‘If we don’t define our ends, populists will define them for us’

At Davos, Mark Carney challenged the world’s middle powers, including the UK, to “take the signs down”.

He was drawing on Václav Havel’s image of the greengrocer who displayed a slogan he did not believe, simply to avoid trouble in Communist Poland. The system, he asserts, persists not because everyone believes the lie, but because everyone performs as if they do.

Taking our signs down means recognising the defining challenge of our time; what I call the modern giant of strategic dependence. Dependence on volatile energy markets. Dependence on supply chains that can be weaponised against us. Dependence on digital platforms and tech we cannot regulate.

Carney’s warning was that comfortable assumptions about the international order are no longer true. The system, which we once benefited from, cannot become the source of our subordination.

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But addressing strategic dependence does not mean pulling up a bridge or retreating from the world. It means addressing the root causes. Rebuilding domestic capacity and capability but being more internationalist at the same time. Engaging with many partners, not just a few. It means building more bridges.

Labour in government has begun this at pace. Great British Energy is being established to strengthen domestic energy generation and cut bills. Planning reform is unlocking infrastructure and housing. Pension reforms are directing long-term capital into British industry. A Border Security Command is restoring credibility and control. A disciplined fiscal framework has steadied the foundations of our economy. Trade deals with the EU, India, the USA, China and a new approach to Africa open up new markets and opportunities for mutual growth.

These are serious measures, not gestures. Any strategy needs ends, ways, and means; these policies are the ways of renewal, and our fiscal discipline is the means, the foundation that allows ambition to endure.

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But there is a deeper political challenge. The British public still does not clearly see why we are taking these steps or understand the ends we are building towards. This is dangerous, because if we do not define these ends, populists will define them for us.

Carney warned against “living within a lie”. Politics has its own version of that risk.

If we speak in the language of change but fail to define the country we are building, we risk performing renewal rather than delivering it. In that vacuum, others are offering easy answers to complex problems. They are turning economic struggle into grievance. They are turning strategic exposure into nationalist resentment. They are destroying trust and unity through identity politics, disinformation, and culture wars.

If we leave a vacuum, it will not remain empty. So we must define our ends. Drawing on the Attlee Government’s approach in the beleaguered but hopeful 1940s, we can best do this by recognising the modern giants we must defeat.

Any contemporary list echoing the Beveridge Report must respond to the geopolitical challenge and its impacts within our country, including the giants of dependence, division, and disinformation.

Strategic dependence: an over-reliance on external actors for energy, supply chains, capital and market access, leaving us exposed to tariffs, coercion and shocks.

Division: a political and media culture that fragments communities and corrodes trust.

Disinformation: the erosion of shared truth on which democratic consent depends.

These are not abstract categories. They are lived realities. Defeating strategic dependence means stronger domestic capacity, secure borders and diversified global partnerships to deliver lower bills and more economic security.

Defeating division means communities bound by common purpose, not culture wars.

Defeating disinformation means reining in the tech giants, restoring trust in institutions, and strengthening democratic resilience.

We cannot defeat these giants alone, and tackling our dependence requires diversification – more Labour internationalism, not isolationist fantasy. We can and must grow stronger partnerships beyond the bi-polar pull of the United States and China, for trade, resilient supply chains and shared security. We cannot rely on one or two powers to underpin our prosperity. A Britain that builds durable partnerships with confidence across continents will be less exposed to tariffs and coercion and more confident in its sovereignty.

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In the 1940s, Labour did not win because of Clement Attlee’s personality. It won because it committed to deliver the ends set out in the Beveridge Report. The public understood the destination. A cradle to grave settlement that would defeat Want, Disease, Ignorance, Squalor and Idleness. The ends were clear and the legislation and policy programme followed. Today we must do the same.

We are delivering progress against the modern giants, and we must articulate clearly the Britain we are building. If we do not, others will – and not in good faith. The public deserve to know where we are going, and Labour must be the ones to tell them.

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