Meeting held on Monday 18th September 2023
Nine people were present. Five gave their apologies.
Much attention has been given to immigration in the media. The Labour Party policy appears to be to “smash the traffickers”. Tory policies, on the other hand, are to penalise those who are trafficked in the attempt to stem demand. We were concerned though that, on a global scale, Climate Change, economic problems (China’s growth being stemmed), rise of right wing governments and other problems are likely to lead to a growth in immigration from poorer to richer countries. In the light of this, and the vastly larger intake of immigrants to other countries, wasn’t the UK politicians’ attitude somewhat parochial? There are indications that the public are not so concerned with immigration as the media seems to suggest. And, as always, the Tories have an interest in encouraging people to be angry about immigration, so distracting them from the real cause of our problems (the Tories). In fact, our economy would benefit from more immigration (a fact recognise by Osborne when he was Chancellor).
Regarding this and other policies, such as climate change, we wondered how different Labour’s position is to the Tories. While accepting the Starmer is reluctant to spell out policies in detail before the election in order not to give the Tory press cause to complain, it was nevertheless suggested that some broad vision of what Labour aspired to, would be helpful. Or perhaps the main quality of a Starmer government would be that it wasn’t a Tory one, rather than that it had a particular vision?
It was clear that Labour wanted to be presented as “the party with sound finances” and as a consequence has indicated that it will not raise taxes and not borrow more (bearing in mind that UK Debt is already as high as it was after WWII, and taxes a similar proportion of GDP). So it would seem that any immediate possibilities for great improvements in public services are unlikely.
While Labour is concerned not to be torn apart by the mass media it would seem that this was not the source of information for young people. How are the young influenced?
In the forthcoming mid Bedfordshire election Lab and Tory were in equal first place will Lib Dems not very far behind. An increased vote for both Lab and Lib Dems could let the Tories in. There are no plans for collaboration but we might expect individuals to choose to vote tactically.
Finally, a discussion on HS2 drew attention to the fact that HS2 is currently seen as an attempt to draw London close to Manchester rather than to increase economic activity in the poorer north.
The next meeting of Whats Left will be on 16th October.