It’s still less than two months old, but already the new Labour Government is coming in for some heavy criticism on our Letters Pages.
Yesterday one of our readers outlined three key areas in which it needed to act: immigration, our relationship with the EU and local government finance.
Today a correspondent addresses each of these points.
Peter A Russell of Glasgow writes:
"John Palfreyman (Letters, August 26) asks the new Labour Government to do three things: stop the demonisation of immigrants, rejoin the EU single market and reform council tax.
"The good news for him is that the demonisation of immigrants has already been stopped. One of the first actions of the incoming government was to stop the Rwanda flights and to switch the focus regarding illegal immigration from the boats full of victims to the gangs of organised criminals behind the cross-Channel people-smuggling trade. Moreover, Labour is also committed to making legal immigration a labour market issue, linking skills requirements to training as well to overseas workers. The idea is that the UK should choose the route of upskilling our own population rather than relying on migrant labour, which is in many cases founded on enterprising young people exhorted by their home governments to 'learn, earn and return'. In other words, they upgrade their skills in the UK, build up capital from their UK employment and take it back to their own countries to invest in their own businesses there. I do not think it is demonisation to want young people from the UK to do the same.
"With regard to the EU single market, what Mr Palfreyman suggests is in direct contradiction to the pledge made in Labour's 2024 manifesto: 'There will be no return to the single market, the customs union, or freedom of movement.' For what it is worth, I agree with Mr Palfreyman, but sadly, the Labour Government is not at liberty to act as we both wish, if it is to uphold its own commitment to the voters. My hope is that by the time of the next election, Labour will be able to put to the electorate a proposal that is closer to the single market and the customs union, perhaps maybe even a step back towards EEA membership. We shall see, but it cannot happen in the lifetime of this Parliament.
"Finally, we have the question of the council tax, which has been an outstanding item in the SNP's in-tray since (almost unbelievably) 2007, when Alex Salmond stood on a very specific platform of 'scrapping the hated council tax'. Of course, it proved much more difficult than he planned, and it seems likewise to have defeated all of his increasingly hapless (some would say useless) successors. My suggestion is for a redistributive regional income tax and a much smaller council tax based on current property values rather than those of the last century. However, any reform would entail losers as well as winners and would therefore require cross-party agreement.
"The best way forward would probably be a Royal Commission on Local Government Finance. Surely, the great minds of Scotland can create a better system than the one cobbled together in great haste by Michael Heseltine after the Great Poll Tax Debacle all those years ago? Or maybe not."
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