Pro patria mori

It was the three year anniversary of the Grenfell Tower fire on Sunday. Labour marked it by issuing a reminder that up to 56,000 people still live in blocks with the same dangerous style of cladding. Echoing the demands of the cross-party Commons committee on housing, Labour urged ministers to take action against building owners who have failed to make blocks safe. Thangam Debbonaire called the situation a “national disgrace”. Like the murder of Jo Cox, it often just doesn’t feel as if this country has truly absorbed the horror of the Grenfell fire that claimed 72 lives. These events should have led to radical changes, but that simply hasn’t happened, and there has not been action to prevent a recurrence of either.

I say this after a week of the Prime Minister and Tory MPs deploring the removal of statues commemorating racists from history and over the weekend obsessively focusing on the statue of Winston Churchill. And I say this after far-right rallies dominated the capital on Saturday, supposedly with the aim of protecting statues but actually to be violent and racist. Boris Johnson tweeted afterwards to condemn the racism, but this was after a lengthy thread promoting the idea that Churchill’s statue was genuinely under threat and before it was briefed to the press that the government could introduce ten-year jail sentences specifically for desecrating war memorials.

Labour does not want to be dragged into a battle that portrays the opposition party as too out-of-touch to understand why people would be concerned about war memorials. The Tories remain in campaign mode. As a result, Nick Thomas-Symonds said he would support creating a specific offence and be willing to work with the government on the proposed legislation. Some party members questioned whether accepting the cynical framing of issues by this government was in fact wise in the long term. Arguably Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour did shift the Overton window while in opposition. Backing the idea did not seem necessary anyway: David Lammy simply gave a non-committal answer and pointed out that “you can already get ten years in prison for criminal damage”.

We have a busy week ahead. LabourList can confirm that the long-awaited Labour Together 2019 general election review will be published on Friday. After the full report is released, on Monday evening LabourList will co-host a special online event to discuss the findings. You can sign up to that here. Before then, I will be in conversation with Preet Kaur Gill MP, our new Shadow International Development Secretary, on Thursday at 6pm. We will talk about the subjects raised in her recent LabourList piece, but if there is anything about her brief that you would like me to ask, please feel free to email suggestions.