Labour’s disastrous (un)Employment Bill is back in Parliament next week.
Keir Starmer had a chance to bin the Bill when Angela Rayner resigned. It’s no secret that it was Ange’s baby. So why didn’t he drop it when she quit?
In fact, Starmer could have used it as an opportunity to reset his government’s catastrophic relationship with business – not one mainstream business organisation supports this Bill in its current form.
But Starmer isn’t one for sound judgement, as the past two weeks have made abundantly clear.
Instead, Labour have doubled down on the Bill. Not only are they pressing on against all warnings from industry, but they have also pledged to vote down all the positive, cross-party amendments made to it in the House of Lords.
Those amendments would have reduced the huge burdens the Bill will put on businesses, whether big firms or small-scale employers.
For example, it will be much harder for businesses to sack new staff who perform poorly. What’s more, they will have to pay staff for cancelled shifts even if they give them plenty of notice and the cancellation is not their fault.
Just as concerning, Labour will oppose an amendment to ensure a ballot to strike can’t be hijacked by a militant minority.
Andrew Griffith, Shadow Business Secretary, at The City UK conference in June 2025
Keir Starmer has insisted on pressing ahead with Angela Rayner’s Employment Rights Bill. The pair are pictured together at the Labour Party conference last year
This week London has been crippled by strikes. Tube drivers say their massive £72,000 base salary is not enough, that they won’t work more than 32 hours a week.
They have got the country over a barrel. Yet Labour’s response, it seems, is to make it easier for them to strike. Because Labour are in the pocket of the unions, and Spineless Starmer is running scared of his bully-boy paymasters.
Crippling strikes, then, will be the new normal in Starmer’s Broken Britain. The chaotic scenes in London this week will be just the start and replicated across the country as militant unions demand ever-higher pay – and taxpayers foot the bill.
Meanwhile prices will go up as businesses pass the costs of the new law onto customers. Inflation will jump and savings will lose value. And any remaining businesses thinking about investing in Britain despite Rachel Reeves tax hikes will think again.
In fact, it’s already happening. In recent days US drug giant Merck have become the latest firm to scrap their planned investment in the UK.
They’ve pulled out of a £1bn investment because they don’t think we’re competitive anymore. They aren’t the first and they won’t be the last.
The truth is that the economy is in a mess and is getting worse. Through Rachel Reeves’ National Insurance hike and now this awful Bill, Labour are doing everything in their power to damage business.
Either this government with no business experience doesn’t know or doesn’t care.
Rachel Reeves announced a rise in Employer National Insurance Contributions to 15 per cent in 2024. Pictured leaving 11 Downing Street
Passengers inside London Liverpool Street station as the Underground strike brought transport to a halt
Hundreds of people were seen queuing for the one bus near Euston due to the London Underground closure
And as Kemi Badenoch has repeatedly warned, they are borrowing more and more every day, storing up problems for future generations.
We know what Rachel Reeves has planned for the next Budget: more tax rises and more economic misery.
Starmer can’t allow that to happen. He must urgently change course – before it’s too late. And he should start by killing the Bill.
