The New Farmyard Order: Labour’s Moral Collapse

Rachel Reeves Asked: What’s the Difference Between You and Them

In the farmyard of British politics, a curious transformation has taken place. Labour, once fierce critics of Tory excess, have taken up residence in the farmhouse. And as we gaze into the spectacle of British politics, we find it increasingly difficult to distinguish them from their predecessors.

Rachel Reeves, Labour’s Chancellor, found herself cornered on Good Morning Britain, forced to defend the indefensible. Susanna Reid, playing the role of a modern-day Boxer, posed a question that cut to the bone: “What is the difference between Boris Johnson asking donors to pay for wallpaper and Labour MPs asking donors to pay for holidays and clothes?”

Reeves’ response was a masterclass in doublespeak. She muttered about “transparency” and “proper declarations,” as if the mere act of confessing to gluttony somehow absolved the sin. But Reid, not to be fooled, reminded her of Angela Rayner’s damning 2021 tweet, which laid bare the hypocrisy at the heart of Labour’s new love affair with luxury.

Rayner, it seems, has undergone a remarkable transformation. Once a fierce critic of Boris Johnson’s begging bowl approach to interior design, she now finds herself embroiled in her own freebie fiasco. A trip to New York, courtesy of a multimillionaire peer, has left her squealing about “transparency” while wallowing in the same mud she once decried.

The stench of entitlement hangs heavy over the Labour benches. These self-proclaimed champions of the working class now strut about in donor-funded finery, seemingly oblivious to the irony. They’ve traded their overalls for tailored suits, their solidarity for sycophancy.

Of course, while we are all talking about Labour’s new clothes we are not talking about Labour being gifted £4m from a tax haven-based hedge fund with shares in oil and arms conveniently donated just before the election but not publicly shown till only last week.

OpenDemocracy reported that the Cayman Islands-registered Quadrature Capital had made the sixth largest political donation in British history to Starmer’s Party just after the General Election was announced. This revelation lays bare the hollowness of Labour’s promises and the depth of their newfound allegiances.

The timing of this £4 million windfall is about as subtle as a sledgehammer. Conveniently tucked away just before the “pre-poll reporting period”, it escaped the weekly scrutiny reserved for donations over £11,180. This isn’t transparency; it’s a magic trick – now you see it, now you don’t. But the question remains: what else is Labour hiding up its designer sleeves?

You have to wonder who gave who advice on this dodgy accounting. The website rightly points to the timing as “notable” that the £4 million donation was made before the “pre-poll reporting period” which sees all donations over £11,180 published weekly, rather than quarterly.

This means that despite being made on 28 May, Quadrature’s generous donation was published by the Electoral Commission only last week, more than two months after Labour won the election.

Think about it – A £4 million donation from Quadrature Capital, a hedge fund nestled comfortably in the tax haven of the Cayman Islands. This ‘gift’ arrived with impeccable timing, slipping through a narrow window between the election announcement and the start of rigorous reporting requirements. Some might call it clever. I’ll call it contemptible.

As George Orwell so presciently wrote, “The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.” Replace ‘pig’ with ‘Labour’ and ‘man’ with ‘Tory’, and you have a perfect description of our current political farce.

The tragedy is not just in Labour’s betrayal of its principles but in its utter lack of self-awareness. They seem genuinely baffled by the public’s revulsion, as if we should be grateful for their “transparency” in declaring their gifts. They’ve forgotten a fundamental truth: it’s not about the paperwork, it’s about the principle.

The optics of this are bad but the reality is even worse when you consider Rachel Reaves’s insistence on means testing pensioners’ winter fuel allowance. Rachel Reeves announced plans to means test winter fuel payments, previously worth up to £300 for all pensioners, effectively scrapping it for around 10 million people.

She has said the move will save the Treasury £1.5bn and is an essential part of her plans to plug an alleged £22bn black hole left in the public purse by the Tories.

But Labour MPs and unions have condemned the plans. The scaping of a universal winter fuel allowance has been carried out without an impact assessment. However, When Labour carried out an impact assessment on the same policy in 2017 believing the Tories would test the winter fuel allowance Labour ascertained the impact of scrapping the allowance would cause up to 4000 deaths.

The analysis also revealed that although Disabled people may be more likely to retain the payment, 71% – 1.6 million – would still lose their entitlement, despite their often-greater dependence on heating their homes.

In addition, of the 880,000 pensioners entitled to pension credit but who do not claim the benefit, only 100,000 are expected to sign up to it because of a new government campaign, meaning about 780,000 pensioners on low incomes will continue to miss out.

Delegates at Labour’s annual conference in Liverpool were set to condemn the change on Monday in a vote forced by Unite and the Communications Workers Union (CWU).

But Unite accused Labour of attempting to block the vote, before eventually managing to force it back into the “graveyard slot”.

Earlier on Monday Labour officials faced boos and jeers after unions complained about moves to delay a conference debate on winter fuel payment cuts.

CWU’s senior deputy general secretary Tony Kearns questioned why the motion was not scheduled and why it has been briefed that “it’s unlikely to be scheduled for debate this week”.

In their rush to “power,” Labour has embraced the very practices they once railed against. They’ve become so enamoured with the trappings of that power that they’ve forgotten why they sought it in the first place.

The British people deserve better than this sorry spectacle. They deserve a Peoples’ Party that remembers its roots, that understands the difference between serving the many and servicing the few. Labour has lost its moral compass, it’s a signatory of the neoliberal consensus. It will continue to wallow in the same muck as the Tories, indistinguishable in all but name.

As we watch this grotesque pantomime unfold, one can’t help but wonder: is this the best we can expect from our political class? A choice between pigs in blue ties and pigs in red ones, all eating out of the same troth. If so, perhaps it’s time we looked beyond the farmyard for our salvation.

Paul Knaggs