Latest news with #MauriceGlasman
The Guardian
4 days ago
- Business
- The Guardian
Blue Labour group urges ministers to ‘root out DEI' to win over Reform voters
The Labour faction influencing Downing Street's pitch to Reform UK voters has urged ministers to 'root out DEI'. An article from the Blue Labour campaign group, titled What is to be Done, calls for the government to legislate against diversity, equity and inclusion, echoing the rightwing backlash from Donald Trump and Nigel Farage. Describing itself as part of a tradition of 'conservative socialism', the caucus was founded in 2009 by the academic Maurice Glasman, now a Labour peer. It includes the MPs Dan Carden, Jonathan Brash, Jonathan Hinder and David Smith, who represent seats in the north of England. Keir Starmer's turn to the right and framing of Labour as 'the party of patriotism' mirror Blue Labour thinking. Urging the party to renew its 'covenant with the British people', Blue Labour's article said: 'We are proud of our multiracial democracy and we utterly reject divisive identity politics, which undermines the bonds of solidarity between those of different sexes, races and nationalities. 'We should legislate to root out DEI in hiring practices, sentencing decisions and wherever else we find it in our public bodies.' Earlier this week, the Guardian reported how organisations are rebranding inclusion initiatives to avoid unwanted political attention, reflecting a divergence between trade bodies and employers who believe policies designed to ensure a level playing field are good for business and society, and reactionary politicians. In February, the equalities minister, Seema Malhotra, said the government was 'absolutely committed' to diversity and inclusion, with new legislation that would compel employers with more than 250 staff to report on ethnicity and disability pay gaps progressing though parliament. Launching the consultation on the equality (race and disability) bill, which closes on 10 June, the disability minister, Stephen Timms, and Malhotra said the 'commitment to create a more equal society in which people can thrive whatever their background' was an 'essential element' of Labour's project. They added: 'The reality is far from that goal. For example, currently most ethnic minority groups earn on average less than their white British peers. Similarly, while there has been growth in employment rates for disabled people in recent years, disabled people have, on average, lower incomes than non-disabled people. While previous Labour governments introduced landmark … equality-related legislation, more still remains to be done.' However, since this year's local elections, when Reform gained a foothold in local government after seizing scores of seats from Labour, the prime minister has appeared to be trying to counter the threat from Farage by moving further to the cultural right, despite the risk of losing support from minority ethnic voters, who were more likely than white voters to support Labour in the last general election, and left-leaning voters in general. In mid-May, ministers were forced to strongly deny allegations that Starmer sounded like Enoch Powell in a speech that said Britain risked becoming an 'island of strangers', and that 'uncontrolled' migration had done 'incalculable damage', as he launched plans to curb net migration. Blue Labour calls for lower migration in the same article in which it takes aim at DEI, saying: 'Immigration is not a distraction or a culture war issue; it is the most fundamental of political questions, a cause of social fragmentation, and the basis of our broken political economy. 'We should drastically reduce immigration, reducing low-skill immigration by significantly raising salary thresholds; closing the corrupt student visa mill system; and ending the exploitation of the asylum system, if necessary prioritising domestic democratic politics over the rule of international lawyers.' In May, it emerged that net migration almost halved in 2024.
Daily Mail
07-05-2025
- Politics
- Daily Mail
Labour's 'lanyard class' has made it a 'hostile environment' for working class voters, party grandee warns
Labour 's woke leadership has made the party a 'hostile environment' for working-class voters, a senior Labour peer claimed yesterday. Maurice Glasman said the 'lanyard class' had alienated traditional supporters who are now flocking to Reform UK instead. His intervention came as Keir Starmer faced a growing Labour backlash over the loss of votes to Nigel Farage 's party in last week's local elections and in the Runcorn and Helsby by-election, in what was one of the party's safest seats. The 45-strong Red Wall group of Labour MPs also called for a change of direction, including restoration of the winter fuel payment, saying the Prime Minister's pledge to go 'further and faster' in the same direction had 'fallen on deaf ears'. And another Labour MP last night told the under-fire leadership that he would 'swim through vomit' to vote against their benefit cuts. Lord Glasman, founder of the Blue Labour movement that has attracted interest from some senior government figures, said many self-styled 'progressives' had been too quick to condemn legitimate concerns about immigration, grooming gangs and other issues as being 'far Right'. The life peer said: 'For 20 or 30 years now, Labour culture has been a hostile environment for working-class people. If you say what you think, then you get condemned. The inability to let people express their grief. We see people in pain and we call them far Right or populist or racist or sexist – they are just speaking.' Lord Glasman said last week's results showed Labour would get turfed out in an election unless it starts to listen to ordinary voters. 'Reform is a working-class insurrection against the progressive ruling class,' he said. 'The only way to counter it is for the Government to lead the insurrection.' Lord Glasman told a New Statesman event at the Policy Exchange think-tank in London a 'battle is fully ongoing' within No 10 about whether to change course to try to reconnect with the party's traditional roots. The peer, who is close to the PM's chief of staff Morgan McSweeney, warned that doing so would involve 'doing something that has never been done, which is turning things round in office'. He savaged the Government over its refusal to hold a national public inquiry into the grooming gangs scandal, describing the rape of mostly young white girls by gangs of predominantly Pakistani origin men as 'the ultimate desecration of human life'. Calling for televised trials of those involved in perpetrating and covering up the scandal, he said it was 'a festering wound'. Lord Glasman also criticised the Labour leadership for embracing wokery, saying future generations would look back on this time as a 'period of progressive insanity' where 'you could lose your job for saying completely normal things'. Lord Glasman did not spell out what he meant by the 'lanyard class' of professionals but he suggested it included those running big HR departments who have introduced woke culture into workplaces. 'There has got to be a culture change,' he said. 'This thought policing of what is acceptable discourse, the power of HR departments, has got to be targeted to create a political space in which people who created our movement are allowed to speak.' Cabinet Office minister Pat McFadden warned Labour MPs about Reform, telling a behind- closed-doors meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party: 'A new fight is taking shape. It's a fight between our values and a nationalist politics of the Right. It's a battle for the very heart and soul of our country.' A string of Labour MPs suggested they could rebel over the Government's plan to cut disability benefits by £5billion. Left-winger Ian Byrne claimed he was ready to 'swim through vomit' to vote in the Commons against the plans. He said the cuts would be 'devastation for disabled people'. In the Commons, Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch challenged Sir Keir to reinstate the winter fuel payment, saying: 'Even his own MPs are saying it's wrong. He's refused to listen to me on this, will he at least listen to his own party and change course?'
