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The Tory leadership debate was a scrap between political lightweights

This article was first published on 25 July 2022 in the Mirror.

Last night’s Tory leadership debate was supposed to be a championship fight in the battle to be the next Prime Minister.

Instead, we got a scrap between political lightweights.

Less the rumble in the jungle: more the joke in Stoke.

Former Chancellor Rishi Sunak ducked questions about why he put up tax 15 times on working people and businesses

Liz Truss did the same when she was asked how she is going to pay for the £30 billion of unfunded giveaways she’s promised.

The country deserved to hear proper plans for how the Tories are going to get us out of the cost of living crisis they created.

Instead, we got two continuity candidates pretending it’s everyone’s fault but theirs.

Two stooges of Boris Johnson’s failed government, who parroted every lie he told and nodded along with every decision he took.

Two Tories with nothing to offer working people except more of the same.

The only haymakers on show were personal insults or when they trashed the Tories’ 12 years in government.

As the two contenders limped on it became more ridiculous.

We didn’t hear a word on the things that matter to people across the country.

Energy bills are going to go up by £1,000 in October – what are they going to do to help hard-pressed families and businesses?

When are they going to scrap tax breaks that only benefit the super-wealthy, like non-dom status or private school loopholes?

How are they going to ensure people can get a doctors appointment? Or renew their passport? Or sort out the gridlock at Britain’s ports that is damaging our economy and stopping people getting away on their summer holidays?

The truth is, having made this mess, they’ve thrown in the towel on fixing it.

Fortunately, we did see one heavyweight event yesterday.

Just up the road in Liverpool, Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves were setting out Labour’s plans to grow Britain’s economy and ensure we all feel the benefit.

Fully costed, pragmatic, ambitious, focused on doing right by working people.

That’s the Labour Party back to its rip-roaring best.

And it’s going to land a knockout blow on whichever contestant emerges from this Tory debacle.

By Conor McGinn MP, Shadow Cabinet Minister

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Why we need to improve our national cyber security strategy

This article was originally published in the New Statesman’s Spotlight policy supplement on cyber, 19 November 2021. 

Cyberspace has been a key frontier of Britain’s national security challenge for some years now. Costly and debilitating attacks from hostile state and non-state actors are at their highest-ever levels, and continue to grow in scope and sophistication.

In March 2021, four in ten businesses, plus a quarter of charities, reported having cyber security breaches or attacks in the previous 12 months, with many causing lasting damage. This malign activity brings a financial cost to the UK of some £27bn every year. And by jeopardising the increasingly digital means by which people go about their lives, it carries a heavy social price too.

As our personal and social dependence on online systems and smart technology deepens within our homes, cities, businesses and lifestyles, the imperative for a robust cyber policy becomes ever more urgent.

But despite the efforts of UK law enforcement, our intelligence and security services, plus those working in cyber resilience, ministers have left us exposed. Their failures have seen Britain fall behind the curve compared to our international partners – and, crucially, those who wish us harm.

Not enough is being done to target the organised criminals and cyber terrorists who often work transnationally to maximise their devastation. In many cases, they function like large corporations, backed by sophisticated teams of developers, coders and hackers with the latest tech. In their pursuit of maximum gain and disruption, these criminals rarely discriminate between public and private sectors – all of society stands at risk.

Nowhere is this felt more acutely than in the rising threat posed by ransomware, of which there were some 305 million incidences globally in 2020. Lindy Cameron – head of the UK’s National Cyber Security Centre (and interviewed on page 10 of this issue) – has said that this digital blackmail poses the “most immediate danger” to our country, with GCHQ disclosing that the number of these attacks on British institutions has doubled in the past year.

The government is yet to get serious about this. There was no specific strategy on tackling ransomware in the Beating Crime Plan, nor anything of substance on shutting down those who cynically employ these tactics at home and abroad.

These threats don’t just emanate from organised crime. Hostile states increasingly see cyber as a front line, a grey zone, in conflict. More than half of all cyber attacks are reported to now come from Russia. Iran and North Korea are emboldening their capabilities. Chinese state-sponsored agents attacked Microsoft earlier this year, affecting 30,000 organisations globally. And the Russian-backed SolarWinds compromise in 2020 was estimated to be the worst-ever cyber espionage attack on the US government with several departments hit.

For our foes, cyber has become a means by which to target critical infrastructure, peddle falsehoods in our democracy, and wreak havoc in our communities. This activity is becoming more overt and reckless. Yet, instead of instigating tougher responses, ministers are reticent to bolster our systems. It beggars belief, for example, that over a year since the damning report on Russia by the Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC), ministers are yet to implement any of its recommendations. It contradicts the Integrated Review’s aim to make the UK a world-leading cyber power.

