Snapshot of _Labour criticised for ‘U-turning’ on plans to abolish the House of Lords_ :
An archived version can be found [here](https://archive.is/?run=1&url=https://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/house-of-lords-keir-starmer-labour-gordon-brown-the-times-b1163088.html) or [here.](https://archive.ph/?run=1&url=https://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/house-of-lords-keir-starmer-labour-gordon-brown-the-times-b1163088.html)
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/ukpolitics) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I'd honestly cut it down to 200, only independents and the criteria is legal and constitutional experts bare minimum..no party donors or any affiliation to a political party.
They didn't really commit to anything in the first place, just spoke extremely positive about what they hoped to achieve in regards to a commission. Most of the reccomendations given by the commission seem to have stuck, so its weird to point to the exceptions to that especially when it was less committed to and more merely discussed.
If they didn’t commit to anything why did Starmer pledge it in his Labour leadership campaign?
https://www.clpd.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Keir-Starmers-10-Pledges.pdf
That pledge gives absolutely no time scale, and expecting the UK to be constitutionally reformed into a federal system within a single term is quite ambitious.
Starmer is still supportive of Lord reforms, he merely isn't committed to full abolition or federalism in his first term in power. Rather its been scaled back to a much more reasonable introduction of localism and a new round of Lords reform.
Seemingly so as you infer that any pledge must occur within the first elected term, even if a pledge like federalism would be practically impossible to implement so quickly.
This is bait. Labour didn’t pledge to abolish the House of Lords so how can it possibly be a U-turn. Reform it? Yes, and they haven’t U-turned on that. But not abolish it. This is lies.
One of Keir Starmer's [pledges](https://labourlist.org/2020/10/they-remain-my-priorities-starmer-recommits-to-leadership-campaign-pledges/) when he ran for the Labour leadership was to abolish the House of Lords.
[In November 2022](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-63692981), following the publication of the [report](https://labour.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Commission-on-the-UKs-Future.pdf) by Commission on the UK's Future, led by Gordon Brown, Labour stated that it wanted to abolish the House of Lords and replace it with an elected second chamber. [However](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/nov/19/keir-starmer-i-will-abolish-house-of-lords-to-restore-trust-in-politics), outright abolition in the first term of a Labour government seems to have been replaced by 'immediate reforms' to the existing chamber, including 'strip\[ping\] politicians of the power to make appointments to the Lords.'
[In February 2024](https://www.ft.com/content/e7935e2e-acd9-4f61-bc6d-f0b3b5c07357), the party more firmly 'delayed' its pledge to abolish the Lords in its first term, preferring to implement limited reforms and 'focus on economic priorities.'
So there has been a (fairly slow) U-turn in practical terms, or a reduction in scope if you want to be very generous. It's also old news, but the *Spectator* isn't unjusified in making the claim.
>One of Keir Starmer's pledges when he ran for the Labour leadership was to abolish the House of Lords.
The exact pledge is:
> Introduce a federal system, including a regional investment bank and control over regional industrial strategy, abolish the House of Lords and replace it with an elected chamber.
No time scale is given, and it would be nearly impossible to deliver on this pledge in a single term. Federalism isn't something that can easily be worked to within a single term, and given that no timescale for the pledge was given, assuming that it would be within the first elected term is being rather ambitious in how fast a government could turn a unitary state into a federal one.
>Labour stated that it wanted to abolish the House of Lords and replace it with an elected second chamber.
There is a vast difference between what Labour want to do and what they pledge to do within the first elected term. While Labour has spoke incredibly positive about the commission - including on Lords abolition - the commission remains recommendations and not a pledge.
>However, outright abolition in the first term of a Labour government seems to have been replaced by 'immediate reforms' to the existing chamber, including 'strip[ping] politicians of the power to make appointments to the Lords.'
This was really the first time Labour mentioned any time scale in their plans of localism and federalism, and it immediately creates a distinction between what will be done within the first elected term and what they are aiming towards.
