the University Principles who blithely sat in front of Congress and basically said : ‘Meh! Freedom of Speech’ completely ignoring that we all know that their same colleges have persecuted anyone to the right of Barack Obama, hounding speakers, including minority ones, off campus and in some cases, Evergreen, allowing their campuses to descend into Lord of the Flies. 

So back over here - what does a Starmer government mean for us. Well, we’ve been doing some deep dives into Labour Policy at FairJob. We have two YouTube Videos analysing the pre Manifesto Policies and the Manifesto from an employer perspective and I am sure that anyone who has done the same will notice that there is a gap between the former and the latter. However you cannot check the former (unless you use the Wayback Archive Machine) because Labour deleted them the day the Manifesto was published.  Many commentators have raised an eyebrow at the lack of detail in the Manifesto. Now it’s not unusual for parties to scrap their policy pages in the run up to an election, especially when they want people to focus on their Manifesto. But comparing the two is eye opening because it may cast light on a Bidenesque battle Starmer is having within the Labour Party with his own hard left and tensions within the various factions. 

If you look at the deleted policies, there were some in there that were pretty radical: introducing a law to make it mandatory for employers to promote union membership to employees for example. This has been diluted in the Manifesto. We know the Trades Unions have been putting pressure on Labour to help them expand their presence into SMEs (employers under 250 workers), with 62% of UK workers employed in the SME sector, it’s a juicy prize for the unions. Usually such Manifesto or policy promises have a cut off - for example: this won’t apply to employers with under 50 employees. This is to stop the very real problem of Pub Landlords and B&B Owners having to face off against union Shop Stewards. But Labour has neglected to include any exemptions. Given that out of the 24 Shadow Front bench members, only one, the Shadow Secretary of State for Scotland, Ian Murray seems to have any direct experience of running a small business, all the rest are the usual collection of human rights lawyers, quangocrats, Labour Party activists and professional politicians; it may not be surprising that this was overlooked. 

Starmer is running around putting out fires being kindled by his own front bench: Emily Thornburry let the cat out of the bag that Labour were aware that charging VAT onto Private School Fees would invariably impact state schools for a while at least. Angela Rayner promised a group of Muslim ‘Community Leaders’ (all men, incidentally - why is that ?) that a Labour Government would recognise Palestinian statehood and contrary to the damage control, she didn’t caveat that comment with any conditions when it was made. Rayner again forced her leader to uTurn on his decision to ‘retire’ Diane Abbot from the Commons, this time she was successful. This week Bridget Phillipson refused to answer 3 times whether Labour would maintain the ban on teaching school kids radical gender ideology. This whack-a-leftymole seems to be taking up all of Starmer’s time at the moment.

He promises that his government would ‘tread lightly on people’s lives’. He tries to paint the ‘culture war’ as a toxic Tory issue and yet his Manifesto is rife with suggestions that his government will be every bit as hard left, intolerant, authoritarian and radically progressive as Biden’s or Trudeau’s has been. Just look at the small print of their proposals to ‘simplify’ Gender Self ID, or the consequences of making Conversion Therapy Illegal on treating gender confused children which Dr Hillary Cass has already expressed great concern about this week. Or back to our area of interest: the workplace, how the New Deal for Workers with it’s enhanced racial equality legislation (some employees are more equal than others), Trade Union access into SMEs and other employers, Full Employment Rights from Day 1, Enhanced parental leave rights, statutory EDI. Contrary to ‘treading lightly’ Labour will create chaos for employers especially SMEs who have yet to recover from the devastation of the COVID lockdowns and are battling a cost issue that is making self employment and running a business less and less attractive. 

Starmer is like a man sitting on a loaded Jack-In-The-Box where the Jack is the racial left who clearly haven’t been neutered - just look at how his own Shadow Cabinet defies him openly? He’s desperately trying to hold the lid down to get over July 4th.

Labour will probably win. These polices will be the tip of an increasingly radical iceberg as we have seen in the USA, Canada, Spain, Australia, Poland, Ireland. Enforced through an authoritarian elite on a moral crusade. Labour supported the Scottish Hate Crime Act 2021, I would fully expect similar legislation in England, as criticism when the very real consequences of their policies start to bite is silenced. Starmer, be he the cloak and dagger Trotskyite Peter Hitchens warns us about or be he a bland technocrat dedicated to maintaining the Neo Liberal status quo will be unable to restrain the left in his party. That left is also in the Civil Service and many other institutions. They will put pressure on him from Day 1. The question: will he be able to keep sitting on the Jack-In-The-Box or will he, like those other nations mentioned, kow tow to their demands.

How we get through the next 5-10 years is going to be a huge challenge for those of us who are trying to navigate an economic, legislative and political landscape increasingly hostile to businesses, especially small businesses. Typically those institutions who are meant to stand up for the rights and affairs of those businesses have been captured themselves and are silent. 

If you are an employer you might want to consider joining The Fair Job Initiative as we are currently working on the map to help employers navigate these increasingly hostile waters.