McDonnell says fiscal charter U-turn due to meeting Redcar families
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Version 0 of 1. John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor, has explained that he changed his mind about voting for the government’s fiscal responsibility charter after meeting the tearful families of Redcar steelworkers who have lost their jobs. The senior Labour politician has been criticised by some of his own MPs for saying he now wants them to vote against the charter, which reverses his claim to the Guardian two weeks ago that he wanted them to vote in favour. The charter, which was unveiled in the budget in July, requires the government to run a budget surplus within three years during “normal times”, when there is no economic crisis. Speaking to broadcasters, McDonnell said: “I have changed my mind on the parliamentary tactics. Originally what I said to people was: ‘Look, that charter is a political stunt, it’s a political trap by George Osborne, it is virtually meaningless – he ignores it himself time and time again, he never meets his targets. So [I said], this is just a stunt and let’s ridicule it in the debate and vote for it because it’s a meaningless vote. “I went to Redcar and I met the steelworkers and I had families in tears about what’s happening to them as a result of the government failing to act, failing to intervene. And I came back and I realised the consequences of the government’s failure to invest in infrastructure and skills, the cuts that are going to start coming now, I realised that people are actually going to suffer badly. And it brought it home to me, and I don’t want the Labour party associated with this policy.” He stressed that he had not changed his mind on the principles of what the charter stood for, and maintains that “Labour will tackle the deficit – we are not deficit deniers”. The U-turn sparked an angry reaction at a meeting of the parliamentary Labour party at Westminster on Monday. Ben Bradshaw, a former cabinet minister, declared, within earshot of waiting reporters, that the meeting had been a “total fucking shambles”. McDonnell then came under pressure from his predecessor as shadow chancellor, Chris Leslie, who argued the move sent the wrong economic message to the public. Speaking to the BBC’s Today programme on Tuesday, Leslie, who was shadow chancellor before Jeremy Corbyn’s election as Labour leader, said: “To go from one extreme to the other is wrong in economic terms, but also it sends the wrong message.” He said: “To be fair to John McDonnell, this is a very difficult balancing act, and a very difficult topic. But it’s incredibly important that he’s clear and consistent and explains fully, not just what Labour’s position is, but why he backed George Osborne’s surplus a couple of weeks ago and is now against it apparently.” Another Labour MP, John Mann, told the BBC that the U-turn had left McDonnell looking “a bit of a fool” and that he had fallen into a political trap set by the chancellor. In a comment piece written for the website Politics Home, Mann said the reversal came after a group of MPs informed the Labour whips on Sunday that they would be continuing with the party’s old position and voting against Osborne’s charter. “Just one hour before the parliamentary Labour party was due to meet, without McDonnell choosing to speak, he announced his U-turn,” Mann wrote. “Yet in all of this time there has been no debate, nor any consultation within the Labour party. So two contradictory policy announcements, without a single collective discussion.” Mann continued: “The reality is that to have voted with Osborne would have led to political meltdown in Scotland and McDonnell’s political judgment faces some big questions. New Corbyn supporters would have been bemused and demoralised. It would have been a political disaster with huge consequences.” In more evidence of the discontent among backbenchers, Mike Gapes, Labour MP for Ilford South since 1992, took to Twitter on Tuesday morning to condemn the state of his party. “There is now no collective shadow cabinet responsibility in our party, no clarity on economic policy and no credible leadership,” he wrote. Challenged by another user of the social media site to show loyalty to Corbyn, Gapes responded: “I will show loyalty in the same way as he was loyal to Kinnock, Smith, Blair, Brown, Beckett, Miliband and Harman. OK?” Setting out his initial position at the Labour party conference last month, McDonnell said he would be advocating voting for Osborne’s plans because he was committed to balancing the books, even though he did not agree with many of the charter’s specific objectives. Some Labour MPs were openly planning to rebel and vote against the charter, including the Treasury select committee member Helen Goodman. There had also been opposition to McDonnell’s stance from the Scottish National party and members of his newly appointed economic advisory council, who were baffled as to how he could square his anti-austerity economics with support for the chancellor’s revised charter. In a letter sent to all Labour MPs on Monday, McDonnell explained his changed position. He said: “As the nature and scale of the cuts Osborne is planning are emerging, there is a growing reaction not just in our communities but even within the Conservative party. “The divisions over the cuts in tax credits to working families are just the first example of what we can expect as the cuts in other departments are exposed and the failure to find additional resources to bridge the growing expenditure gap in service areas like the NHS is revealed. So I believe that we need to underline our position as an anti-austerity party by voting against the charter on Wednesday.” |