>In February 2024, the party more firmly 'delayed' its pledge to abolish the Lords in its first term, preferring to implement limited reforms and 'focus on economic priorities.'
While firmer - as occurs with further consultation on what their first elected term will look like - this only had continued the distinction between the start of reforms in the first elected term and the more ambitious reforms of federalism and abolition that extend beyond it.
>No time scale is given
The messaging at the time was that abolishing the Lords was a first-term ambition. In 2022, for example, Starmer was [asked by Sky](https://news.sky.com/story/sir-keir-starmer-pledges-to-abolish-house-of-lords-in-first-term-as-prime-minister-12762032) if he hoped to abolish the Lords within his first term and answered 'Yes, I do. Because what I asked when I asked Gordon Brown to set up the commission to do this, I said what I want is recommendations that are capable of being implemented in the first term.'
As you quote yourself, Starmer doesn't made any commitment only a statement of "hope". When it comes to something like foundational constitutional reform, a hope that can be done in five years doesn't mean much.
You have to remember that a commission is not a statement of intent, but recommendations to define that intend. In that very interview you link, Starmer says that " today is now consult on those recommendations, test them, and in particular, look at how can they be implemented", which has quite evidently resulted in no commitment to a first term Lords abolition.
A pledge with no time scale, recommendations from a commission, and a vague hope are not commitment is to policy no less significant electoral reform within one elected term. At worst this serves as a communication error, and for that reason I would recommend that you don't treat every word from Labour as a matter of commitment. Because when you read what they actually said its often the case that they never committed to anything more than thinking about moving in that direction.
You're being quite naive, I think. It's clear that Labour intended to abolish the House of Lords in its first term, even if it didn't make a definitive statement to that effect, and has now decided not to do so.
It's pretty clear that it remains the overarching intention, and Starmer explicitly said he hoped it could be in the first term. These intentions and hopes have not changed.
What's happened is that what policies could be realistically achieved within the first term haven't lined up with those hopes and intentions. A stark difference between intentions and the reality of policy.
Starmer isn't overpromising what policies we can expect within his first term, even if that means his hopes and intentions are not met. I don't know about you, but I much prefer this than policy commitments being formed from hopes with little chance of implementation.
Starmer not being confident that full abolition and federalism can be implemented within the first term isn't a u-turn on policy, its being honest. It would have only been a u-turn if his intentions or committed policies has changed, but neither has only that the two are not as aligned as he hoped they could be.
>It's pretty clear that it remains the overarching intention
Is it? Following your logic, given the lack of an explicit statement from Labour stating that their policy is to abolish the Lords in their second term or beyond, we cannot assume that abolishing the Lords is Labour policy at all.
>These intentions and hopes have not changed.
They have, as it is no longer Labour's intention to abolish the Lords in its first term.
> cannot assume that abolishing the Lords is Labour policy at all.
Because policy is not intentions. Intention merely shapes where policy comes from, but what guides policy is much greater.
One of the confusions is the implicit assumption that intentions necessitate policy commitment. But that just isn't the case when considering how much those intentions have to go through to become policy.
>They have, as it is no longer Labour's intention to abolish the Lords in its first term.
As I said before, it's impossible to seperste intentions and the reality of policy.
Starmer made it clear before consultation of the Brown report that he hoped to implement the reforms in the first term, but that consultation phase evidently convinced him it would not be a feasible policy at this point.
This is the case for most policies honestly. They die in the consultation phase because hopes and intentions meet politically reality, be it backlash from Commons or public, legal changes, or whatever. One of the reasons Starmer never committed to a policy of Lords abolition was the liklihood he seems convinced by he would be defeated.
>Starmer made it clear before consultation of the Brown report that he hoped to implement the reforms in the first term, but that consultation phase evidently convinced him it would not be a feasible policy at this point.
Some people would call that a U-turn. It was Starmer's mistake to commit to an intention before working out if it was viable.
This comment is bait. Starmer did pledge to abolish the HoL so it is a U-turn. Reform it? No he said abolish, and they have U-turned on that*. Not reform it, abolish. This comment is a lie.
