Rachel Reeves’ conference speech had a distinctive political aim: to prove that she is a Labour Chancellor. That might seem self-evident, but plenty over the last year have questioned Reeves’ ideological loyalties. From the left, critics have characterised her as a “Treasury drone” who championed “un-Labour” spending cuts. From the right, Reform supporters have cried that Labour and the Tories represent one failed “uniparty”.
The Chancellor’s 40-minute address was designed to undercut both critiques. “Don’t let anyone tell you that there is no difference between a Labour government and a Conservative government” was her repeated refrain. At a conference where Reform’s spectre has dominated this seemed incongruous (the Tories, Keir Starmer has declared, are “dead”). Was this nostalgia for the foe that Labour vanquished last year? Reeves’ aides say not, explaining that the line was chosen precisely with Reform in mind – a riposte to Nigel Farage’s charge that “all the other parties are the same”.
Reeves, who was introduced by a GMB welder in overalls, framed herself as an interventionist Chancellor, one unafraid to make distinctly Labour choices: saving British steel (she invoked her “securonomics” doctrine), expanding workers’ rights, raising public sector pay, increasing NHS spending by £29bn and expanding free school meals. It was what ally one called a “red-blooded” list designed to remind Labour that Reeves is one of their own.
She promised libraries for the 1,700 primary schools without them, the “abolition” of long-term youth unemployment through a new jobs guarantee, an “ambitious” EU youth mobility scheme and further action on child poverty (potentially paving the way for the abolition of the two-child benefit cap).
Posing the question so often asked of her and Starmer – “whose side are you on?” – Reeves replied in a well-crafted passage that the answer was “the steelworker in Scunthorpe, the engineer in Barrow, the shipbuilder on the Clyde”.
Having sought to demolish the Tories’ record anew, Reeves turned her attention to Reform in the second half of her speech, declaring that the party represented “the single greatest threat to our way of life and to the living standards of working people”. Businesses as well as voters, she warned, had cause to be afraid (allies believe firms have been too complacent about the danger posed by Farage).
But Reeves’ most notable political target was Andy Burnham. A section of her speech on fiscal responsibility had been drafted weeks ago, but the mayor’s NS interview – in which he argued the UK could no longer be “in hock” to the bond markets – lent it new political impetus.
“There are still critics out there who would too readily forget the consequences of reckless economic choices,” Reeves remarked with scorn. “They are wrong, dangerously so”. It was a section that echoed the “candour” of Jim Callaghan, a fellow Old Right politician, in 1976. Reeves didn’t name Burnham but she didn’t have to. (There were audible murmurs of approval from Labour MPs, some of who are furious with the mayor.)
Reeves sought to frame fiscal discipline not as antithetical to Labour values but as central to them, arguing that “there is nothing progressive, nothing Labour, about government using one in every £10 of public money it spends on financing debt interest”.
The audience, who gave Reeves standing ovations at several points, responded with polite applause – though this Labour Party doesn’t always like the consequences of fiscal rules, it still accepts the necessity of them.
The Budget, which Reeves will deliver on 26 November, loomed over her address. “This year has brought its fair share of challenges for our party and for our party,” said the Chancellor, the memory of whose tears in the Commons endures. “They won’t be the last.” It is the Budget, far more than today’s speech that will determine her political fate. But by clothing herself in distinctly Labour colours, Reeves will hope that she has won the political breathing space that she desperately needs.
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