The long-delayed Online Safety Bill (explored on page 19) is also ineffective. It could see cybercriminals let off the hook. The government must swiftly address its flaws to better protect the public – for example, by introducing criminal sanctions for bosses of the “big tech” companies that do nothing to stop scammers and fraudsters freely operating on their platforms.

Together, these failings reveal this administration’s inability to take strategising, planning and the meeting of targets seriously. A 2019 report from the National Audit Office on the latest cyber security strategy – now five years old – confirmed this. It concluded that the strategy had “inadequate baselines for allocating resources, deciding on priorities or measuring progress effectively”.

The government also shows scant regard for cyber security in practice. Whether ministers are conducting official business via WhatsApp, or using personal email accounts, leaving sensitive data exposed, their failure to attend to the most basic rules of online security is telling.

Reports that ministers are set to outsource the storage and protection of classified data held by the security and intelligence agencies to Amazon raises further serious questions. For a deal with this scale of impact on national security and cost to the taxpayer, it is vital that there be proper scrutiny. We cannot trust ministers’ private assurances given their record on wasteful projects.

Keeping the country and the public safe is Labour’s top priority. This means working to strengthen our resilience in cyberspace, together with those across society who use and rely upon it.

With local authorities, the NHS, engineering firms, tech companies and schools all in the line of fire, the need for a more joined-up, whole-of-systems cyber resilience strategy is clear.

This requires input from the private sector, institutions, researchers and academia. It means improving the recruitment and retention of the UK’s best cyber specialists – a task the government is failing on. It also means improving cultural awareness of cybercrime and the processes by which hostile cyber activity is reported, monitored and understood. This crime is prevalent, but it is seriously under-reported, with a lack of clarity on who to turn to for UK organisations. The Conservatives have let cybercrime become a cost of doing business – Labour will not.

Finally, we need to ensure our laws are fit for the challenges of today and the future. The Computer Misuse Act, which remains in use, is 30 years old. It was created before most of us could even get online. Reviewing our legislative tools against cybercriminals must be given greater priority.

As we await the next national cyber security strategy, Labour is clear that we need to get ahead of the dangers of cyber threats. If ministers cannot, they will be putting the public, and the country, further at risk.

Conor McGinn is the shadow security minister.

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This article was originally published in The Times ‘Red Box’.

The scenes from London last weekend were abhorrent and shameful. The violence against police and the widespread rioting culminated in more than 100 arrests. A group came to the streets intent on disorder, in a reaction to the calls by millions of people in Britain and around the world for equality and justice for all, regardless of skin colour. 

Sadly, this is more than a “small minority”, as the home secretary said in response. It is the expression of a broader, more menacing threat from far-right extremism, hooliganism and terrorism that is growing at a deeply concerning rate. Home Office figures last week revealed that the number of individuals in custody for terrorist-related offences and holding far-right ideologies had increased by a third from the previous year – and this from record levels following a steady rise in recent years. There is also a strong and worrying correlation with hate crime, which is up by a staggering 97 per cent since 2015. 

Half of Channel cases and a quarter of referrals to Prevent – the government’s counter-terrorism programmes – related to right-wing radicalisation as of March. Last year 12 far-right activists were convicted of terrorism-related charges, and 10 more are facing trial. Four years ago this week my friend Jo Cox, a terrific MP, was murdered by a right-wing extremist. We need no further reminder of the horrors that this hatred can spark. 

Counter-terror police leaders have been warning for some time about an emerging form of far-right terrorism. And terrorism it surely is. It is the unlawful use of violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims. There is no doubt that the aim is political — the rejection of modern Britain’s diverse way of life. Britain is not alone in this, as right-wing extremist attacks in the US, New Zealand and Germany show. There is a significant increase in the threat from far-right extremism, and it’s vital that there should be a coherent strategy to tackle it. Frustratingly, this appears to be lacking. 

After over a year of dithering, the government is trying to remove the legally binding deadline this summer for the independent review of Prevent, leaving little indication of when we can expect the report. This delay is symbolic of the Home Office’s confusion and lack of grip. If the government is serious about tackling the threat from an emboldened far-right, it needs a comprehensive strategy. 

Much has changed since existing systems were put in place. And, while many on the front line in the battle against violent extremists do excellent work, we have to make sure that the growing threat is fully understood and addressed. That means publishing the reviews that have been promised, along with action plans. More than that, it requires an ambitious and thoughtful approach to how we tackle this threat. 