* He's delayed it which you could argue isnt a U-turn. But I would disagree, as he said he's done all the work while in opposition to work out what to do so that he wouldn't need to delay it when in power: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-63851922
He is pragmatic. If the political will is not there, you need to take it more slowly. I would rather a politician be aware and focus on other things that can be achieved rather than, for example, giving Rwanda £500 million and fail to implement anything…
Major constitutional changes like abolishing the HoL should be done via some sort of Royal Commission, not a landslide parliamentary victory.
It would be a democratically dodgy to claim that because Labour have won 70% of the seats there is therefore 70% support for abolishing the HoL.
He did say it during his 2020 leadership campaign and U-turn when he got the power position of the party, so it's spot on! And if a politician does it once (actually several times with his 2020 pledges), it's safe money they'll do it again
Add it to the long list of broken promises by Labour on democratic reforms.
EDIT: You can downvote but it doesn't change the fact that Labour promised PR and broke that promise. Labour promised an elected Lords and broke that promise. There is a clear track record here and the facts are simply a matter of public record.
I didn't agree with the proposal to create an elected second chamber, but it was as firm a Labour committment as you would expect pre-manifesto – Starmer was elected leader on a promise to do so – and has been abandoned for at least the next Parliament. In that sense it is a 'broken promise'.
Good, before you get into power do a lot of uturns and policy changes and make sure you spend your political captial on the right things which are actually helpful. I don't think the Lords is a real problem.
Imo they should spend almost all their political capital reforming the planning system in their first year and then the rest of it renegotiating a closer relationship with the EU.
Those are the big and controversial changes that would deliver the growth that would actually make people's lives better.
Snapshot of _Labour criticised for ‘U-turning’ on plans to abolish the House of Lords_ : An archived version can be found [here](https://archive.is/?run=1&url=https://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/house-of-lords-keir-starmer-labour-gordon-brown-the-times-b1163088.html) or [here.](https://archive.ph/?run=1&url=https://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/house-of-lords-keir-starmer-labour-gordon-brown-the-times-b1163088.html) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/ukpolitics) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I'd honestly cut it down to 200, only independents and the criteria is legal and constitutional experts bare minimum..no party donors or any affiliation to a political party.
They didn't really commit to anything in the first place, just spoke extremely positive about what they hoped to achieve in regards to a commission. Most of the reccomendations given by the commission seem to have stuck, so its weird to point to the exceptions to that especially when it was less committed to and more merely discussed.
If they didn’t commit to anything why did Starmer pledge it in his Labour leadership campaign? https://www.clpd.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Keir-Starmers-10-Pledges.pdf
That pledge gives absolutely no time scale, and expecting the UK to be constitutionally reformed into a federal system within a single term is quite ambitious. Starmer is still supportive of Lord reforms, he merely isn't committed to full abolition or federalism in his first term in power. Rather its been scaled back to a much more reasonable introduction of localism and a new round of Lords reform.
You and I seem to have different definitions of the words pledge and abolish
Seemingly so as you infer that any pledge must occur within the first elected term, even if a pledge like federalism would be practically impossible to implement so quickly.
Oh for fucks sake, give it a rest! ...and please remove "Non-partisan" from your flair; it's utterly laughable!
I'm non-partisan because I have no support for any political party. So better than ad-hominem attacks.
This is bait. Labour didn’t pledge to abolish the House of Lords so how can it possibly be a U-turn. Reform it? Yes, and they haven’t U-turned on that. But not abolish it. This is lies.
