Faran Ahmad Shaheen, UK
Over two months ago, the momentous electoral victory of the Labour Party fired the pistol on its race to change Britain. Let’s reflect on the state of Britain under the new Labour Government.
New actions taken to revive Britain: The justice system, healthcare, public spending, migration and foreign policy
With the country in its worst domestic situation since the Second World War, the new Prime Minister Keir Starmer has focused his recent speeches on highlighting how the first major change of his administration was the return of integrity to politics and government being brought back into the service of the people.
Starmer has emphasized the broken justice system and his government’s commitment to building more prisons to ensure a safer society. He claims the figures regarding prisons were far worse than he had anticipated.
Regarding the economy and public spending, Chancellor Rachel Reeves has promised an immediate comprehensive assessment of the country’s public finances as the first step to tackling the long list of economic issues faced by the public. She aims to identify how to strengthen public services through investment and their policies on taxation. All eyes will be on her when she presents the review before Parliament, in addition to the budget expected to be announced later this year. The Treasury has also created a National Wealth Fund in order to grow the economy by unlocking investment to support thousands of jobs for people.
Within the health department, Health Secretary Wes Streeting has promised an independent probe into the state of the NHS. He has pledged to begin working to cut NHS waiting lists and has started successful negotiations with members of the British Medical Association, adopting a more realistic and optimistic tone that, while they can’t agree to the current proposed pay rise, they can work to find a middle ground and come to an agreement soon.
Regarding reducing the levels of net migration and stopping the boats reaching the Channel, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper has announced the axing of the previous controversial Rwanda Scheme under the Conservative government, with people now intrigued to see how Starmer’s government addresses this crucial issue. Cooper has also announced the Home Office has started work on establishing the new Border Security Command designed to tackle the criminal smuggling gangs.
The Government has begun holding talks with water companies to hold them to account on sewage dumping and has set out the first steps for cleaning British Waters.
The Energy Security and Net Zero Secretary Ed Miliband made a significant announcement regarding lifting the onshore wind ban which was in place for the last nine years, aiming to make Britain a clean energy superpower and cutting bills.
The issue of the revised extent of the British relationship with the European Union will likely find its way to the top of the Government’s agenda, with Starmer hoping to negotiate a better deal with the EU than under Boris Johnson. Starmer’s background as an ardent remainer may play in his favour during future negotiations.
In regard to devolution, Starmer has always been a firm advocate for more power going up north to other regions in the UK rather than simply staying concentrated in Whitehall. Starmer backed his commitments through meeting with regional mayors at Downing Street to set out the major plans for greater devolved powers to drive growth across Britain. Furthermore, with more prominent mayors such as Sadiq Khan and Andy Burnham being labour and of the same party of the government, it has encouraged far more united and constructive discussions in contrast to the previous government which arguably focused more on political divisiveness and competition with labour-run areas.
Starmer’s foreign policy looks to be similar to that of his predecessors despite the change of government. By immediately sending the new Defence Secretary John Heely to Ukraine to meet President Zelensky, he set the tone that the UK, under the new government, remains as committed as ever to backing Ukraine in the face of Russian aggression. Attending a NATO Summit shortly after assuming office is one of the best honeymoons to global politics a Prime Minister could hope for, with Starmer holding successful meetings with US President Joe Biden in the Oval Office, affirming the ‘Special Relationship,’ and meeting with the leaders of other NATO countries.
Regarding Israel’s bombardment of Gaza, Labour has called for an immediate ceasefire, the release of all hostages, and the creation of a Palestinian State. At odds with the Conservatives, they have gone much further regarding Britain’s compliance with foreign and international laws and treaties. For example, Foreign Secretary David Lammy has said in the past that Labour would accept the verdict of the ICC if it issues an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu. Furthermore, Starmer has been clear that his government would follow the European Convention on Human Rights and other foreign conventions to which the UK is a signatory, emphasizing the need for the UK to strengthen its position on the world stage and its partnership with other countries. This represents a major change in attitude from his predecessor Rishi Sunak, who repeatedly affirmed his commitment to breaking such conventions in order to prioritize British national security in his view.
The first few months for this Labour Government have undoubtedly been hectic and testing, especially as seen with the problems caused by the riots and issues with prisons, with the electorate desperate for solutions to be enacted.
Political apathy: Genuine public discontentment with politics
Despite the magnitude of the Labour victory in the General Election, it is important not to overlook the concerning levels of political apathy in the UK. This has been highlighted through various results, with two issues particularly at the forefront.
