Starmer to chair Cobra meeting on Iran war economic fallout tomorrow – UK politics live

Meeting could coincide with possible Commons debate on claims he lied to MPs about Mandelson’s vetting

There was not a lot of headline news in Keir Starmer’s speech to the Usdaw conference this morning. (Some – but not much. See 10.11am and 11.02am.) But, nevertheless, it was quite a substantial speech, in that he covered a lot of ground, and Starmer sounded more leftwing than usual. Partly that was because he was addressing a trade union, but in part it might be a response to the Iran war, and how that has affected his thinking. He was more explict than usual about describing Tony Blair’s decision to join the US was against Iraq as a mistake (see 11.02am), he said the economic consequences of the Iran war would last “for some time” (Darren Jones said yesterday that, even when the strait of Hormuz is fully open, the economic harm would still go on for another eight months), and he implied this was firming up his view that the “status quo” must change.

Here are some of his main points.

Starmer highlighted the way the Employment Rights Act will help working people. Opening with an anecdote about a letter from a shopworker verbally abused at work who could not take time off because of the old statutory sick pay rules, he summed up the changes like this.

Now, the law of the land, for you and for every single person in this country, to finally enjoy the protections you deserve at work: sick pay from day one; paternity leave from day one; fire and rehire – scrapped; protection for whistleblowers; no more gagging orders on sexual harassment; no more exploitative zero-hours contracts; stronger collective consultation rights, and I know how important that is for shop workers.

And underpinning all of that, a proper living wage, the embodiment of the simple demand that has always guided the labour movement – a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work. That is what we’ve delivered together.

He stressed that he would always be on the side of working people. He said:

I’ll always work fight for working people because I know exactly whose side I’m on.

Let me tell you about another worker, a carer, works long hours on low pay, year after year after year. She was a care worker during the pandemic, 14-hour shifts, often overnight. And in the pandemic some care workers didn’t have sick pay. So if they were sick, they had to stay at home and simply not get paid at all. In the pandemic, as we were all clapping them, recognising what they were doing for our country.

He said that, after the Iran war crisis, he wanted no return to the “status quo”. He said:

Just like Iraq years ago, there is a deeper lesson here, one that British politics has continually refused to learn.

Because what Iran shows is that, once again, events happening miles away from Britain have the capacity to hurt our living standards, our future and our security. And so our response will define, not just this government, but arguably this generation.

Whatever happens in the Middle East, we’ve cut your energy bills, and we have capped them until July.

Delegates, that’s another thing that I will always stand firm on. I will never let this country be dragged into a war that is not in our interests. Never.

That is a lesson British politics should have learned a long time ago with Iraq.

And yet, when the rush to war began on Iran, I was heavily criticised by others who had no thought for the consequences for our country, for your family.