Strong Labour: Our Values in The Age of Starmer

Strength built on prosperity, connection, and a common purpose

Populist revolts, military invasions, and a burning planet are the existential threats that we face. These threats require strength, built out of our decency and determination, to overcome them. These times require a new expression of our timeless values: Strong Labour.

Strong Labour places at its heart the idea that it is by investing in one another, and valuing each other, that we build a stronger nation. Our nation is stronger when each of us can earn enough to live, when we are socially connected to one another, and when we share a common purpose. In this Age of Starmer, where we have strong mandate and large majority, Strong Labour can provide both a guide and an emotionally compelling story that will move the public with us. With this, we can build a stronger nation and win the next election. Without this, we could lose a lot more than our seats.

In politics, we should always start with our timeless values. Our values are a guide for us, they point us to the country we want to build. Our values are what move us in politics, and they are how we move others to share our vision. Our values are that everyone can should be able to live a good life. Not just some of us should be able to live a good life, as the Conservatives and Liberals believe, but all of us.

Our values are timeless, but how we should apply them changes in different times. These times are the most dangerous we have faced in over a century. We face three existential crises - living standards, militarism, and climate. At home, our living standards crisis has led to our own citizens rejecting democracy. When one in three can’t earn enough to live (even when working) and 40% of young people can’t afford to move out of Mum and Dad’s, it’s unsurprising that people want an entirely new political system. Abroad, Putin is threatening democracies in Europe as other dictators did in the 1930s. He will not stop at Ukraine. The carbon we are emitting today will harm our nation and humankind for all coming time. These are the three threats – living standards, war, and climate – that we must overcome.

We can only make these times a success if we apply our timeless values to this moment. To meet these existential crises calls for strength. Strength is how we overcome these crises, how we build a better country, and how we build confidence with the public that we, as a nation, can meet this moment. That is why this time calls for a new kind of Labour: Strong Labour.

Strength is found in our prosperity, connection, and shared purpose. For our nation to be strong, we must ensure everyone can earn enough to live a good life. A strong nation is built on each of us doing well, where we each produce more to build the prosperity of our nation. Strong nations are built from people being connected to one another in communities. Strength is built from us sharing a common vision of our values and goals. A strong nation has powerful armed forces that can protect us and recognises that we are safer when we work with our European allies. Strong, confident nations look to build a better country for future generations. That is what a strong nation looks like.

Strength was how we overcame our existential challenges a century ago. It was strength in unity, built upon decency and determination, that led us to victory in the Second World War and won us the peace afterwards. Strength founded in a shared purpose with Bevin directing organised labour as part of the war effort. Strength built upon investing in individual prosperity through the welfare state. Strength that guaranteed our safety when Attlee took us into NATO in 1949.

Compare our vision of strength to the vision of our opponents and the legacy of the last Conservative government. Their vision is one of weakness. Our opponents’ only answers to the threats we face are to find someone to blame or tear something down. They inflame divisions to build anger, breaking the bonds between us and our neighbours. A divided nation is a weak nation. Our opponents believe that our country does well only when a few “wealth creators” do well, leaving a poorer nation in its wake. A poor nation is weak. Our opponents chose to cut our armed forces rather than build our strength. They looked to elusive short-term political advantage rather than deal with the largest, long-term threat we faced in the form the climate crisis. They are myopic, never looking to the future and thinking only of the present. That is the vision of our opponents. Of a weak and divided nation.

Strong Labour instead faces up to the challenges of our time. It is a natural outcome of Starmerism. From the very first speech Starmer gave outside Downing Street - “You have a government unburdened by doctrine, Guided only by a determination to serve your interests”. Doing what works. No obsession with previous arguments over ideology or state ownership. This creed led us to a historic parliamentary majority. It is with this majority that we can create a stronger nation out of crisis.

Strong Labour needs to do more than provide the framework for our thinking. The most successful ideological traditions also provide an emotionally compelling story that moves people and, perhaps more importantly, can serve to guide us in these times.

So here is the story of Strong Labour for our times:

Initial Setting: These are the most dangerous times any of us have faced in our lives. We are facing living standards, military, and climate crises. Our nation is weaker because our people cannot make ends meet. Precarity has led to anger on our streets. We are externally threatened by foreign dictators, and the carbon we are emitting will make our country weaker for generations to come.

Protagonist: As a previous generation defeated fascism and built the welfare state, so we need to need to build our strength to deal with the existential threats we face. Strength that is built from each of us earning enough to live and our shared sense of purpose. Strength that is built upon the foundations of our decency and determination. It is by investing in one another, and valuing one another, that we build a stronger nation.

Antagonist: Our opposition seeks to use our current crises to divide rather than unite us. Their only answer to every problem is to blame someone else or try to tear something down. They seek only to destroy the things we hold dear and the bonds that hold us together. Their vision is of a divided nation that does not address the challenges we face. Their vision is of a weak nation.

Resolution: When we invest in ensuring everyone can earn enough to live, in our nation’s armed forces, and in net zero, it will make us a stronger nation. When we prize each person as contributing to our collective effort, that will make us a stronger nation. It is strength we need to build to meet our challenges and build a better nation.

These are the most perilous times our nation has ever known. Our timeless values require a new expression in these times: Strong Labour. A vision that places our unity and shared purpose at the heart of our country to deal with our existential challenges: the living standards, and military, and climate crises we face. In this Age of Starmer, we have the political power to address these challenges. Alongside our action, we need an emotionally compelling story that moves people with us in these dangerous times. That is what Strong Labour provides.