Labour's opposition hypocrisy revealed

It's easy being in opposition. Any party spokeperson who doesn't have the responsibility of office is able to criticise the government of the day and put forward alternatives, and it is only reasonable that voters expect them to do better once they've become the government. Labour however, appear to have forgotten to apply this principle to themselves.

There are two examples of this hypocrisy. The first is over Tata Steel. 

On this issue, Martin Shipton on Nation Cymru, writes that the outcome of the Labour government's negotiations with Tata Steel over the company’s plan for its Port Talbot plant illustrates dishonest behaviour. 

He points out that in cash terms, the deal accepted by the UK Government, under which two blast furnaces are shut, 2,500 jobs are lost and the company will be given £500m towards the cost of building an electric arc furnace on the site, is identical to that accepted by the previous Conservative government. And yet senior Labour figures pulled no punches at the time in attacking the Tories at the time.

He provides examples of Shadow Welsh Secretary, Jo Stevens calling Tory Ministers short-sighted for squandering the potential of the Welsh economy by abandoning steelmaking in Port Talbot. 

She said then that the deep cuts to jobs at TATA are a kick in the teeth and accused ministers of compounding the risk to livelihoods, by effectively forking out £500m in taxpayers’ money to make up to 3,000 people redundant and forfeiting our ability to make virgin steel:

“Their attitude shows a casual indifference to thousands of people across south Wales whose livelihoods are at stake, a fundamental misunderstanding of the regional economy, and total disregard for the need to preserve the UK’s sovereign steelmaking capability. The truth is their approach is totally self-defeating. However Tory ministers try to spin it, the loss of sovereign steelmaking is a fundamental threat to our economy and security.”

And then there is Vaughan Gething, who, when he was standing for the leadership of Welsh Labour as Economy Minister, said the UK Government’s £500m package to help Tata transition to produce more environmentally-friendly steel was not enough to save thousands of jobs. 

He told a press conference that the shedding of about 2,500 jobs was “genuinely avoidable” if the UK Government would “engage” with the Welsh Government. Martin Shipton is scathing about this about-turn by Labour Ministers: 

Yet Tata had made it abundantly clear time and time again that the only deal acceptable to it was the one that had already been accepted by what is now the former Tory UK government. Labour politicians were well aware of that, but chose to keep the charade going. Eventually, as was inevitable, the emptiness of their supposedly tough talk was exposed when they accepted the terms of the original deal, which is now being implemented.

By pretending that a better deal could be achieved, Ms Stevens and Mr Gething were undoubtedly offering false hope to the steelworkers of Port Talbot.

It is difficult to disagree with his conclusion that politicians who raise false hopes in communities, especially in the run-up to an election, are reprehensible and not to be trusted.

And then there is HS2, where. waleson-line report that the Labour-led Treasury has confirmed it will not recategorise the HS2 rail project, nor pay millions of pounds in a consequential to Wales.

The main reason for this of course is that the Welsh Labour government declined the offer to take resposnibility for railway infrastructure in Wales. Scotland and Northern Ireland did take on this responsibility and as a result got a Barnett consequential for HS2. 

Because Wales passed on the opporunity any investment in rail infrastructure is classed as England and Wales, even if the track goes nowhere near Welsh territory. This, though, did not stop Labour politicians tearing into the Tories on the issue:

There has been a debate about exactly how much Wales has lost out on. Plaid Cymru had said it could be as much as £4bn, but earlier this year, Wales' then finance minister, Rebecca Evans, said the amount Wales had lost out on was £350m.

She told the Senedd: "£350 million has been lost to Wales as a result of the misclassification of HS2. We’ll continue to press the UK Government – any UK Government – to reclassify HS2 as an England-only project and to provide us with our fair share of the consequential funding."

Mrs Evans explained: "When we first saw the HS2 project, as originally envisaged, then we could be looking at those higher figures, in the billions of pounds, and we've used them ourselves as Welsh Government. But as the project became smaller and smaller, and looking at what's been delivered over the period since the project started, then the figure, I don't think it could be argued, is £350 million."

In October 2023, Mark Drakeford had said his government was considering all options, including possible legal action over Wales not receiving additional cash due to spending on HS2 in England.

The following year, in the Senedd, Mr Drakeford - then First Minister - said: "If, as we keep reading, HS2 is to be cancelled from Birmingham to Manchester, then the fiction on which the UK Government has relied that, somehow, that line is of advantage to Wales will be completely exploded. At that point, we need to have the Barnett consequential of the money that has been spent to date".

After Rishi Sunak scrapped the rail scheme, Mr Drakeford said: "The UK Government now needs to step up and give Wales the money we are already owed from this failed project."

After all this it surely would be reasonable for the newly appointed Labour Ministers to send the missing cash to Wales. Alas it is not to be, with Jo Stevens now saying: "We cannot go back in time and change the way that project was commissioned, managed and classified by the previous Conservative Government."

But isn't that why you were elected in the first place?

In these matters as in many others, don't believe what they say, believe what they do.