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UK Mayor Andy Burnham dropped the mask today and has given us all a real look at the Britain Labour wants to create. And what a horror it is!

Forget all the conference guff about hope, renewal, fairness and a new beginning. Strip away the contrived applause lines and what remains is an extraordinary shopping list of old-fashioned Labour statism. This is back to the 1970’s. This is a return to the time of Harold Wilson/Jim Callaghan Labour Government

More nationalisation. More government. More interference with private property. Undermining pensions. Fundamental changes to our electoral system. And, lurking inevitably in the background, the beginning of the long march back towards Brussels.

Same old Labour. Just a different salesman. Less robotic, but infinitely more dangerous

Let me take you through that which was being pitched to the Labour faithful so we are all clear on it. The BBC’s enthusiasm for it should trigger a warning!

Let’s start with pensioners.

Mayor Burnham wants to “adjust” the State Pension triple lock after the next election. Isn’t political language just wonderful? Nobody ever cuts anything anymore. They just “adjust” it.

Here is what the existing triple lock means; the State Pension rises by whichever is highest: inflation, average earnings or 2.5%. Burnham proposes removing that automatic earnings guarantee after 2030 and replacing it with inflation or 2.5%, supplemented by “occasional additional increases” intended to keep pensions “broadly aligned” with average wages. The current pension is £241.30 per week. A 2.5% increase would give pensioners £6.03 a week. How generous.

Labour reckons this will eventually save serious money.

Guess what, the markets don’t believe them. Look at this!

So what does it want to do with these fantasy savings?

Spend them, naturally.

Burnham wants a National Care Service providing some personal level care free at the point of use in England. Of course it will be NHS style aka the lowest possible standard.

Consider how this all functions. The Government creates another enormous spending commitment and then looks around for somebody to finance it. And there, conveniently, are Britain’s pensioners.

These aren’t plutocrats sitting around swimming in gold coins. Millions of retired people depend heavily on the State Pension after spending their working lives paying tax and National Insurance. Yet Labour just spies another pot of money. And shamelessly aims to plunder it.

Apparently the State has endless resources for new grandiose projects, new bodies, commissions and interventions, but when it comes to pensioners we suddenly discover the importance of fiscal restraint. Funny old world.

Then there’s water.

Burnham wants to repeal what he calls the Thatcher-era “ideological ban” on public ownership of water companies. I love that word: ideological.

Public ownership apparently isn’t ideological. Nationalisation isn’t ideological. Expanding the State isn’t ideological.

No, no. Only opposing these things is ideological.

You really cannot hate Labour enough!

Mayor Burnham apparently regards government ownership as the natural condition of everything, with private ownership some strange aberration requiring explanation.

And water isn’t enough1

We are also getting GB Grid, another NEW publicly owned body within Great British Energy.

Bit by bit, piece by piece, the State grows.

Never forget the golden rule of government: whatever it acquires, you pay for.

Then we arrive at what I regard as one of the most sinister parts of the speech.

Housing.

Burnham wants councils to have new powers to take control of poor-quality or empty homes when landlords don’t make improvements. Read that again.

Take control of private property.

There are already laws dealing with dangerous properties and irresponsible landlords. Fine. Enforce them. If somebody breaks the law, prosecute them.

If a property presents a genuine danger, use existing legal processes.

But granting politicians and council bureaucrats ever greater powers over somebody else’s property crosses a very important line. Socialism is the precursor to communism.

State power rarely shrinks voluntarily.

Today’s “exceptional” case has an irritating habit of becoming tomorrow’s precedent.

For clarity; Private property isn’t a gift from government. Nor should ownership exist only for as long as some local authority bureaucrat approves of what you’re doing with it. Property rights are foundational to a free society. Labour increasingly seems to view them as an inconvenience.

Then there’s electoral reform.

Mayo Burnham wants a National Commission on Electoral Reform, with proposals for changing Britain’s voting system expected before the next election. Of course, this too comes wrapped in the usual sanctimonious packaging. We need to make sure “everyone’s vote counts”. Except everyone’s vote already does count.

The real argument here is about how votes are translated into seats. I believe Burnham wants to create the future election outcome of a perpetual left wing coalition Government. Now there is a legitimate argument for proportional representation and a legitimate argument against it. My suspicions are raised when when governments start tinkering with the system by which governments themselves are elected. Especially when they’re doing it from Downing Street.

Next comes the bit we all dreaded!

Brexit.

Burnham says Brexit has caused “more harm than good” and wants to use November’s EU summit to explore Britain’s long-term relationship with the European Union. You don’t need Sherlock Holmes to work out where this road leads. They are to devious to announce “We’re reversing Brexit” – that would be far too obvious.

Instead Britain will “reset” relations. That sounds less alarming, right? Then we will “deepen cooperation”. Then “align”. Then examine “options”.

Perhaps Customs Union membership becomes sensible. Then Single Market participation becomes pragmatic.

And eventually somebody appears on the BBC explaining solemnly that Britain has already become so closely integrated with the EU that formal membership is merely the logical next step.

We have been here before. We voted to leave the European Union in 2016.

I voted Leave because I believe this country should govern itself and I haven’t changed my mind.

And I won’t accept the proposition that politicians can gradually reconstruct EU membership by stealth because they never really accepted the original decision.

If you take a moment to stand back and look at the whole speech I think we can see the philosophy connecting them.

Government-owned energy. Potential government ownership of water. A new National Care Service. More council power over privately owned homes. Changes to pension guarantees. A government-created commission considering how we elect governments. And the door being opened once again towards closer EU integration.

Do you see the pattern?

It’s the State. Always the State. The State will regulate. The State intervenes.

The State decides.

And you?

You just pay up

That is what struck me most about Burnham’s speech.

He presented himself as the insurgent who has arrived to overthrow forty years of failed thinking. Yet underneath the shiny packaging lies one of the oldest political ideas imaginable:

Government knows best.

I really don’t believe that it does. I don’t want Whitehall running more of the economy.

I don’t want councils acquiring greater powers over private homes.

I don’t want pensioners becoming the convenient piggy bank for another vast government programme.

I don’t want politicians rewriting electoral rules without enormous public scrutiny.

And I certainly don’t want Brexit slowly dismantled through a succession of supposedly harmless “resets”.

Burnham wants us to believe this is Britain’s future. It looks suspiciously to me like Britain’s past.

More State. More control. More dependency.

Labour call it change. I call it a return to their failed policies of the 1970’s!

There is, however, an EVEN bigger question lurking behind all this.

Where does this end?

🔒 FOR SUBSCRIBERS: Where does Burnham take Britain next?

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