One of Keir Starmer's [pledges](https://labourlist.org/2020/10/they-remain-my-priorities-starmer-recommits-to-leadership-campaign-pledges/) when he ran for the Labour leadership was to abolish the House of Lords. [In November 2022](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-63692981), following the publication of the [report](https://labour.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Commission-on-the-UKs-Future.pdf) by Commission on the UK's Future, led by Gordon Brown, Labour stated that it wanted to abolish the House of Lords and replace it with an elected second chamber. [However](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/nov/19/keir-starmer-i-will-abolish-house-of-lords-to-restore-trust-in-politics), outright abolition in the first term of a Labour government seems to have been replaced by 'immediate reforms' to the existing chamber, including 'strip\[ping\] politicians of the power to make appointments to the Lords.' [In February 2024](https://www.ft.com/content/e7935e2e-acd9-4f61-bc6d-f0b3b5c07357), the party more firmly 'delayed' its pledge to abolish the Lords in its first term, preferring to implement limited reforms and 'focus on economic priorities.' So there has been a (fairly slow) U-turn in practical terms, or a reduction in scope if you want to be very generous. It's also old news, but the *Spectator* isn't unjusified in making the claim.
>One of Keir Starmer's pledges when he ran for the Labour leadership was to abolish the House of Lords. The exact pledge is: > Introduce a federal system, including a regional investment bank and control over regional industrial strategy, abolish the House of Lords and replace it with an elected chamber. No time scale is given, and it would be nearly impossible to deliver on this pledge in a single term. Federalism isn't something that can easily be worked to within a single term, and given that no timescale for the pledge was given, assuming that it would be within the first elected term is being rather ambitious in how fast a government could turn a unitary state into a federal one. >Labour stated that it wanted to abolish the House of Lords and replace it with an elected second chamber. There is a vast difference between what Labour want to do and what they pledge to do within the first elected term. While Labour has spoke incredibly positive about the commission - including on Lords abolition - the commission remains recommendations and not a pledge. >However, outright abolition in the first term of a Labour government seems to have been replaced by 'immediate reforms' to the existing chamber, including 'strip[ping] politicians of the power to make appointments to the Lords.' This was really the first time Labour mentioned any time scale in their plans of localism and federalism, and it immediately creates a distinction between what will be done within the first elected term and what they are aiming towards. >In February 2024, the party more firmly 'delayed' its pledge to abolish the Lords in its first term, preferring to implement limited reforms and 'focus on economic priorities.' While firmer - as occurs with further consultation on what their first elected term will look like - this only had continued the distinction between the start of reforms in the first elected term and the more ambitious reforms of federalism and abolition that extend beyond it.
>No time scale is given The messaging at the time was that abolishing the Lords was a first-term ambition. In 2022, for example, Starmer was [asked by Sky](https://news.sky.com/story/sir-keir-starmer-pledges-to-abolish-house-of-lords-in-first-term-as-prime-minister-12762032) if he hoped to abolish the Lords within his first term and answered 'Yes, I do. Because what I asked when I asked Gordon Brown to set up the commission to do this, I said what I want is recommendations that are capable of being implemented in the first term.'
As you quote yourself, Starmer doesn't made any commitment only a statement of "hope". When it comes to something like foundational constitutional reform, a hope that can be done in five years doesn't mean much. You have to remember that a commission is not a statement of intent, but recommendations to define that intend. In that very interview you link, Starmer says that " today is now consult on those recommendations, test them, and in particular, look at how can they be implemented", which has quite evidently resulted in no commitment to a first term Lords abolition. A pledge with no time scale, recommendations from a commission, and a vague hope are not commitment is to policy no less significant electoral reform within one elected term. At worst this serves as a communication error, and for that reason I would recommend that you don't treat every word from Labour as a matter of commitment. Because when you read what they actually said its often the case that they never committed to anything more than thinking about moving in that direction.
You're being quite naive, I think. It's clear that Labour intended to abolish the House of Lords in its first term, even if it didn't make a definitive statement to that effect, and has now decided not to do so.
It's pretty clear that it remains the overarching intention, and Starmer explicitly said he hoped it could be in the first term. These intentions and hopes have not changed. What's happened is that what policies could be realistically achieved within the first term haven't lined up with those hopes and intentions. A stark difference between intentions and the reality of policy. Starmer isn't overpromising what policies we can expect within his first term, even if that means his hopes and intentions are not met. I don't know about you, but I much prefer this than policy commitments being formed from hopes with little chance of implementation. Starmer not being confident that full abolition and federalism can be implemented within the first term isn't a u-turn on policy, its being honest. It would have only been a u-turn if his intentions or committed policies has changed, but neither has only that the two are not as aligned as he hoped they could be.
