End of the NeolibLab Pact

“There is a tide in the affairs of men…” etc., etc.. Shakespeare, of course, pointing out in his characteristically thoughtful way that flood tides actually mark a turning point, not an irresistible force. Brutus was soon to find this out to his cost.

Blue Labour, neoliberal Labour, Labour Together, the Labour Growth Group, Labour Yimby and the rest of them have seized control of their party’s policy and taken its 2024 electoral landslide off in directions which left its rank-and-file in dumb despair or quitting to join other parties. They’d spent 14 years seeking alternative economic policies to the Conservatives, only to see their own government going above and beyond its predecessors’ policies on things like centralisation and destroying planning and environmental regulation.

“On such a full sea are we now afloat” – yet, quite suddenly, neoliberal Labour is starting to sink. Five years of helping flood the social media zone with a crafted melange of neoliberal fantasies have left the Party with a crumbling edifice that suddenly finds itself dragged into the light. McSweeney has gone, others are following, and lights can now be shone into some very dark corners.

But haven’t they been arrogant! The whole Tufton Street gang on social media have long hunted covertly as a pack, but recently they’ve been doing it publicly, a sure sign of over-confidence. The recent signatories to the Britain Remade letter to the Government asking for the Fingleton deregulation principles to be applied in full was a case in point.

The whole gang of neoliberal think-tanks and their numerous influencing bodies all crept out from behind the pillars like Brutus’s plotters, daggers in hand, ready to strike.

But it’s not just Labour that’s a victim. We’ve all had years of these people doing their best to make wealthy people wealthier and complaining about the results. Lobbying for Greed as always.

And aren’t they confident – only yesterday, one very junior apparatchik, who’s got himself involved with the surreally stupid plans to dump a city of a million people on highly productive farmland in west Suffolk, was blogging about “the taxonomy of NIMBYs”.

But attacking decent people like Rosie Pearson, who gives up her time to campaign for sustainable planning, as “a professional objector” and claiming she says “nothing should be built, anywhere, ever,” crosses a big red line.

For the sudden coming apart of the NeolibLab Pact, so many years in the making and so destructive in practice, has kicked open a door and has begun to illuminate the creatures within.

We environmentalists, of course, are Not Interested in Moneyed Builders’ Yarns, and have long been quietly but consistently showing the lies of the “yimby” movement for what they are.

Their current collective whine is that “Britain is broken”, illustrated by complaints about, litter, graffiti, fly tipping and potholes. It shows their hypocrisy knows no bounds – all these things, of course, are the result of the savage onslaught on local government spending which they have long fought to secure.

But “flood tides” actually mark turning points, a sea change in attitudes. So, boys, you’ve had your fun and you’ve done enough harm. The times they are a’changing.

“And we must take the current where it serves.”

Jon Reeds