change course now or regret it

Political flexibility is a strength, not a weakness

November 27, 2024 11:00 a.m.

Paul Samuelson, a disciple of economist John Maynard Keynes, shaped the modern center-left as an advisor to US presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B Johnson. He probably also invented a famous maxim of practical politics (which he sometimes attributes to Keynes): “When the facts change, I change my mind – how about you?”

As Keir Starmer looks back on his first five months in Downing Street, he would do well to recall this axiom of the pragmatic left.

The lenient mandate with which Starmer took power in July was flexible to a degree that previous prime ministers would surely envy. Promises on housing, taxes and public services were vague and barely delivered; sweeping statements on climate change and reducing sexual violence were uncosted and lacked legislative commitments.

A long-standing promise to reform gambling regulation was reduced in Labor’s manifesto to a boilerplate claim to “work with the industry on how to ensure responsible gambling”, sparking outrage among disappointed experts in matters of drug addiction.

Yet the electorate, tired of 14 years of increasingly useless Conservative prime ministers, was prepared to support a Labor alternative based solely on the prospect of change and the whiff of competent aesthetics. (Thanks for the prosecution, Lord Alli!) The calculated imprecision of Stamer’s manifesto had paid off. He got the most enviable prize in politics: five years of government with a clean legislative slate in front of him.

Five months later, his government does not seem willing to capitalize on the political flexibility offered by this victory. Instead, he seems unable to adapt to changing circumstances. If he wants to get the most out of the next five years, it’s a skill he’ll need to learn.

Take for example the increasingly unsustainable chaos surrounding the future of the Chagos Islands, from which Britain expelled at least 1,500 indigenous inhabitants between 1967 and 1973. This dubious deal was made to provide a military base for the allies Americans from Great Britain. When Starmer announced in October that a deal had been reached to cede sovereignty of the islands to Mauritius, he was responding to decades of campaigning by fellow human rights lawyers, who argued that the inability of the Britain to atone was a stain on our record and an obstacle. to maintaining an increasingly fragile “rules-based international order”.

The treaty had certainly taken a long time to arrive. Supported by the Indian government, Pravind Jugnauth, then Prime Minister of Mauritius, obtained an advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice in 2019 calling on Great Britain to cede its sovereignty to Mauritius. David Lammy suggested that this made it untenable for Britain to gain the legal upper hand on other global issues. Labor supporters, including new national security adviser Jonathan Powell, have repeatedly argued that the deal was initiated by the previous Conservative government and should have cross-party support.

However, if this seemed inevitable and necessary in October, by November, realities had radically changed. Starmer does not appear to have adapted his approach towards them. The most obvious change is the election of Donald Trump, who cares little for the intricacies of international human rights law and has a vested interest in asserting America’s right to trample on the agreements of others.

In this case, however, Trump may be right. At a time when China is not shy about seizing strategic lands in neighboring seas, it does not make sense for Britain or the United States to set a precedent by ceding naval territories. In a shockingly self-indulgent interview with Times Radio in early October, Powell called the Chagos Islands “little islands in the middle of the Indian Ocean where no one really goes”; But within a minute, he had admitted that India had supported the transfer of these lands to Mauritius, “because they consider them very important for security in the Indian Ocean”.

While Powell was dismissive and dismissive of his critics at the time, he showed no signs of softening his approach after Trump returned to the scene. Monday, The Sun reported that Powell had traveled to Mauritius to expedite the conclusion of the deal. The facts have changed, but neither he nor Starmer has changed with them.

The British prime minister and his allies have presented this new treaty as an act of conscience, a reparation that will improve the lives of those who have been most affected by Britain’s past mistakes. If they sincerely believe that this is so, they are mistaken. Mauritius is particularly notorious for its treatment of low-income workers from ethnic minorities.

This includes the ethnic Chagossians, who are largely descendants of African slaves – a people whose families were transported across continents against their will for several generations and who see no reason to trust the British, Americans, Indians or Mauritians.

A Human Rights Watch report, also very critical of the British and enthusiastically advocating “decolonization”, recognizes that the Chagossians deported to Mauritius in the 1960s found themselves in abject poverty. This is partly due to the disappearance or reduction of reparations reserved for them by Britain, which were supposed to be administered by the Mauritian government but did not always reach their recipients. In many cases, the Mauritian government has simply offered plots of land as replacements.

But fundamentally, the lessons of the Chagos Islands debacle go far beyond whether this particular deal benefits or further victimizes the unfortunate people at its center. Trump’s election reshaped the world’s certainties ahead of November 5; Starmer will have to learn that he cannot enforce old agreements made with the Biden administration.

He is lucky: few men have entered Downing Street with fewer commitments. Yet he must learn to change course, and not just on foreign policy. He would have been better off intervening sooner in the growing mess over Kim Leadbeater’s private member’s bill – perhaps by promising a royal commission to investigate ethical options for end-of-life care life – or to promise less and think more before finding yourself in trouble. answer questions this week about employment benefits.

If he does, Keir Starmer will learn that political flexibility is a strength, not a weakness. On the world stage, facts have changed. He should change his approach with them.