Far-right extremism is not just a stain on our society; it’s a serious threat to our security. As the latest counter-terrorism legislation undergoes its passage through parliament, this is the time to act.

Conor McGinn MP is Labour’s shadow security minister.

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This article first appeared in the 40th anniversary edition of The House magazine in November 2016.

When 26-year-old Ann Taylor failed to win a seat in her hometown in February 1974, little would she have believed that she would be at the centre of the drama at the end of that decade’s Labour Government and be in the Cabinet when Labour next formed a Government. It’s doubtful too whether she’d have thought that there would be eighteen years between those events, and during that period she’d have won, lost and won a seat again.

When Ann did first win the marginal constituency of Bolton West just eight months after her first defeat, in October 1974, she arrived in Parliament as one of just two dozen or so women MPs. Westminster then was a bastion of male domination, typified by the smoke-filled rooms and the hard-drinking bruisers of the Whips Office. That didn’t faze Ann who just two years later found herself in the belly of that beast, a Labour Government Whip trying to hold together an administration losing support in the country and in the Commons – now dramatized in the play “This House”. Her combination of toughness, deftness and nous in the role won her widespread respect then and would serve her and Labour well in the future.

When Labour lost the 1979 General Election, Ann held her seat by just 600 votes, but boundary changes and a further rout in 1983 saw her leave Parliament, only to return for Dewsbury in 1987. She returned to the frontbench shortly afterwards and following a devastating Labour loss in 1992 became a high profile member of John Smith's Shadow Cabinet as education spokeswoman. Ann shared Smith’s ‘old right’ Labour pedigree, but had to work hard after his death to maintain a position in the ascendant New Labour project. A party traditionalist from outside the metropolitan liberal circles en vogue then, Ann didn’t fit the stereotype of a Blair Babe and despite her strong feminist beliefs she didn’t always sit comfortably within Labour’s 'sisterhood'. She was, however, a loyalist who desperately wanted Labour back in Government, and her ability in the Commons chamber and her record as a formidable campaigner saw Tony Blair come to rely on her as one of his key allies.

When Labour returned to power in 1997, Ann cracked a pretty thick glass ceiling by becoming the first ever woman Leader of the House of Commons, and a year later the first woman Government Chief Whip. Having been a Junior Whip desperately trying to keep a Labour minority Government in power in the 1970s, she had become the Grande Dame of a Labour Government with a thumping majority of 179 in the 1990s. Ann stood down as an MP in 2005 and was appointed to the Lords where she became a Defence Minister under Gordon Brown – the fourth Labour Prime Minister she served.

Over the last 40 years many men and women have inspired and justifiably earned the status of political hero. The “girl from a council estate in Bolton” wouldn’t dream of applying that description to herself, and perhaps that’s why she is so deserving of it.

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When I defend the Good Friday Agreement, I do so as one of its beneficiaries

When the Good Friday Agreement was signed 20 years ago this week, I was a teenager growing up in South Armagh. While recently watching Channel 4’s fantastic new comedy ‘Derry Girls’, I couldn’t help but think that if they had relocated to the Newry-Dundalk border and made it about a group of uncouth 14 year-old lads with limited sporting prowess, mixed academic ability and occasional success with girls; that would have been us. Like the Derry Girls, we Armagh Boys were just ordinary kids trying to navigate the normal challenges of being teenagers.

But we had abnormal challenges too. Helicopters, armed soldiers, riots, bombings, shootings. On the streets, on the news. It was life, perhaps not how most people know it, but how we knew it. By 1998, it had been life for my grandparents and my parents for over 30 years, and there wasn’t much to suggest it would be anything other than life for me and my friends for the next 30 years. Then life changed, or, at least, a possibility was offered that it could change.

When I champion, defend and support the Good Friday Agreement, I do so not as one of its authors, negotiators or influencers but as one of its beneficiaries. I am the Agreement’s child, not its parent.

The mastery of the Good Friday Agreement was in its definitive pronouncements on reconciling competing concepts of identity, citizenship and constitutional aspirations.

For unionists, the principle of consent - namely that Northern Ireland would remain part of the United Kingdom for as long as the majority of people in it wish that to be the case – was a hard won and long sought recognition of their status and legitimacy.

For nationalists, that was tempered by an acknowledgement that any change to the constitutional status of Northern Ireland is a matter “for people of the island of Ireland alone… without external impediment”, on the basis of consent given “concurrently in both parts of the island”, which removed the British Government from the equation.

