The new Hillsborough Law announced by The Rt Hon Sir Keir Rodney Starmer KCB KC MP may appear at first glance like a grand title for a lot of hot air. After all, much of the accountability that it seeks to achieve could be pursued through existing tortious and criminal law — indeed, it abolishes existing the common law offence of misconduct in public office — while the expansion of legal aid provisions hardly needs a standalone bill. But its more abstract aim of crystallising a certain idea of an immutable moral framework on the statute books is deeply Starmerite — the only problem is that it isn’t very good Starmerism.
Yes, it opens the door to holding hundreds upon hundreds of inquiries great and small in an attempt to smooth out the failings of the state, but Starmerism is effective where it binds and restricts opposition parties. Instead, this bill will give an incoming Reform government a great big stick with which to beat Labour and the Conservatives, not least for incidents such as the Southport massacre, where crucial information about the perpetrator was deliberately kept from the public.
Named for the fatal crowd crush at Hillsborough Stadium, and the subsequent push by victims families for full disclosure of events that lead to the deaths, the introduction of the Public Office (Accountability) Bill, as it’s properly to be known, will usher in a large expansion of legal aid, including non-means tested support for victims’ families. However, the attention-grabbing aspect is that it will introduce what is framed as “a professional and legal Duty of Candour”, with the government claiming that this will demand that public officials “must act with honesty and integrity at all times”, with criminal sanctions for egregious breaches. In addition, it will include a new offence for misleading the public, with criminal sanctions for the most serious breaches, including for misleading the public in a way which is deemed seriously improper.
I don’t think it’s far from the mark to assume that, in framing these lofty ambitions, it was intended that either Keir Starmer or somebody arbitrating in the Spirit of Keir Starmer would be deciding what was correct and proper. Although it should be pointed out that, parliamentary privilege and the British constitution being what it is, the new offence would not affect Keir Starmer or his parliamentary colleagues while carrying out their day jobs.
It’s worth at this point reminding ourselves what Starmerism is. Those getting wrapped up in the rigmarole of bond markets and gilt yields, Rachel Reeves crying, and fiscal headroom miss the point. Keir Starmer has no real interest in the economy as a domain of production and trade, consumption of goods and services. The closest he comes to an interest in markets is likely that “the economy should provide for everyone”. Instead, as the devout Starmerologist J. Sorel puts it: “everything about Keir Starmer’s life so far has taught him that his project — the defence of British society as it existed from 1997-2016 — can be achieved by simply illegalising all opposition. He openly avows this idea, and has never strayed from it.” Everything that Keir Starmer has remained devoted to has been the rejection of grubby, noisy, and messy politics, and the pursuit of constitutional reforms that would make it difficult for his foes to come back from.
It should be remembered that the Starmergeddon feared by the PM’s opponents is predicated on certain conditions and outcomes. It is not merely an implementing of policies favoured by Keir Starmer, but enacting changes to the British political and legal framework in a way that deeply entrenches the power of those that are loyal to him so that they can keep the sacred flame alight. It has little to nothing to do with Winning The Argument. Keir Starmer would find it incredibly odd to consider that there was an argument to be had. Instead, it’s about preserving the high ideals of Starmerism forever and ever, and protecting those sacred tenets from wreckers (elected parliamentarians, hostile members of the House of Lords, participants in referenda).
Starmerism is also a vision of achieving ideological aims that is formed out of constitutionally constrained necessity. The core principle of parliamentary sovereignty is that the law-making power of Parliament is not subject to any permanent restrictions, and so no Parliament can bind its successors. Yes, Parliament can choose to place limits on the exercise of its sovereignty — it did so when it enacted the European Communities Act 1972. But it can also take back control as happened in the great nadir of what was held dear to Keir Starmer and his allies when Britain repealed the Act following the Leave vote, and repatriated those powers back to Parliament nearly 50 years later.
This was on one hand a defeat of Starmerism, but it was also something of a reminder that for Starmerism to endure, it needs to not just transfer sovereignty from parliament to judges, civil servants, and quangos, it needs to make sure that such a constitutionally temporary transfer is very burdensome to unwind. It’s aided by the strong status quo bias that exists in British political discourse. Witness the total emotional shutdown over the idea of repealing the Human Rights Act — an act of Parliament that has been on the statute books for less time than Robot Wars has been on television. There are inexplicably people that were adults in the ‘90s that cannot conceive of liberties existing in Britain before Craig Charles, Matilda, and Sergeant Bash.
The Constitutional Reform Act 2005 (Year 7 After Robot Wars) is a model of what successful Starmergeddon would look like. The third part of the act abolished the appellate jurisdiction of the House of Lords, and transferred it to the newly created Supreme Court. It’s a very Starmery institution in that it has a grand name that sounds like it sprang from time immemorial, it spins out powers from the judicial functions of the House of Lords, and it has scope to make a declaration of incompatibility where it believes that legislation is incompatible with articles of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), the most sacred text of Starmerism, and applied through the Human Rights Act (Year 0 After Robot Wars).
The entrenchment of Starmerism cannot succeed without its rejection entailing cumbersome legal faff and lengthy stakeholderism.
Of course, the CRA could be abolished. For all of the attention lavished on Donald Trump’s use of executive power through executive orders, parliamentary sovereignty is far more powerful than anything controlled by the Office of the US President. Like any other primary legislation, it can be repealed, amended, or replaced by a subsequent act of Parliament without requiring special procedures. But it provides a model in that it is sufficiently intertwined with, for example, overseeing the powers and functions of the devolved institutions of Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland that, in Starmer fashion, it would bring those Valued Stakeholders into the fray. It would also potentially drag in the ECHR through article 6 (right to a fair trial by an independent tribunal).
To put things simply, the entrenchment of Starmerism cannot succeed without its rejection entailing cumbersome legal faff and lengthy stakeholderism. The Public Office (Accountability) Bill does nothing to forever preserve Starmerism in this way, it instead creates the potential to put the creed of Starmerism on trial. With Reform utterly dominant in the polls for the next General Election to be held before 2029, Year 30 After Robot Wars, it’s tempting to think that Starmerism is looking more like Dead Metal than Sir Killalot.
