UK politics: 2023 end-of-year review

This is a post from Michael Kane, Henry Welch, Helen Stott, and Alexandra Moran on the Vuelio Political team. 

With seven by-elections, numerous Cabinet reshuffles, Nigel Farage in the jungle, the return of David Cameron and Government disapproval ratings flatlining at around 60%, the Vuelio Political team have assessed the various political themes that have shaped the year so far.

Sunak’s pivot to migration

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak started and ended 2023 by asserting the same line on the need to cut illegal and legal migration. In January, Sunak set out his priorities for 2023, one of which was passing new laws to stop small boats and ensure that those who come to Britain illegally are ‘detained and swiftly removed.’ The Illegal Migration Bill was then unveiled in March and granted Royal Assent in July.

After a back and forth with the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court, Sunak started December by introducing the Rwanda Bill to overcome their concerns. His press conference on the Bill felt to some like a rehash of prior statements on Illegal Migration from the start of the year, and his speech at Conservative Party Conference emphasised the issue.

This focus on cutting illegal migration was flanked by an attempt to cut legal migration numbers in response to the Office for National Statistics’ reveal in November that the UK’s net migration was 745,000 in 2022. Predictably, there was outrage from Conservative backbenchers and Sunak used this energy to strengthen the border controls, announcing five measures to tackle legal migration. Most significantly, the Government announced that they will increase the earning threshold for overseas workers by nearly 50% from its current position of £26,200 to £38,700. It was later claimed that these changes will stop 300,000 people from entering the UK each year.

Sunak’s increasing focus on cutting migration may be twofold: 1) Energise leave voters and 2019 Conservative voters; and 2) Force Starmer to commit to a position. These reasons are complementary, as by energising leave voters and 2019 Conservative voters it commits Starmer to a position – these voters formed a significant part of Labour’s coalition of voters in 1997, 2001 and 2005. Starmer flirted with the idea of processing illegal migrants abroad in a speech in December 2023, perhaps as a result of this. Sunak’s pivot to migration has highlighted the rhetorical and practical differences between himself and Starmer.

Nevertheless, the viability of this as a political strategy remains dubious for Sunak. While the Rwanda Bill may have passed, it took Sunak’s former Home Secretary, Minister for Immigration, two dozen Conservative backbench abstentions with it and One Nation Conservative MPs threatening to turn against it if the bill is amended. Perhaps then, Sunak’s pivot to migration will only empower the very backbenchers in which his political fate relies upon. Additionally, polling indicates that voters are more concerned with the cost-of-living crisis – will Sunak’s focus on migration risk coming across as tone deaf, as the then-Conservative leader Michael Howard’s pivot to migration had in 2005?

Starmer’s year of probation

Coming into 2023, Keir Starmer’s Labour party stood at around 45% in the opinion polls compared to the Conservatives’ 25/30% – this story is very much the same at the end of year, too. This, coupled with the cumulative momentum of a summer and autumn of by-election gains very much points to Keir Starmer in Downing Street being the result of the next General Election. With this in mind, we can view Starmer’s actions this year through the prism of a probation period with the British Public as his actions pivoted towards those of a Prime Minister in waiting.

Starmer’s pivot to being a Prime Minister in waiting can be seen in his twofold strategy of stability and reassurance. Take Starmer’s moves to resist calling for an immediate ceasefire in the Israel-Gaza crisis – this was framed as a move to follow the United States lead on the issue and show that Labour could strategically manage an international crisis; in this regard, a message to voters that they can trust Labour with foreign policy. Although Labour’s position has softened since the October attacks due to internal pressure, Starmer has rarely stepped out of line with the UK and US Government and has even openly said that this is an issue that Labour needs to prove it can govern on. This attempt to lead on foreign issues was foreshadowed by an attempt to weigh in on the Northern Ireland Protocol in a speech to Queen’s University Belfast in early January.

Throughout the year Starmer has consistently broadened his message more and more towards the whole country. The Labour Party Conference setting was draped in the Union Jack to equate Labour with patriotism, while Starmer’s speeches to the British Chambers of Commerce Global Conference in May and the North East Chamber of Commerce in November complemented Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves’ perennial argument that business need not be scared of Labour.

Furthermore, Starmer’s conference speech represented a strong gesture to Conservative voters. This rhetoric continued in a speech in December as he tried to resonate with those leave voters who voted Conservative in 2019, making even more obvious appeals to the benefits of Brexit. To top this courting, Starmer even praised Margaret Thatcher’s project of ‘meaningful change.’

Nonetheless, these moves have prompted backlash, with some in the Labour Party critiquing Starmer over his comments on Thatcher and the Israel-Gaza crisis. Meanwhile, Labour’s strategy of reassurance perhaps left them hamstrung in a mild response to Chancellor Jeremy Hunt’s Autumn Statement for Growth.

Labour’s limited response to the Autumn Statement perhaps represents the crossroads Starmer faces. While a two-pronged approach of reassurance and stability helped Labour get to the mid-40s in the polls, it will not not help them change the country. It’s not 1997 anymore – Starmer could perhaps benefit by pursuing the very change he has been seen to be scared of confronting.

The SNP’s conundrum

Towards the end of 2022, the then First Minister of Scotland Nicola Sturgeon held talks with the then new Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, later repeated in January 2023. Among the discussions were the economic and social challenges faced by Scotland but also the prospect of a second independence referendum. After all, it was only in the 2021 Scottish Parliament election that the SNP promised to deliver a referendum, if elected. Nevertheless, just shy of 12 months from the second set of talks, the SNP’s prospects for independence have dramatically diminished.