>It's pretty clear that it remains the overarching intention Is it? Following your logic, given the lack of an explicit statement from Labour stating that their policy is to abolish the Lords in their second term or beyond, we cannot assume that abolishing the Lords is Labour policy at all. >These intentions and hopes have not changed. They have, as it is no longer Labour's intention to abolish the Lords in its first term.
> cannot assume that abolishing the Lords is Labour policy at all. Because policy is not intentions. Intention merely shapes where policy comes from, but what guides policy is much greater. One of the confusions is the implicit assumption that intentions necessitate policy commitment. But that just isn't the case when considering how much those intentions have to go through to become policy. >They have, as it is no longer Labour's intention to abolish the Lords in its first term. As I said before, it's impossible to seperste intentions and the reality of policy. Starmer made it clear before consultation of the Brown report that he hoped to implement the reforms in the first term, but that consultation phase evidently convinced him it would not be a feasible policy at this point. This is the case for most policies honestly. They die in the consultation phase because hopes and intentions meet politically reality, be it backlash from Commons or public, legal changes, or whatever. One of the reasons Starmer never committed to a policy of Lords abolition was the liklihood he seems convinced by he would be defeated.
>Starmer made it clear before consultation of the Brown report that he hoped to implement the reforms in the first term, but that consultation phase evidently convinced him it would not be a feasible policy at this point. Some people would call that a U-turn. It was Starmer's mistake to commit to an intention before working out if it was viable.
This comment is bait. Starmer did pledge to abolish the HoL so it is a U-turn. Reform it? No he said abolish, and they have U-turned on that*. Not reform it, abolish. This comment is a lie. * He's delayed it which you could argue isnt a U-turn. But I would disagree, as he said he's done all the work while in opposition to work out what to do so that he wouldn't need to delay it when in power: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-63851922
He is pragmatic. If the political will is not there, you need to take it more slowly. I would rather a politician be aware and focus on other things that can be achieved rather than, for example, giving Rwanda £500 million and fail to implement anything…
I'm in favour of reforming it rather than just scrapping it. It should be a technocratic institution where industry experts scrutinize legislation
Major constitutional changes like abolishing the HoL should be done via some sort of Royal Commission, not a landslide parliamentary victory. It would be a democratically dodgy to claim that because Labour have won 70% of the seats there is therefore 70% support for abolishing the HoL.
Have we not learned yet 1) say a load of stuff you think people will like. 2) get into power and do the opposite.
They are saying this during an election which is the opposite of reverting ideas once in power
He did say it during his 2020 leadership campaign and U-turn when he got the power position of the party, so it's spot on! And if a politician does it once (actually several times with his 2020 pledges), it's safe money they'll do it again
It doesn't mean he won't do it, it's just not really a priority to do it right now. Leaders don't write the manifestos single handedly after all
Shows they are jumping the gun and already consider it won, meaning better backtrack now.
It's clear now that it's a bluff. Labour needs to have a credible threat on the table as otherwise the Lords will block all meaningful legislation.
Add it to the long list of broken promises by Labour on democratic reforms. EDIT: You can downvote but it doesn't change the fact that Labour promised PR and broke that promise. Labour promised an elected Lords and broke that promise. There is a clear track record here and the facts are simply a matter of public record.
I didn't agree with the proposal to create an elected second chamber, but it was as firm a Labour committment as you would expect pre-manifesto – Starmer was elected leader on a promise to do so – and has been abandoned for at least the next Parliament. In that sense it is a 'broken promise'.
Good, before you get into power do a lot of uturns and policy changes and make sure you spend your political captial on the right things which are actually helpful. I don't think the Lords is a real problem. Imo they should spend almost all their political capital reforming the planning system in their first year and then the rest of it renegotiating a closer relationship with the EU. Those are the big and controversial changes that would deliver the growth that would actually make people's lives better.