Firstly, the voter turnout was considerably low, reported to be at 59.9%, just 0.5% ahead of the lowest-ever UK general election turnout of 59.4% in 2001. (“Voter turnout at general election was lowest since 2001 – politics live as it happened”, www.theguardian.com) A great number of people have become disillusioned with politics, exacerbated by a record number of political scandals that have destroyed trust in the government and politicians, broken manifesto pledges such as on the levelling up agenda, new hospitals, Sunak’s controversial scrapping of the northern leg of HS2, and foreign policy regarding the war in Gaza.
Secondly, the vote share. Labour’s vote share didn’t seem reflective of their massive majority, being only 34% while holding 63% of the seats in Parliament. (“General election 2024 in maps and charts”, www.bbc.co.uk) Interestingly, this was hardly much of a contrast to Labour’s vote share in 2019, one of their worst electoral defeats, at 32.1%. (Ibid) The two main parties together didn’t seem to mount much support, with third parties such as the Liberal Democrats gaining substantial public support. Independent candidates, particularly those focusing on the Gaza War, split the Labour vote, while Reform UK split the Conservative vote in many constituencies, preventing a significant number of votes from going to the two major parties. Altogether, the vote share and the huge support for third parties perfectly illustrate the low enthusiasm the British public has shown towards a Labour government. In British politics, it has often been the case that it is the government that loses the election rather than the opposition that wins. One may cite the 1997 General Election as an exception, but analysts argue that Blair’s revitalized ‘New Labour’ was massively helped by the Conservatives being tired and devoid of ideas after nearly two decades in government. In the years leading up to this election during Johnson’s tenure as Prime Minister, Labour suffered major losses in local elections and by-elections such as Hartlepool, which even made Starmer consider resigning as leader. It was only after Partygate, the mini-budget, and other scandals that the Tories started plummeting in the polls, giving Labour a chance to benefit greatly from Conservative errors. Starmer’s exceptionally safe campaign, without promising enough creative policies and being seen as more reserved in debates, played a role in Labour’s victory.
Calls to replace the First-Past-The-Post System have been reignited, especially as the system has exaggerated Labour’s majority in the face of the public popular vote. A notable point is that 14% of the vote share went to Reform UK (who only won 5 seats), while the Liberal Democrats had a lower vote share at 12% yet won 72 seats. (Ibid) This disparity has greatly damaged the credibility of the First Past the Post system, allowing the public to rightly question whether the system is truly democratic in representing the public’s desire.
Britain waved goodbye to another historical period of Conservative domination
The Conservatives under David Cameron in 2010 won the general election following a hung parliament, securing victory but at what is now regarded as a painful cost by entering a coalition with the Liberal Democrats. The coalition period from 2010 to 2015 was highly divisive for the government, with increasing disagreements and gridlock on issues such as tuition fees. While supporters and members of the coalition government may claim success in modernizing Britain socially, as seen through initiatives such as the Big Society (aimed at strengthening community engagement with different social groups), their legislative victories were overshadowed by a series of austerity cuts in successive budgets, leading to the controversial downgrading of public services such as the NHS.
The question of British integration into Europe, an issue that had beleaguered previous governments, resurfaced with the help of Cameron’s disgruntled backbenchers. Although Cameron won a surprising majority in the 2015 UK General Election, the 2016 EU Referendum verdict for Britain to leave the European Union led to his resignation amid a highly divided British society, especially given that 52% of Brits voted to leave while 48% voted to remain.
With the country and the Conservative Party in disarray over Brexit divisions, Theresa May won the leadership contest to replace Cameron and became Prime Minister. Initially, she demonstrated a robust performance at her first PMQs against Jeremy Corbyn and installed pro-leave campaigners in her cabinet, such as Boris Johnson as Foreign Secretary. This seemed to form a united front and a confident start to governing. However, her nearly three-year tenure was marked by failure to negotiate an adequate Brexit deal with the European Union, compounded by a disappointing 2017 General Election result, which saw the Conservatives lose their majority in a hung parliament. They entered a painful coalition once more, this time with 10 DUP MPs, at the expense of £1.3 billion worth of public funds promised to the Northern Ireland Executive. With growing impatience in the Conservative Party over May’s inability to secure an adequate agreement with Brussels, she announced her resignation in mid-2019.