For me, by far the most important aspect of the Good Friday Agreement is that it enshrines the birth right of all the people of Northern Ireland to hold British and Irish citizenship, and identify as either or both. Many people are exclusively one or the other, and that is entirely legitimate. However for others, including me, it took away forced and practiced self-exclusion; the idea that if you were one you couldn’t be the other too. It meant that people didn’t have to choose, and allowed me to say in my maiden speech when, as an Ulsterman and an Irishman, I stood up in the House of Commons as a British MP representing an English constituency, “Today there is friendship and co-operation between the UK and Ireland. There is no longer any contradiction to being Irish and British and having feelings of loyalty and affinity to both countries."

I stand by what I said and still believe it. But that idea and the very Agreement it stems from is under threat. Brexit and the collapse of the institutions at Stormont have led some to say the Agreement has outlived its usefulness. They are completely wrong. The principles, substance, aspirations and vision of the Good Friday Agreement were not the end, but the beginning. They gave politicians in Northern Ireland the basis on which to construct a better future for people who lived there, like me. And, despite ups and downs, those politicians delivered. Things are much better than they were, but the work of building peace is not complete. The architects of the Good Friday Agreement gave us the plans and laid the foundations. It up to us, twenty years on, to finish the job.

*****

This article appeared in The Times on 10th April 2018.

Conor McGinn is the Labour MP for St Helens North and Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Ireland and the Irish in Britain.

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The Government must act on pay to stop the NHS exodus

The departure of thousands of nurses from the NHS over an unremitting pay cap is threatening to become an unsustainable exodus. It’s clear evidence that the policy of capping public sector pay at 1 per cent is putting the vital public services on which we all rely in serious danger. The cap has meant a real-terms wage cut for millions of public sector workers for years, as they try to make ends meet at a time when inflation is just below 3 per cent and could rise still higher. Fed up with enduring the annual erosion in their living standards, dedicated NHS staff are now leaving their jobs in droves. The situation is made worse as many EU workers, nervous about what Brexit will mean for them, return home. More nurses and midwives are now leaving the profession in the UK than joining it. The latest figures show 45 per cent more UK registrants left the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) register than joined it in 2016/17. The overall number of those who left was 34,941, compared with 23,087 in 2012/13. Applications for nursing degrees fell 23 per cent this year. The trend is particularly marked among young nurses and midwives. Many say they cannot afford to live on the wages they get and some are even forced to rely on food banks. Those who claim giving nurses and midwives a decent pay increase would mean a massive extra cost are wrong. They are ignoring the soaring bill for paying agencies to plug the gaps left by shortages of permanent staff. The cost of giving staff a decent pay rise could be partly met from the savings made by cutting the high cost of agency staff, which hit almost £3 billion last year. The bad news over pay for staff is also bad news for patients. The staffing shortages in the NHS mean higher waiting times, fewer services and a greater risk of cancelled appointments. Tired, overworked staff cannot be expected to continue to offer the quality of care that we would all hope to receive. Anyone who has used the NHS recently knows just how much pressure our services and staff are under. MPs from all parties know this too because it is what our constituents tell us on a daily basis. And that is why I have gained cross-party support for my call for the government to end the pay cap now. My Commons motion is backed by Labour, Lib Dem, SNP, DUP, Plaid Cymru, Green and independent MPs. In the last few weeks we have seen how cross-party co-operation and backbenchers working together can get things done. So I’d urge all those Conservative MPs who agree with me and think that the pay cap should be ended to support my motion and force the government to act. For too long, the men and women in our police, fire service, schools and NHS have been taken for granted. Those who keep our public services running must get the fair pay that is long overdue. Parliament can, and should, make it happen. Conor McGinn is the Labour MP for St Helens North

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Labour must accept the referendum result. We lost. The fight now is against a Tory Hard Brexit.

This week’s vote in Parliament is not about whether Britain leaves or stays in the European Union. The British people already took that decision in the EU referendum last June.

The vote on the European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill is about triggering Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty and allowing negotiations to start on the terms of our withdrawal.

The terms of that deal are likely to have a massive impact in terms of our economy, jobs, workers’ rights and our trading prospects for decades to come in communities across St Helens and the country.

During last year’s EU referendum campaign, I and many Labour Party colleagues passionately argued and campaigned for a remain vote. We lost.

The people of St Helens - by 58% to 42% - alongside the British people as a whole, delivered their clear decision that we should leave the EU.

I disagree with that decision but I cannot ignore it. I would find it very difficult to ask that my mandate to represent people in St Helens North in the House of Commons is accepted and respected if I chose not to accept or respect the referendum result in my own constituency and nationally.

However, St Helens North received £3.8m of direct EU finding for community projects alone between 2007 and 2013 and the North West received almost £1 billion in total during the same period.  We won’t get that money post-Brexit.

So, we must keep the pressure on the Government to get the best possible deal.  That’s why Labour has put forward proposals which aim to amend the Bill to ensure the following:

* There is a meaningful vote in Parliament on the final exit settlement - to be held before the Government refers the deal to the European Council and Parliament.

* A number of key principles are agreed that the Government must seek to negotiate during the process, including securing barrier-free access to the single market and protecting workers’ rights.

*The legal status of EU citizens in the UK is resolved before negotiations begin. 

* There is robust and regular Parliamentary scrutiny throughout the Brexit negotiations by requiring the Secretary of State to report to Parliament at least every two months.  

*That the Government be required to publish impact assessments conducted since the referendum about any new proposed trading relationship with the EU. 

I will support these and other amendments to the Bill, but ultimately I feel I am required to vote to trigger of Article 50 to fulfil my democratic obligation to respect the result of the referendum. In doing so, I will be supporting the Labour Party’s whipped position.

Article 50 is the only mechanism through which the decision of the majority of the people in St Helens and the United Kingdom to leave the EU can be implemented. But while I believe that the referendum result created this democratic imperative for the UK to leave the EU, it gave no mandate for the terms upon which we exit.

So the real battle before us is over the form that Brexit will take.

My focus in the months ahead will be to keep the pressure on the Government to get the best possible Brexit for St Helens North, Merseyside, the North West and the country as whole.

Labour must resist the kind of post-Brexit Britain proposed by Theresa May and the hard-right of the Tory party. We must shape our own vision of what Britain’s future should be based on our Labour values and in the national interest.

And we must remain an outward-facing country. I want as close as relationship outside the EU with our European partners as possible. It’s particularly important to me that Ireland is foremost amongst those, and that we protect the Common Travel Area between our two countries, and the peace process in Northern Ireland.

There will be many challenges ahead. My priority is the people of St Helens North and I will do my best to continue to represent all of my constituents, whether or not they voted for me in 2015 and whether they voted leave or remain in 2016.

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Earlier today I spoke with the new Chief Whip Nick Brown. I am very grateful to Nick for offering me the opportunity to stay in his Whips Office, but I explained to him that I felt it was the right time for me to leave the frontbench at this reshuffle to concentrate on my constituency responsibilities and my young family. Nick was courteous and understanding in accepting my resignation. He and the new Whips Office have my very best wishes. It has been an honour to serve as an Opposition Whip since last September. As Labour's Treasury and Cabinet Office Whip, I was proud to play a role in holding the Tory Government to account and challenging its policies of austerity and division. I would like to thank Rosie Winterton, who has been an outstanding Chief Whip, and all my colleagues in the Whips Office for their friendship, guidance and support. I will continue to diligently represent St Helens North and loyally serve the Labour Party from the backbenches.

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We in Labour need to show who we are and what we are

Faith, flag and family. Labour needs to understand these three things and reconnect with people who think they are important, rooting the party in the communities where they matter.

Family is at the centre of community life in places like St Helens North. But there is a generation - my generation - who find it can be tough to balance everything. Most parents I know with young families work hard and long hours. They struggle with the cost of childcare and don’t get to spend enough time with their kids. They also worry about their own parents, relying on granny or grandad for help but at the same time being anxious about them growing older and the care they’ll need. Labour must offer those families empathy, support and security.

There is more than one flag now. And the relationship between the Union flag, the Saltire and the flag of St George is one we need to think about. We need to be a patriotic party that neither superficially exploits nor obnoxiously denigrates any of those flags or those who feel pride in them. Who people are, and what they feel, matters. Labour has to emotionally connect with the many layers of identities that people in Britain have now, including local, regional, and national. And most of all we in Labour need to show who we are and what we feel.

You don’t have to do God to get faith. In my constituency, churches and their volunteers run the pensioners’ lunch clubs, the parent and toddler groups and the food banks. They are there for people who need them most. They also occupy a civic space, organising events like the recent VE Day commemorations and a pre-election hustings. They are trusted and respected. Labour could learn a lot from them.

We won’t win the next election on these things alone. Far from it. But by understanding these three concepts - faith, flag and family - we’ll start to understand why we didn’t win in 2010 and 2015, and how we can win again in 2020.

(An edited version of this article appeared in The Observer on Sunday 17th May.)