Labour will learn to love deregulation
The Labour government I served in made advances in planning reform and curbing regulator overreach. But those efforts should be seen as a first step, not job done. Not least because there is barely a great progressive cause that does not now require deregulation to advance, says Alan Lockey
Warm words for business are a staple of party conference season. This year’s Labour Party conference is no different. Chancellor John Healey’s speech yesterday contained lathers of soft soap.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Andy Burnham has regularly talked about the cost of business crisis – and will likely do so again today. One word he probably won’t say with much affection however, is “deregulation”. And on this the Labour Party may be strangely out of step with the latest thinking in left-wing strategy.
Witness New York City mayor, Zohran Mamdani, at a conference of global mayors earlier this month. A far-cry from his traditional socialist image, Mamdani set out at length why the left needs to champion pro-business efficiency. He has walked the walk too. In July he launched an initiative of 50 regulatory reforms, aimed at slashing red tape for small businesses. It is part of a broader shift across all factions of the Democratic Party. On the more moderate-wing too, so-called “abundance democrats” are arguing that regulation has stopped America building its future.
This is good news for business here in the UK. Once the November mid-terms are out of the way, American politics will turn its attention to the Presidency. And those campaigns so often serve as a strategic refresh for the global centre-left. What happens there, will be coming here. The Labour Party may not know it yet. But give it time and soon enough they will learn to love deregulation.
Re-industrialisation
There is work to build on. The Labour government I served in made advances in planning reform and curbing regulator overreach. But those efforts should be seen as a first step, not job done. Not least because there is barely a great progressive cause that does not now require deregulation to advance. Ending homelessness requires us to reduce the burden on house-builders and get more homes built. Tackling climate chance requires us to strip back the environmental protections that stop us decarbonising our electricity grid at pace. Creating more vibrant high streets means cutting back petty licensing rules and restrictions on trade. Re-industrialising Britain – the cause Healey made so much of yesterday – demands a new look at how regulation is driving up industrial energy costs.
Businesses who want a significant reduction in the cost of labour are unlikely to get it from this or indeed any Labour government
There is a limit. Businesses who want a significant reduction in the cost of labour are unlikely to get it from this or indeed any Labour government. The Labour Party ideologically believes in raising the cost of Labour. Always has done, always will. The clue really is in the name.
But that does not mean the intellectual currents arriving here from across the pond should not be embraced. For small businesses in particular, it is an opportunity to correct Labour’s corporatist bias in business relations. Meanwhile, for the Labour Party there is a rich strategic prize. Not just a way to turn the lofty conference talk into action. But also a vital new way to campaign against the right.
This, ultimately, is what drove Mamdami into the arms of small business. His campaign to become New York Mayor elevated small businesses, in the hospitality sector in particular, as emblems of his city’s commitment to joy, diversity and civic pride. It was a viral, Tik-tok friendly rebuttal to the miserable vision of inner city life that the Maga right like to portray. That politics is here too and those same attacks are made on Britain’s great cities, most of all London.
Labour needs to fight it on all fronts. And that means it must champion small business and learn to love deregulation.
Alan Lockey was chief speechwriter for former Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer