As the government published its Industrial Strategy on Monday, June 21, Prime Minister Keir Starmer, in outlining the plans, reiterated that the British state has, in his words, been "overbearing and feeble" and "too exposed to global volatility". The Industrial Strategy is allegedly Labour's Ten-Year Plan to "increase business investment and grow the industries of the future in the UK".

It seems that by "overbearing", Starmer means that there has been too much regulation and red-tape, which need to be eliminated in the name of "growth" and promoting efficiency and expertise. The Industrial Strategy speaks of tackling "high industrial electricity costs" and reducing "regulatory burdens". It also says ministers will "remove planning barriers" and "ensure our tax system supports growth". As part of the plans, energy costs for businesses would be cut by scrapping green levies to help them compete with foreign rivals. All this is hardly something new judging from previous experience of governments demanding a "bonfire of red tape". In short, the reforms represented by the Strategy are directed to enabling both the state and private interests to operate unfettered by regulatory constraint.

What working people will also notice is that while winter fuel payments for the vulnerable have been cut back, while disabled people are still under attack from the government, while caps on energy payments by working people go up and down depending on the market, the reducing of "regulatory burdens", "planning barriers" and energy costs for "growth" industries is the government's priority. Protection of the environment and involvement of citizens in decision-making are not to get in the way of "build, build, build" [1]. Government ministers writing in the foreword of the publication are nevertheless saying that the Strategy represents a "new approach" in a decade-long plan to make Britain an attractive place for foreign investment, whatever the "global volatility".

What does Starmer mean by saying the British state has been "feeble"? This means that the working class and people should expect increased rule on the basis of the police powers of the executive, of police rule, with even the possibility of this being extended to military powers. It is already being seen in the suppression of the right to protest, of citizens' right to speak out and the right of assembly, as is happening with the ongoing threats against and criminalisation of those who take action or even speak out against US-Israeli genocide and the complicity of the British government. An example of direct control by the executive is also seen in the abolition of NHS England, and putting control of the health service in England in the hands of Westminster [2]. Another example of legitimising and enforcing executive rule can be seen in the "race to save British Steel" [3].

The reference to the state in Starmer's remarks carries forward what he said in March, when delivering a keynote speech in which he outlined the government's programme for "fundamental reform of the British state". The central theme of Labour's "Plan for Change" is that it will enable "active government" so as to achieve its goals of "national security" and "national renewal". The foreword to the Industrial Strategy states: "Through our Plan for Change, the Government is determined to seize the opportunities this new world offers to deliver security, renewal, and higher living standards across the country. Business-as-usual will not work. We need a new relationship between business and government, where government provides the strategic certainty that allows businesses to do what they do best: create wealth. This requires a more muscular approach to government..." The "Plan for Change" must also be seen in the context of the Strategic Defence Review and Starmer's attempt to put Britain on "war-fighting readiness" [4].

It is evident that Starmer has trouble in keeping the organised workers' movement in step and on-side. The resistance of the workers, with the spirit of Enough Is Enough, develops the consciousness of the working class, and increasing their discontent also strengthens their outlook that the workers have the solutions to the crisis; and not only that, but that the society itself should be transformed, with the direction that it should reflect the objective character of the working class, that the state itself should have the character of social production for the well-being of all, not the control of the state for the narrow private interests of the oligarchs.

For the 25 years of this century, since the heyday of Tony Blair, with his "Third Way", supposedly neither "left" nor "right", but geared to building Britain as "Britain plc" which supposedly unites everyone behind neo-liberalism, adopting "deliverology" as a method of accountability, and also strengthens the alliance with the US and NATO, and goes to war, commits aggression far and wide - since then the crisis of monopoly capitalism has intensified, and all the cartel parties can see is paying obeisance to the demands and power of the oligarchs and war chariots of the rich.

So the talk of the Strategy of "creating an enduring partnership with business", to which a whole section of the document is devoted, is the government's decision-making on behalf of the oligopolies. This is the "muscular approach to government" which enshrines the cartel parties as an integral part of the state, in which people are sidelined, excluded, denied a role. What counts is pay-the-rich schemes, which is what this "enduring partnership with business" means.

Working people count for so little in Starmer's world view that they have no role in creating wealth. "Wealth" is all down to businesses which is allegedly what they do best. Workers are simple objects, disposable, the adjunct of businesses, if that, in this 10-year Plan. Trade unions are simply "stakeholders", with the document declaring that the government will "Work closely with trade unions and organisations representing the unique perspectives of civil society." It would be ludicrous if it were not so shameful.

The document identifies what it calls "eight high growth sectors", which it dubs the IS-8 [4]. The foreword says: "These sectors have been identified as those best placed to create the wealth, jobs, and higher wages our country needs in every community. Their success is absolutely essential for delivering our Plan for Change. This document sets out the support we will provide." As the laws of history unfold, we shall see what kind of success is achieved through Starmer's grand 10-year plan, and how long it lasts. It promises to be deliverology par excellence. The Executive Summary opens with a statement that demonstrates the fantasy world that Starmer and his ministers live in: "The United Kingdom is a thriving global economy founded on stability, fairness, and the rule of law, and propelled by world-leading sectors and companies." In reality, this is certainly not a vision for the well-being of the body politic, as workers whose watchword has been "Enough Is Enough" can testify.

Despite the government's framing of its planned changes as democratic reforms intended to return power to the people, the "Plan for Change" actually serves to increase executive power and reduce regulatory oversight. Public authority at every level is increasingly the exercise of arbitrary power. The ruling elite are constantly seeking new arrangements, while the state devours itself as political factions and various parts of the existing arrangements contend for control.

The alternative is one in which the working people themselves constitute the authority and decide matters directly. This means that those who currently deprive the people of power will themselves be deprived of power. The desperation to prevent this alternative from taking root is creating political chaos, for which the answer is being sought in the police powers and the rearrangement of the state around the wielding of those powers.

What everyone is striving for is that their claims on society must be met, and this requires a change in the direction of the economy and of society. It is a unifying force, because it harmonises everyone's interests within the general interests of society.

Notes
1. A slogan which was also used by Boris Johnson in 2020.
2. See "Putting the NHS under the Control of the Executive",
https://www.rcpbml.org.uk/wwie-25/ww25-06/ww25-06-01.htm
3. See "The Government's Last Minute Desperate "Race to Save British Steel",
https://www.rcpbml.org.uk/wwie-25/ww25-09/ww25-09-01.htm
4. See Strategic Defence Review: Starmer's Attempt to Put Britain on "War-Fighting Readiness"
https://www.rcpbml.org.uk/wwie-25/ww25-13/ww25-13-01.htm
5. The IS-8 are spelt out as: "Advanced Manufacturing, Clean Energy Industries, Creative Industries, Defence, Digital and Technologies, Financial Services, Life Sciences, and Professional and Business Services." These sectors are further subdivided. "Defence", for example, is said to include: "Drones and Autonomous Systems, Combat Air, Directed energy weapons, Complex weapons, Maritime capabilities". Referring to this sector, the document states: "The Strategic Defence Review vision is for, by 2035, the UK to be a 'leading tech-enabled defence power, with an Integrated Force that deters, fights, and wins through constant innovation at wartime pace'."
For the full document, see The UK's modern Industrial Strategy:
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/68595e56db8e139f95652dc6/industrial_strategy_policy_paper.pdf

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