Watch Owen Smith’s barnstorming speech about inequality and his ‘British New Deal’

Left Foot Forward

Labour leader candidate is running as a Left populist - with lots of policy to chew on

 

Owen Smith MP gave a rousing speech yesterday about the blight of inequality as he launched his bid to lead the Labour Party.

Smith gave us lots of policy to chew on, most notably his ‘British New Deal’ – a £200 billion development fund ‘to rebuild physical and social infrastructure’.

Laying out what this means, Smith said:

‘I want new hospitals, I want better roads, I want us to restore Sure Start centres, I want us to make sure we’ve got the rail infrastructure we need, I want us to be certain that every child has a chance to go to college or take an apprenticeship.’

The former shadow Work and Pensions Secretary is clearly running as a Left populist in the style of Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren in the United States. (The idea of a New Deal is itself borrowed from President Roosevelt’s depression-era radicalism.) At one point Smith remarked:

‘We’ve been keeping the banks afloat in this country. It is time we start keeping the people afloat in this country.’

This is manifest in his other policies, such as re-writing Clause IV of Labour’s constitution ‘to put tackling inequality right at the heart of everything we do’.

Smith said:

‘We have a wider gap between the haves and have-nots in this country than any of us have known in our lifetimes. And it is for the Labour Party, our party, to fight to reduce that gap. […]

‘Every Labour policy has to be tested against that benchmark. Is it going to reduce inequalities in wealth, in power, in outcomes and opportunities, or is it not?’

He also trashed Theresa May’s decision to scrap the Department for Energy and Climate Change, and promised to instantly restore the DECC, and make ‘every single department across government’ work towards a ‘low-carbon future’.

On foreign policy, Smith proposed a ‘war powers act’ as a check against the mistakes of the Iraq War, as laid bare in the Chilcot report, with greater oversight by parliament.

(Smith was not an MP in 2003, but says he opposed the Iraq War at the time. He has voted for military action since, in Libya, Iraq and Syria.)

On a more general level, Smith praised current leader Jeremy Corbyn for putting opposition to austerity (cuts to public services) on the table, but said Labour must go further: 

‘It’s not enough to just be anti-austerity. You’ve got to be pro- something. And I am very clear. I am pro-prosperity. I am pro- standing up for working people.’

Billing himself as a ‘radical and credible’ candidate, Smith has also hinted at more radical proposals. When asked after his speech about rail nationalisation, he replied:

And in an interview with Andrew Marr yesterday, in response to the ultimate ‘gotcha’ question for a Lefty – would you raise taxes on the rich? – he said:

‘Yes. One of the things we’ve been far too timid about in the Labour Party for a long time is out taxation system. It isn’t progressive. […]

Certainly I’d go back to a 50p rate tomorrow [for top earners], because I think that is absolutely the right thing to do.

But there are other elements of taxation – why on earth are capital gains being taxed at 20 per cent, when the highest rates of income tax are at 45 per cent?’

In the same interview, Smith hedged his bets on Brexit, keeping open the possibility of campaigning against enacting Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty, which would effectively block Britain from leaving the EU.

He also said he favoured replacing Trident as part of a multilateral effort for global disarmament, (rather than the CND’s unilateralist position, which he doesn’t think will work), adding, when asked, that a PM must be willing to use nuclear weapons as a last resort to have a serious deterrent. 

At his launch event, Smith also spoke against any split in the Labour Party, saying:

‘If I’ve got anything to do about it, never on my watch will this party split. […]

Working people in this country cannot afford it to split. We’re the people’s party, never forget it. We are the people’s party.’

Adam Barnett is staff writer for Left Foot Forward. Follow him on Twitter @AdamBarnett13 

See: Owen Smith, Angela Eagle and Jeremy Corbyn – what’s the difference?

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20 Responses to “Watch Owen Smith’s barnstorming speech about inequality and his ‘British New Deal’”

  1. Eric

    Like you Steve I’m left unimpressed by the vague slanders which precede your posts. In my experience when these sorts of claims are investigated they are invariably spurious.

    I am left utterly baffled by the personality cult that surrounds Jeremy. Why the infatuation with a man who has “lost the dressing room” and has failed to impress at evpossible opportunity, who is so poor a leader he can’t hold his party together. If the consensus in the party is to move left then fine I am cautiously pleased by that and I am sure many of the MPs who voted against him are as well, but if that’s where we’re going we need to be led by someone who will not only take the party with him but more of the electorate than voted Labour in the last election.

  2. Geordie

    @Steve Mizzy – it’s a bit of a no-brainer, isn’t it ? We stick with the guy who has principle aplenty.

    God knows, there’s few enough of them in politics, while you can’t throw a brick without hitting several articulate, sharp-suited, well-groomed and ultimately untrustworthy “real” politicians.

    Corbyn has done alright – for a start he brought me back to the Labour party, something I never thought would happen after Iraq. But think how much better he’d have been doing if (most of) the rest of the party had resisted the temptation to act like a bunch of spoiled kids and started doing what they were supposed to be elected to do.

  3. Eric

    Here are a few links on Owen which give some background.

    Another thought about Jeremy and Owen. Jeremy made him shadow secretary of work and pensions. Now, does Jeremy have appalling judgement, thus further confirming his unsuitability for leading the Labour party or are many of the preceding posts just a load of rubbish?

    http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/politics/owen-smith-iraq-war-working-2338066

    http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/who-owen-smith-everything-you-8413993

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jul/17/owen-smith-ed-miliband-labour-crisis

    http://www.cityam.com/245366/heres-five-things-you-need-know-labour-leadership-contender

  4. Martyn Wood-Bevan

    Corbyn was so well liked because he was such a change from the typical suited politician who was so fearful of the electorate that they would put forward very safe policies that the thought the population would like. He had genuine convictions, stood for something and challenged the establishment, which very many people responded to. Many in his party prejudged him as an out of touch leftie who would not command the public respect and then went out of their way to prove this to be true – as is the case with self-fulfilling prophecies – and engaged the MSM in this task and preventing many of his ideas from seeing the light of day.
    Owen Smith (I am Welsh and can speak with some authority) is a non-entity in Wales, was flown into a safe Labour seat and is on the right wing of the party. He is quite slick but has been known as “Oily” Smith because he can say just what people want to hear, whether or not he particularly believes it. His presentation is fairly good but he is hardly talking to a vast crowd, unlike Jeremy Corbyn who always commands much bigger audiences – like the 150,000+ at Durham last week. Corbyn simply needs a more effective management team to help organise his activity programme.

  5. Linzi

    I have for many years been one of those people who complain about politics. I found that the more I research the more I found the parties to the same, ok they talk about good game but words are cheap it’s action we want. And out of all of them one person as been consistent. It’s ok them telling you what they going to do, but look at what they been doing. I am going to vote Corbyn, he has awaken my interest, he may be different compared to the other leaders (or pretenders), but let’s face it that is what we need, no more of the charismatic, double dealing politicians who make up a good line but has no depth. This is the time to really consider what type of world we want to live in, and what type of leader we want, honesty, peace and a strength that is bone deep. And lets face it, he had to have a type of strength to with stand a coup, a new leadership challenge, and a media that as been extremely negative. Let’s show the politicians that we are the one who choose and pay them, they work for us the people, and it’s time to listen to us.

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