Labour deputy leadership hopeful Lucy Powell called for a ‘course correction’ after a bumpy first year – but said she won’t be ‘throwing bricks’ at Keir Starmer if elected
Labour deputy leadership hopeful Lucy Powell has said she can deliver tough messages to No10 to avoid a repeat of the benefit cuts fiasco.
The Manchester Central MP called for a “course correction” after Labour’s bumpy first year, and warned that good policies like workers rights’ and rail nationalisation were being “overshadowed by mistakes”.
Speaking to the Mirror in the Strawberry Duck pub in her constituency, Ms Powell said she wouldn’t be “throwing bricks” at Keir Starmer. But she said Labour needs to “seize the political megaphone” from Reform and spell out to voters what it really stands for.
Party members begin voting on Wednesday to elect a new deputy leader, with Ms Powell in a race with Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson for the role. Ms Powell, who was sacked as Commons Leader in the reshuffle, casts herself as a voice for the party, against Ms Phillipson, who is seen as No10’s pick for the role.
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She said: “Party members and our broader movement want to see us changing course a bit here, and that’s what I offer.
“It’s not a radical kind of disruption, but a course correction to make sure that we’re making better decisions and we’re giving a better account of ourselves, and telling that clear story about who we are, what we’re for, and what we’re doing.”
Asked if she could deliver tough messages to No10, she said: “Absolutely. Look it’s not about being out on the airwaves, throwing bricks at the Government. That’s not my style.
“But I think I’ve effectively been the shop steward of the back benches for the last year, 15 months or so, and now I can be that shop steward directly elected by the members with that mandate of my own, to have those difficult conversations where they need having, and I’m unafraid to do that.”
Asked if she could prevent a repeat of the benefit cuts row that forced a Government U-turn, she said: “That’s absolutely what electing the deputy is about achieving.
“We got that wrong. It didn’t show our Labour values. There were too many holes in the policy, which is why we couldn’t persuade people and that is why we did change course on that.
“But I want to make sure that we do that further upstream, that you know our values.
“I think we make better decisions when we hear the broad voices of our movement, and that’s something we can put right.
“If we have a narrower and narrower set of people making decisions that are disconnected from our communities, that’s where we get things wrong, and I want to be that channel.”
Ms Powell said Labour needed to seize back control of the agenda, rather than being buffeted by Nigel Farage.
She said: “Now’s the time for us to seize back the political megaphone and tell a different story about what is actually wrong with this country and how we’re going about fixing it.
“The agenda has been set by others for too long. We’ve got a different version of what’s wrong with this country.
“Nigel Farage, and others want you to think that it’s all to do with immigrants and it’s not.
“It’s because of an economy in a country that’s just not working for people. We need to be clear that we’re setting around changing that.”
Ms Powell praised the PM for taking the fight to Reform at Labour conference last week and warned the party must face down the growing disillusionment in politics as a force for good.
“We’ve got to bring people together, not just in the wake of antisemitism and terrorist attacks, and the attack on the mosque [in East Sussex] as well, the rise in community tensions,” she said. “I feel like our democracy is at a precipice right now.
“The fracturing of our democracy, a growing division, growing kind of hate, growing disillusionment that mainstream politics is actually a force for good and can change people’s lives.”
Ms Powell warned that Labour can’t try to “out-Reform Reform” and risked losing voters on the left to the Greens and independents.
She said: “We’ve got to be really clear about whose side we are on and that’s got to go through absolutely everything that we do.
“Life has got harder and harder for most ordinary people, less and less secure over the last 30 to 40 years, from Thatcherism to the financial crisis, austerity, Covid, the energy crisis.
“People with assets, people with wealth, already have done very well out of that, whilst for ordinary working people, life has just got harder and harder. That’s what drives this Labour government. That’s what drives me.”
Ms Powell said it was wrong to strip the whip from seven MPs who voted to scrap the two-child benefit limit last year.
They have since had the whip restored, except for Zarah Sultana who quit Labour to form Your Party with Jeremy Corbyn.
“The sort of command and control era that helps you win elections doesn’t help you in government, it’s the wrong approach,” she said. “We can’t just try and browbeat people into going along with things.”
Ms Powell said punishing the two-child limit rebels gave the wrong impression about Labour’s values.
She said: “We’re for lifting the two-child benefit cap. That’s a fundamental principle because we want to address child poverty. But people wouldn’t know that because we’re taking the whip of people for voting for it. It’s the wrong way around.”
She said it was a “no brainer” to scrap the Tory policy, as speculation mounts that Rachel Reeves is looking to ditch it.
“We need to be a lot clearer that we’re in favour of the principle, that there’s an urgency to it, and that we’re straining every sinew to prioritise that as a measure in this Budget.
“That’s why we need to see it lifted, and we need to give a much clearer sense that this is a Budget that’s going to be about fairness, it’s going to be about tackling these deep seated inequalities.”
The ballot will be open until October 23 at midday, with the result announced on October 25.
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