UK election: The great battle for Labour Party jobs

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LONDON — Imagine spending years toiling loyally for a political party, finally winning power — then losing your job.

That is the bittersweet prospect facing some in Britain’s Labour Party if, as its poll lead suggests, it returns to government following the election on July 4.

For months before the general election was called, the opposition party’s rising stock had led to fierce competition among think tanks and business for face time with shadow ministers. Reports of big name Labour hires had also prompted jitters among staff who feared being replaced — or their influence diluted — just as the party ends its 14-year hiatus from power.

Such idle thoughts will now be put to one side in the urgency of the campaign. But if Labour Leader Keir Starmer does make it into Downing Street, he’ll face an unavoidable issue: there will be too many ministers.

Under the terms of the U.K.’s Ministerial and Other Salaries Act, passed in 1975, only 109 ministers are eligible for government salaries at any time. Up to 95 can be MPs in the House of Commons, with the rest sourced from the House of Lords.

Yet Labour has 131 shadow ministers or whips who could qualify for a salary if in government, of whom 104 are MPs, according to research by POLITICO and the nonpartisan Institute for Government (IFG) think tank.

Thankfully for Starmer, retirements will bring the number of MPs on the frontbench almost back to the legal limit. Seven so far — Holly Lynch, Alex Cunningham, Alan Whitehead, Wayne David, Colleen Fletcher, Kevin Brennan and Barbara Keeley — have announced plans to stand down at the election.

But there remain the same number of roles in Labour’s shadow ministerial team, even if some people who fill them bow out.

Cutting them will need changes to the structure of Labour’s frontbench. IFG Programme Director Tim Durrant said: “If they get into government, Labour will need to either reduce the number of MPs with frontbench positions, or change the law to allow a greater number of ministers.”

Competition for jobs will also rise if the election ushers in an influx of ex-ministers and ambitious new MPs. If Labour’s poll lead is accurate, the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP) could roughly double in size — and ruthless candidate shortlisting has created a flood of would-be MPs fitting the centrist, professional mould of Starmer’s Labour.

Help! I have too many ministers

Several officials and MPs — granted anonymity to speak frankly about internal matters — believe some new MPs could be incorporated into junior government jobs either immediately or within a couple of years, pushing some current office-holders out.

Speculation about new arrivals surged on Monday night, as a flurry of long-serving MPs in safe seats announced their retirements. Three Labour activists told POLITICO that people were already being lined up to be parachuted in — including some members of the party’s ruling National Executive Committee, which oversees selections.

“The new intake is going to be the strongest since 1997 — man for man, probably even stronger,” said one shadow Cabinet minister. They dismissed the idea a new PM should avoid dramatically changing junior frontbench jobs: “You’re never more powerful than on day one.”

A second shadow Cabinet minister disagreed, predicting people who have never been ministers “will have to work their way up.” But candidates include some former frontbenchers who could hit the ground running, like Douglas Alexander, Emma Reynolds, Anna Turley and Heidi Alexander.

Both shadow Cabinet ministers predicted changes to the frontbench were more likely among junior ranks. “Keir has been down on all the ministerial churn in government. I can’t see him making big changes to the shadow Cabinet,” said the first.

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‘Dangerously incompetent’

A group of favored candidates was taken to Washington D.C. in January by the U.S. Progressive Policy Institute think tank, which employs Starmer’s former director of policy Claire Ainsley. Among them were Kirsty McNeill, a former adviser to ex-PM Gordon Brown, Hamish Falconer, a former civil servant and son of Blairite peer Charlie, and former soldier Mike Tapp.

Starmer has already shown he is willing to promote new MPs. Three who won by-elections since 2019, Ashley Dalton, Simon Lightwood and Michael Shanks, are now shadow ministers while two, Andrew Western and Britain’s youngest MP Keir Mather, are whips, charged with party discipline.

One Labour official was more blunt about why a reshuffle may be needed. “There’s a huge amount of talent out there,” they said. “The talent pool in the PLP currently is shocking because it’s so small. You get complaints that some shadow ministers are too left-wing, frankly — they’re not quite where the party is.”

A Labour frontbencher went further still. Some of their colleagues are “dangerously incompetent,” they said.

Frontbenchers ‘can’t work for free’

Starmer’s issue is not new; his predecessor-but-one Ed Miliband had 138 shadow ministers in 2014 before he lost the 2015 election.

