On the day Starmer finally makes a policy announcement with some solid foundations, a Labour MP has gone off script to take a wrecking ball to it. In a speech today, Starmer will announce support for building on green belt land and back “the builders, not the blockers”. Meanwhile, Labour MP Alex Cunningham is backing the blockers.
Today, the Labour MP for Stockton North has described a proposal to build 700 new homes as “undesirable and unnecessary”. Alex isn’t alone in opposing Starmer’s pro-growth policies: John McDonnell has already tweeted his support for the green belt, whilst Labour’s frontbench is full of undercover NIMBYs. Even Lisa “Get Britain Building” Nandy actively opposed plans to build thousands of homes on her own patch. She specifically cited building on the green belt as her defence…
Of course, the Conservatives aren’t much better. In the same press statement where he recommitted to “growing the economy”, Greg Hands slammed “Labour’s Developers Charter” for “concreting over the green belt”. Greg gives with one Hand and takes with the other.
Co-conspirators can read Nandy’s letter opposing development below:
Given Sir Keir has spent months declaring his party is now “a government-in-waiting“, the chaos over Labour’s housing policy roll-out over the last two days offers a taste of what we might expect from a “serious” Starmer-led premiership. Here’s how it’s going…
On Sunday, Guido revealed Lisa “Nimby” Nandy’s hypocrisy over housing targets, with Nandy attacking the Tories for failing to build enough houses… despite opposing the building of thousands of homes in her own constituency. Her deputies, Matthew Pennycock and Paula Barker, are guilty of the same charge. Later that morning, Labour’s campaign chief Shabana Mahmood opened up a party split by opposing calls for rent controls, something which Nandy herself previously claimed to be “personally very interested” in, and which Sadiq Khan still tweets in favour of practically every day…
Then the Shadow Equalities Minister Anneliese Dodds managed to open up a new split on LBC… with herself. She told listeners that foreign buyers were attracted to the UK thanks to the “stability that our country provides“, only to then suggest one of the factors affecting housebuilding was that “we have not had that economic stability” under the Conservative government. Dodds later reassured Times Radio’s Luke Jones that Labour at least “understand that housing is about homes”…
Now Shadow Treasury Minister Tulip Siddiq has waded in to cast confusion over Labour’s approach to Right to Buy. In a written question, Siddiq asks what “assessment [the government] has made of the potential impact of the Right to Buy Scheme on the availability of council homes”, suggesting Labour are now opposed to the policy. Just a few months ago, however, Lisa Nandy insisted to Laura Kuenssberg she had “always believed in the Right to Buy and the right to buy your own home”. At the same time, Labour also briefed the I that the party “supports the principle of council and social tenants being able to buy the homes”. All this from the party that is now calling itself “the party of homeownership”, with promises of building 300,000 houses a year… somehow. Starmer forgot to mention housing once on his media round this morning.
This morning Shadow Housing Secretary Lisa Nandy is promising to “reintroduce requirements for local areas to make sure enough homes are being built” through Local Housing Need central targets for each council. The Government said last year that Local Housing Need would be an “advisory starting point” and could be adjusted to take into account local circumstances, with Michael Gove citing the Green Belt as one reason that local authorities could use to depart from the centrally-generated target. Now Labour are trying to toughen up with a promise to get shovels in the ground, with Nandy claiming “Labour is proudly the party of home ownership”…
Lisa’s supposedly tough new planning policy, however, is a departure from the Nandy of old. In 2016, she responded to plans for housing in Greater Manchester by demanding that the “process has the consent of the communities it will impact”. She went on to cite three local factors – the Green Belt, air quality and traffic congestion – as reasons why Wigan should not have thousands of extra homes…
Nandy isn’t the only member of the shadow housing team pretending to be pro-housing while acting like NIMBYs in their own constituency. Her deputies, Shadow Minister Matthew Pennycock opposed a 1,500 home development in his constituency over “tower height concerns”, while his colleague Paula Barker criticised this one last month.
Read Nandy’s full letter below:
Labour’s descent into gutter politics is still causing splash-back. On Peston last night, John McDonnell didn’t hold back over the Sunak attacks. The former Shadow Chancellor argued “you never go for the person in this individual way… it’s unacceptable”, before appealing to Nandy personally – “you’re better than this”. This didn’t go down well with Lisa, who hit back that she would “not take lessons from you about civility in politics”. McDonnell has never apologised for endorsing the lynching Esther McVey….
McDonnell then restated his case:
“You don’t do this. This is not Labour politics. We’re better than this”.
Apparently not…
