The arrival of Keir Starmer at 10 Downing Street in the United Kingdom in July, after 14 years of conservative power dominated by the trauma of Brexit, announced not only the return of political stability but also of political action anchored in reality of facts, rather than driven by ideology. Throughout his campaign, Keir Starmer promised the return of legendary British pragmatism. And in this area, the former attorney general who became Prime Minister, who is above all interested in “public policies that work, beyond preconceived ideas”, kept his promises. At the risk of displeasing even within his party.
Since the start of the school year in September, Keir Starmer’s Labor government has already presented four new initiatives and bills, inspired by what is being done elsewhere, in Italy, the United States and France. And this is just the beginning. Keir Starmer looks at “what works among his allies” without prejudice. In short, he does his shopping.
The left wing “disturbed”
At the beginning of September, Keir Starmer’s visit to Rome to speak with Giorgia Meloni about his recipes for curbing illegal immigration, struck consciences across the Channel and “disturbed” his left wing, like Kim Johnson, Labor MP from Liverpool. If Keir Starmer had warned that he would end the Conservative plan to send asylum seekers who arrived illegally in the United Kingdom to triage camps in Rwanda, he also promised that he would fight harshly against the influx of migrants – and in particular “small boats” crossing the Channel from the French coast.
No difference in views between Labor and Conservatives on the issue of illegal immigration, just a difference in method. And in the name of this method and what “works”, Starmer does not hesitate to appear with the leader of the Italian far right who has succeeded in reducing the number of migrants from ‘Africa by boat. After his talks with Giorgia Meloni, Keir Starmer declared himself particularly interested, not so much in the refugee camps relocated to Albania, but above all in the financial and cooperation agreements signed between Italy and Libya, ‘on the one hand and, and between Italy and Tunisia, on the other hand, to dissuade migrants before their journey, that is to say even before they leave the African continent and attempt to cross the Mediterranean.
Prison overcrowding: the Texan example
If a small part of his troops accuse Keir Starmer of doing the political splits, polls show that a clear majority of Britons are in favor of a solution to stop illegal immigration, wherever it comes from. When we know that the camp project in Rwanda cost British taxpayers 700 million pounds sterling (or nearly 825 million euros) before it even began, Giorgia Meloni’s investment in Tunisia, of the order of 200 million euros, with tangible results in just one year, seems relevant in the eyes of the Starmer administration.
Another hot topic in the United Kingdom is prison overcrowding. And this time, it is towards Texas that Keir Starmer’s team, and in particular his Minister of Justice Shabana Mahmood, turned to draw inspiration from a law introduced by Republican Governor Rick Perry in 2007. The very mention of Texas as a carceral model initially made many laborers shudder. This American state having executed 590 prisoners over the last forty years, or a third of all those sentenced to death in the United States, has the largest prison population in the country with 450 prisoners per 100,000 inhabitants.
Compared to the 143 prisoners per 100,000 inhabitants in England and Wales, one could legitimately ask what lesson the Starmer government intends to learn from the Texan model. It turns out that the reform introduced in 2007 by Rick Perry helped with the rehabilitation and reintegration of prisoners. A points system favoring those who volunteer, within the prison, for professional training, therapies and detoxification treatments, makes it possible to reduce the length of their prison sentences. Since 2007, the prison population in Texas has increased from 152,000 to 129,000 and crime has fallen by 29%. Repeat offenses have been halved while the professional integration of former prisoners has increased by 50%. In England and Wales, which has almost 89,000 prisoners, repeat offenders commit 80% of crimes each year.
Choose France imitated across the Channel
If the Italian and Texan examples have not yet been translated into action by legislative proposals or government plans, on the other hand, a bill on end of life and assisted suicide is currently being examined by the House of Lords , on the proposal of one of its members, former Labor minister of Tony Blair, and close to Keir Starmer, Lord Falconer. This bill is copied from the legislation in force in Oregon, the first American state to authorize access to medically assisted suicide for the terminally ill. If this law only concerns this category of patients, and not those who suffer on a daily basis like Parkinson’s patients, it would nevertheless represent an important development across the Channel where, only nine years ago, parliamentarians rejected a similar bill. The meeting between Keir Starmer and a famous journalist, Esther Rantzen, suffering from terminal lung cancer and an activist for assisted suicide for many years, was the trigger.
At the end of October, it was finally from President Emmanuel Macron and France that the Starmer government borrowed, not to say copied, the style and concept of Choose France, an operation to seduce the largest foreign investors organized with great fanfare at the castle of Versailles. Which did not fail, once again, to cause discussion within the Labor Party. In particular in front of the leaders of Goldman Sachs, BlackRock and Google, Keir Starmer especially praised the “rediscovered political stability” of the United Kingdom. At Guildhall, the old 15th century London town hall, Keir Starmer pulled out all the stops: a menu designed by Clare Smyth, the three-star Michelin chef, followed by a reception chaired by King Charles III and a littleentertainment signed Elton John. The aim was to represent the “UK” brand to the world’s largest investors. With 63 billion pounds sterling (or 75 billion euros) promised by investors, Keir Starmer can congratulate himself on having obtained almost twice as much as Rishi Sunak the previous year. Financially, at least, for Keir Starmer, pragmatism pays off.
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