Spring forward to October 2023, and the SNP held their annual conference – for the first time in years the party proposed a conference debate on how to achieve independence. The elected SNP leader and Scotland’s First Minister Humza Yousaf warned the party to stop talking about independence and for the debate to draw a line under it. For context, just a year ago, the SNP published its third independence paper and October 2023 had been earmarked by Sturgeon as the time for a second independence referendum.

This comes after months of polling indicating that while support for independence has remained the same, support for the SNP has decreased steadily. This is flanked by internal splits in the SNP made clear for all to see in Kate Forbes’ leadership campaign and the development of the Alba Party, as leadership candidate Ash Regan became its first MSP. While Yousaf may have gained some authority over his handling of the Israel-Gaza crisis, this year perhaps represents a shift in Scottish voters away from the SNP, as polling indicates that SNP and Labour both stand at around the 30-35% level in Scotland. In this sense, voters do not see the SNP as the clear and obvious vehicle for change with Labour emerging as contenders – perhaps the Scottish Budget may answer the concerns of these voters.

The breakdown of the green consensus

Following a general green consensus in the May and Johnson Governments, 2023 was a year of Rishi Sunak attempting to use green policy as a wedge against Labour. However, there are doubts over whether this wedge is more rhetoric than reality.

The year began with the creation of the Department of Net Zero and Energy Security, linking the two ideas within central Government. However, top level criticism of the Government’s net zero policies ramped up with the Climate Change Committee’s (CCCs) annual report in June warning that the UK was losing its world-leading position.

Perhaps the most decisive point for net zero policy came in July, with the Conservatives winning the Uxbridge by-election. This followed a successful campaign to disparage the expansion of London’s ultra-low emission zone. With Uxbridge, even after years of Starmer courting Conservative voters, Sunak had found his wedge between the two main parties. Sunak’s net zero speech in September was a continuation of this, as it was announced several policies would be supplanted, with the Government delaying targets for electric vehicle rollout and scrapping energy efficiency targets for landlords.

As part of this wedge, the Government sought to undermine Labour’s commitment of implementing £28bn of new spending on renewables, with this now derided in response to any question on the economy and the first line of the Autumn Statement. The Government also targeted Labour’s policy of no new oil and gas licences in the North Sea. Net zero was not as prioritised as the department’s name suggested, with the Government instead announcing a hundred new oil and gas licences at the end of July, committing to drill at Rosebank and announcing the Offshore Petroleum Licensing Bill in the King’s Speech. Although Labour has weakened its £28bn investment, the party has recently recommitted to it. Labour has also refused to be drawn into a trap around oil and gas and has agreed to not overturn any new licences.

Nevertheless, there is a serious question if the Government’s rhetoric and actions differ on net zero. Assessments of Sunak’s September speech from the CCC saw these announcements as ‘score draw’ or even a net positive. Most significantly, the Zero Emissions Vehicle mandate survived, even with Conservative protest. Furthermore, the Government responded decisively to the failure of having no offshore wind bidders at Contracts for Difference auction round five. It is also perhaps likely that the Government will be willing to commit to using community benefits to gain support for local onshore wind farms. The Energy Act also included many positive developments, with the creation of the Great British Nuclear, unlocking new business models for hydrogen and a new net zero mandate for Ofgem.

So, has this wedge actually had an effect? Some polling found that people’s opinion of Sunak fell following his September announcement, with many voters still listing net zero as a priority. However, measures on electric vehicles were broadly popular. Likewise, there is doubt over whether the Government’s rhetoric tallies with their actions on net zero. This can perhaps be seen most at COP28. Although Sunak faced derision for spending more time flying to and from the conference than attending it, Britain remained a world leader in forcing a more significant agreement and also announced it would be providing £1.6bn for green finance and international climate change.

Pressure on the economy and public services

The year has been overshadowed by concerns around rising inflation and the pressure this puts on public services. Inflation was cited as the main reason for the Prime Minister’s decision to scrap the second phase of HS2 earlier this year. While Sunak may have been successful in his goal to get inflation halved by the end of the year, this still means that wages are losing their value in real terms – just at a slightly lower rate. 2023 has been a year dominated by industrial action across multiple sectors, and substantial public sector pay settlements have eaten into departmental budgets. The Government may have had a breakthrough on a pay deal with NHS consultants, but junior doctor strikes are still looming on the horizon, and there is still widespread dissatisfaction with pay among nurses and other NHS workers. The Government is insisting that pay rises must be funded through existing budgets, but this seems unlikely with NHS services already stretched to breaking point over the winter period, and an estimated £1.4bn of costs incurred due to strike action.

The Government has promised to ringfence health budgets but this puts even more pressure on other departments. Commentators have observed that Hunt’s tax cuts announced at the Autumn Statement are essentially paid for by cuts to public services which are ‘baked in’ for after the election. Moreover, research by the Institute for Government has shown that there will be real term spending decreases from 2024-25 to 2027-28: -0.7% in Local Government, -0.9% in Schools, -5.6% in the Courts and -6.7% in Prisons. With public services’ struggling and Local Governments such as Birmingham City Council and Cheshire East Council declaring bankruptcy, this raises significant questions for the Government and the Labour Party.

The Conservatives could be laying a trap for Labour – forcing the party to commit to what will be very difficult to implement spending cuts, or risk looking fiscally irresponsible. So far, Reeves and Starmer have avoided walking too close to this trap, but this may become more difficult as the General Election draws nearer.