Nor are huge frontbenches new; Conservative ex-PM John Major branded them a “constitutional outrage” in 2009. Labour’s top team will swell further if the PLP becomes big enough to deploy more MPs as parliamentary private secretaries, the unpaid “bag carriers” for ministers who must agree with government policy. Labour currently has fewer than a dozen but they can boost the number officially representing the government to more than 150.

And that presents one simple way to get round the cap — not paying minsters. The Conservative Party had 17 unpaid ministers as of March.

But “our people don’t have the kind of wealth that means they can work for free,” complained the frontbencher quoted above. One unpaid Tory minister, Richard Benyon, was worth £130 million in 2020, according to the Sunday Times Rich List. Another, Andrew Griffith, was the envy of Westminster when it emerged he owned a nine-bedroom Georgian house a few streets from parliament, which he is thought to have sold for seven figures.

Robbins was ‘devastated’ to leave government

Separate to the battle for ministerial jobs is intrigue over posts for officials, from the civil service to political appointees.

Cabinet Secretary Simon Case, the most senior civil servant in the land, is out of favor with Labour after years working with the Conservatives, and many party aides expect him to depart if there is a new government.

The most prominent name touted for his replacement is Olly Robbins, Downing Street’s former Europe adviser during the Brexit wars, who is friendly with Labour’s chief of staff (and former senior civil servant) Sue Gray. The Sunday Times reported in March he is Gray’s “first choice” for the role.

One person who knows Robbins said he was “devastated” to leave government in 2019 and would likely come back, given the chance. They added: “He was really talented and well thought of, and he was also a leader.

“It will depend on what Starmer wants from a Cabinet secretary … Do they just want a key adviser for the prime minister? Or do they want a leader for the civil service and a big reform program?”

A former Labour official who still speaks regularly to people in the party added: “Sue thinks very, very highly of him, as do a lot of members of the shadow Cabinet.” They added, however: “There were certain voices around that table who were less enthusiastic” about Robbins.

There is also an expectation that Louise Casey, a crossbench (non-aligned) peer who has carried out a number of high profile policy reviews for governments of all stripes, will be offered the chance to lead a prominent project or review under a Labour government.

The official added, however, that some new hires have helped calm fears among staff. They said Harvey Redgrave, a former adviser at the Tony Blair Institute (TBI) think-tank, and former Labour work and pensions adviser Graeme Cooke, were widely seen as collegiate and friendly after arriving at the party’s south London HQ in recent weeks.

‘A lot of it is in Sue’s head’

Some officials who spoke to POLITICO stressed people’s concern for their jobs is overblown — given any government has more than 100 special advisers, a civil service machine and some remaining roles in party HQ.

But roles if Labour forms a government have not been promised in advance. A second Labour official said: “The No. 10 political unit is very small. People in LOTO [the leader of the opposition’s office] and the policy teams are nervous.”

There remains speculation among staff about how Labour will run the “cross-cutting mission boards” it intends to oversee Starmer’s “five missions” of economic growth, green energy, the NHS, crime and justice, and opportunity. On this, and other hires, a third Labour official said: “A lot of it is in Sue [Gray’s] head. I would doubt anyone knows for certain.”

Added into the mix of uncertainty around jobs is the influence of Labour-friendly think tanks — the most prominent being Labour Together, which loans its own staff to the party and whose director Josh Simons is widely expected to find a last-minute candidacy, and the TBI, in part thanks to MPs’ respect for the ex-prime minister who founded it. The frontbencher quoted above said: “Think about it — even the prospect of an hour talking to the man himself, the lord on high; for some Labour MPs it’s the closest thing to pornography.”

The crowded field of people trying to influence Labour leads some staff to worry they could be leapfrogged — by new staff or new MPs. “Slightly trumped-up, over-hyped young men need to do their time,” quipped the third Labour official, naming no names.

What next for Morgan McSweeney?

Perhaps the most frequently whispered question relates to what lies next for Morgan McSweeney — Starmer’s election strategist who helped him become party leader.

Three of those who spoke to POLITICO said they could see McSweeney as a future Labour general secretary. “He’s so well-respected by so many people, and Keir is so indebted to him. If he wants a role, he could name it,” said the third Labour official quoted above.

Others are not so sure. They point out McSweeney’s talents lie in red-blooded campaigning, not the admin that comes with the top job.

“His mindset will be on day one: what’s the campaign to win the next election?” said one senior Labour figure who knows McSweeney well. “He should have some kind of political job that allows him to steer things in the right direction.”

As McSweeney himself would no doubt point out, Labour has an election to win first. All else is irrelevant. But after it, there may be a big game of musical chairs to come.

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