Mail Weekly Column: 15 April 2024

It is always good when someone recognises the really rather remarkable things that happen in the beating heart of Barrow that is the shipyard. It is a pleasure to meet apprentices and see their enthusiasm for their work, and to see the incredible boats under construction.

I have said it in this column before, but I’ll use the example again: there is only one thing as complex as a nuclear submarine - the international space station. There is one of those. But in Barrow, at the end of a long road, in a quiet and unassuming fashion, our friends, family and neighbours are quietly getting on with the business of manufacturing a good number of those nuclear powered boats. Remarkable machines, crewed by remarkable people who work silently to keep us and our allies safe every single day of the year. We should be very proud of them all, and what this part of England does for the rest of the United Kingdom.

So you would think that a visit by the Labour leader last week to proclaim his support for the enterprise would be welcome. Well, you’ll have to forgive my scepticism about warm words uttered on a pre-election visit to burnish credentials. You know by now that I’ve touched on politics less than a handful of times in the 4 years of weekly columns I’ve produced, but this matters, and so I am crossing that line again.

I find it remarkably hard to swallow that a man who campaigned flat out in two general elections to put Jeremy Corbyn into Downing Street as Prime Minister - someone who wants to scrap the deterrent and pull us out of NATO - has really changed his spots.

Or that a party whose Shadow Foreign Secretary voted against renewal (alongside 12 of his frontbench colleagues) really has their heart in the remarkable work that is happening in Barrow, and the transformation it is bringing to the area.

Only a few weeks ago the Prime Minister and Chancellor visited Barrow and committed at least £220million to Furness over the next decade to secure Furness’ future as part of Team Barrow - the programme of work I have been leading on. Sir Keir was silent on that.

The fact is, the Labour leader has form in saying whatever works to move him forward and then ditching those pledges in the blink of an eye. I really want to be able to trust him on our national security and Barrow’s future, but I don’t, and I certainly don’t trust the people around him.

This is a man who, when running for Labour leader, campaigned to bring rail, energy, water and postal services back under public ownership. And then ruled it out.

This is a man who ran on a ticket of ending outsourcing of the NHS only to say later that he’d hold the door ‘wide open’ for the private sector.

This is a man who promised to abolish Universal Credit but now says... surprise, surprise… that he ‘fundamentally agrees’ with UC.

This is a man who campaigned for leader on a ticket of abolishing tuition fees but later admitted that he’d ‘moved on’ from that commitment.

This is a man who campaigned for a second referendum on the EU until it was no longer politically convenient to do so.

This is a man who who made a promise to spend £28billion every single year on eco-friendly policies before ditching that pledge in the face of having to explain where the money was going to have to actually come from.

The fact is, you can’t trust Labour with the submarine enterprise, and you can’t trust them on defence, no matter how warm their words may be in the run up to an election.