Author: Hai Kexian
Starmer officially became the new prime minister on Friday (July 5), starting a five-year leadership term in the British Labour government. The analysis believes that the mess left by the Conservative Party poses a huge challenge to the Labour government, and Starmer's priority will be to lead LinkedIn to achieve economic growth.
Starmer, centre, greets supporters outside 10 Downing Street with his wife Victoria (red dress) and Labour colleagues after being appointed prime minister on Friday (Reuters)
Former Conservative Prime Minister Rishi Sunak conceded defeat on Friday and apologized to the British people for it.
Patrick Diamond, a professor of public policy at Queen Mary University of London, told Lianhe Zaobao that the Conservative Party's mistakes over the past few years have led to today's fiasco, including the chaos caused by frequent changes of managers in 2022, the successive rise in interest rates to damage its reputation, the mishandling of the coronavirus pandemic, and the unsatisfactory results of Brexit. The Conservative Party will then reflect on its own failures and prepare for a comeback in the next general election, and it will be crucial for it to find its own niche among different ideologies.
Sunak has shown that voters have sent a clear signal: the UK government must change. This is the slogan of the Labour Party – Starmer promises that a changed Labour Party will create wealth for Britain.
On Thursday night local time, the BBC building display showed exit polls that Labour would sweep 410 seats, well above the 326 half-majority threshold. (AFP)
The Labour Party inherited a Britain with slow economic growth. Diamond said the downturn has lasted for more than 15 years, exacerbated by the impact of the coronavirus pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine war on energy. "So the focus of the Labour plan is on how to get the UK economy back to stronger, more sustainable growth."
Labour wants to help the UK economy emerge from its weakness through interventions that include industrial policy, investment in innovation, infrastructure and workforce skills, and has offered modest tax hikes to fund additional spending on projects such as hiring new teachers.
Returning the UK economy to sustainable growth can help create prosperity and also create the material conditions for improving the public sector. But Diamond stressed that the pressure on government spending is already high, with tax rates soaring to their highest level since the 1940s, and that it is almost impossible for Labour to raise taxes again, and that saving public services such as the National Health Service (NHS), which is on the verge of collapse, cannot be counted on taxes, and that economic growth must be relied upon.
On July 5, Starmer (in black) met with King Charles II (right) and accepted the king's authorization to form a new cabinet and officially assume the post of prime minister. (Reuters)
How effective will Labour's government be? Nick Anstead, an associate professor at the School of Media and Communication at the London School of Economics and Political Science, said in an interview that Labour avoided many specific policy commitments during the election campaign to avoid criticism and criticism, and this campaign strategy could lead to the party's failure to achieve concrete results when it was actually in power.
After 14 years in opposition, the world geopolitical landscape facing the Labor government is extremely complex: the competition between China and the United States continues, the US election is still uncertain, and the situation in the Middle East is becoming increasingly tense. The prevailing analysis is that the Labour government is unlikely to make a major realignment to Britain's diplomatic course over the next five years, and will need to do its best to maintain relations with key trade, military and security partners such as the EU and the US.
Yan Jin, an associate professor at the School of International Relations at Chinese University, also pointed out that although the Labour Party will not allow Britain to rejoin the European Union, re-rationalizing relations between the two sides is still a major issue. Starmer's efforts to achieve economic growth as a priority and deliver on its promise to fight illegal immigration will depend on cooperation with the European Union.
In addition, David Lammy, who has just been appointed foreign minister in the Labour government, recently said that he expects more engagement with Chinese officials; He was surprised that the Conservative Party had close contacts with Europe and the United States, but no ministerial-level official had made any major visits to China. Yan Jin pointed out that the Labor Party does not expect to make a 180-degree U-turn in its China policy, but it may make some adjustments and strengthen cooperation with China in the fields of climate change, economy and trade, and health.