Delivering Brexit became the top priority for her successor. Boris Johnson, the next to enter Number 10, found delivering a Brexit deal equally challenging as he suffered a series of legislative defeats in just one week in the House of Commons. However, in a politically astute move, he called a General Election in December 2019, running on a bold manifesto promising to get his ‘oven-ready’ Brexit deal passed through the Commons, along with key domestic policy pledges including greater investment in public services and the new “levelling up” agenda designed to reduce disparities between the North and South of England. His efforts resulted in winning a significant 80-seat majority, allowing the deal to pass through the Commons and Article 50, the mechanism by which Britain officially left the European Union, to be triggered at last after numerous agonizing years.
However, the Covid-19 pandemic and the government’s lack of preparedness fuelled public anger. Although the national vaccine program was pivotal in neutralizing some public discontent, it was soon overshadowed by a series of scandals such as Partygate and shocking issues regarding the morality of the government involving Deputy Chief Whip Chris Pincher. The Conservative Party once again demonstrated its ruthlessness by turning on its leader, with Chancellor Rishi Sunak and Health Secretary Sajid Javid resigning, followed by over 50 resignations from members of the government in the next few days. With Johnson gradually acknowledging his fate, the contest for his successor began, with the hope that things could only get better.
Liz Truss was handed the reins of PM but recklessly pursued a mini-budget that included 45-billion of unfunded tax cuts, causing economic turmoil and bringing her record-breaking 45-day premiership to a miserable end. Rishi Sunak then won the leadership, having been elected by roughly half of his party, and entered Number 10, promising a return of integrity to politics. Ironically, within less than a year, he lost his Deputy Prime Minister Dominic Raab over bullying allegations and Conservative Party Chairman and former Chancellor Nadhim Zahawi due to an HMRC investigation into his taxes. Sunak also failed to deliver on most of his five pledges, with issues such as controlling immigration and NHS waiting lists particularly vexing. The sacking of Home Secretary Suella Braverman and the resignation of Immigration Minister Robert Jenrick over unprecedentedly high levels of net migration into the UK left Sunak with a party divided and at war with the right wing.
With numerous disastrous back-to-back local election defeats, by-election losses, Tory defections to Labour, and embarrassing blunders in the general election campaign (such as Sunak leaving D-Day celebrations early for campaigning and the Tory betting scandal), Sunak inflicted further damage on the Party and its credibility than Liz Truss, leading to one of the worst-ever defeats in a general election. History has always shown that the Conservatives have lost government due to the same factors: a weak economy, failing public services, scandals, and party divisions. However, this time, these problems occurred on an unparalleled scale.
Islamic guidance on the approach to governing
In the book written by Hazrat Khalifatul Masih Vaa, ‘I Solemnly pledge’, Huzooraa places emphasis on how leaders of any nation or organization should govern.
It is mentioned that the Holy Prophetsa said to the leaders, “Your high morals will manifest themselves when you will consider yourselves to be the servants of the nation and when you will serve the public with all your capabilities and capacities.” (“Serve others”, www.alislam.org/book/i-solemnly-pledge/serve-others/)
It is further mentioned that the Holy Prophetsa said that the leader of a nation is, in fact, its servant. And the Promised Messiahas said that to be in the service of the nation is a sign of being one who is a leader. (“Serve others”, www.alislam.org/book/i-solemnly-pledge/serve-others/)
Huzooraa states that:
“No officer is appointed to a service with the view of becoming an officer; rather, in Islam the concept of an office-bearer is quite different. The Holy Prophetsa has explained it so, ‘The leader of a people is their servant.’ For an office-bearer to discharge his trust with respect to people is his being a servant to the nation. This condition is created in man when he has the spirit of sacrifice in him. He is humble and meek. The standard of his patience is higher than others … The office-bearers can evaluate their own selves as to how high and to what extent is the level of their forbearance. What is the extent of their humbleness.” (“Serve others”, www.alislam.org/book/i-solemnly-pledge/serve-others/)
These golden words of wisdom set the perfect guidelines for how politicians should adopt the correct mindset and intentions to serve the people with, for in turn a sincere attitude enables them to perform actions which benefit the people they serve.
For far too long, we have seen countless examples of politicians all across the globe who have thought only of their self-centred campaigns whilst ignoring the needs of their constituencies and their nation. Let us hope and pray that this new government delivers on the correct attitude and change which it has so boldly promised.