UK’s Labour taps BOE critic for key role
New Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn names Bank of England critic as the party’s Treasury spokesman.
|||London - Jeremy Corbyn, the new leader of the UK Labour Party, named an opponent of Bank of England independence as the party’s Treasury spokesman, in the latest signal of the main opposition’s new direction.
John McDonnell organised Corbyn’s successful campaign for the party leadership, which saw the 66-year-old eclipse his rivals to win the role on Saturday with 59.5 percent of the vote. McDonnell favours increasing taxation on businesses, the splitting-up of banks, and a financial-transaction tax.
While it wasn’t part of Corbyn’s election programme, McDonnell is also a critic of the Bank of England. In 2012, he set out his own vision for Labour’s first 110 days in power.
“In the first week of a Labour government, democratic control of the major economic decisions would be restored by ending the Bank of England’s control over interest rates,” McDonnell wrote. He went on to propose “bringing the nationalised and subsidised banks under direct control to force them to lend and invest their resources to modernise our economy and put people back to work”.
Speaking in an interview with Sky News television on Monday, McDonnell said that “my new policies and Jeremy’s have been roundly endorsed by the leadership election, so what I’m going to try and do now is try and convince our colleagues in Parliament of the need for change”.
‘More prosperous’
Britain’s “economy would be safe in our hands but also be more prosperous”, he said.
It’s not only McDonnell’s economic policies that set a new direction. Representing a seat close to London’s Heathrow Airport, he’s a fierce opponent of its expansion. “I’ll be arguing against a third runway at Heathrow because of the devastating environment effect,” he told his Sky interviewer, before excusing himself from further questioning, saying: “I’ve got to go and catch my bus or I’ll be late.”
Back in 2003, McDonnell was in the headlines over comments he made at a memorial event for a dead member of the Irish Republican Army, when he argued that there wouldn’t have been a successful peace process in Northern Ireland had it not been for the nationalist paramilitary group’s “bravery” and “bombs and bullets and sacrifice”.
Hilary Benn, named by Corbyn as foreign affairs spokesman, stopped short of supporting McDonnell’s appointment. “This is the choice Jeremy has made,” Benn told the BBC Monday. “There’s clearly room for an alternative view on what should happen to the economy.”
Labour absentees
The new Labour leader was hamstrung by the refusal of many senior party figures to serve under him. Only one of his three leadership rivals, Andy Burnham, agreed to be in his shadow cabinet. He was given the home-affairs brief. Also absent from Corbyn’s team will be McDonnell’s predecessor as finance spokesman, Chris Leslie.
Corbyn faced criticism for not appointing women to senior roles, with the two female candidates in the leadership contest, Yvette Cooper and Liz Kendall, among the shadow-cabinet absentees.
To address this, two hours after naming former Treasury minister Angela Eagle as spokeswoman on business, Labour added that she would also stand in for Corbyn at the weekly Prime Minister’s Questions in Parliament when David Cameron is unable to attend. Corbyn refused to answer questions from journalists on his appointments late on Sunday.
Labour also faces questions on its attitude to the European Union. The previous spokesman on business, Chuka Umunna, is determined to campaign for Britain to remain a member of the trading bloc. In a statement, he said he’d refused to serve under Corbyn after the new leader “made it clear to me that he does not wholeheartedly share this view”.
Benn denied this was an issue. “We will be campaigning to remain in the EU under all circumstances,” he told the BBC.
BLOOMBERG