Loud screech of Labour U-turns - Angus Robertson

​Can you hear the sounds of yet more screeching U-turns from UK Labour leader Keir Starmer?

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer addressing 400 business leaders at the Kia Oval. Credit: Stefan Rousseau/PA Wire

​This time, the Labour Party have decided that House of Lords reform is no longer on the table. Only weeks ago, Keir Starmer insisted that the unelected chamber was "indefensible" and his party would replace it with an Assembly of the Nations and Regions.

But now, his grand reform would only see the removal of the 91 hereditary peers while defending the rest of the ‘indefensible’ structure.

We shouldn’t be surprised. Ditching our unelected and unjustifiable upper chamber was first pitched by Labour over 100 years ago.

Starmer’s Labour Party are also watering down commitments to invest in the green economy.

£28 billion was promised by Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves in a flagship 2021 Labour party conference speech. But now the Labour leadership has decided the climate is too easy a target for Tory attack lines.

They claim they are constrained by their self-set ‘fiscal rules’ that will determine whether they act – or not – in a particular policy area. If so, one would be forgiven for thinking the singular fiscal rule is ‘don’t do anything’.

In fact, the truth in this case is that this isn’t about what the fiscal environment might or might not permit. In fact, Labour is so keen for Tory votes, they will ditch our collective duty to the planet so that Rishi Sunak won’t be able to take populist anti-climate pot shots at Starmer for the Labour leader’s pledge to support the green economy. It is fantastically uninspiring.