Who Is The Labour Growth Group?
5 min read
The Labour Growth Group was set up last week to support the Government mission to build more homes and infrastructure. Some Labour left MPs believe it is a No10 "front", but members insist it was created to keep the party focused on "its most important mission".
On Sunday, 54 Labour MPs signed a letter to Prime Minister Keir Starmer. The signatories, overwhelmingly elected for the first time on 4 July, publicly pledged their support for Labour’s ambition to grow the economy and ramp-up development across the country.
Its members urged the new Labour Government to press ahead with “sweeping planning reforms” and said they were willing to make “tough choices” to allow building in their own constituencies, acknowledging that “it will mean difficult conversations in our own communities about how, not whether, we deliver our targets”. Analysis previously shared with PoliticsHome found that many of the battleground seats at the General Election were in areas with high levels of Nimby-ism (opposition to building in the local area).
The emergence of the group so soon after Labour's historic election last month victory raised some eyebrows in Westminster.
In more recent years, intra-party caucauses have become associated with conflict and inflighting — perhaps Westminster's most well-known example being the European Research Group of avidly pro-Brexit Conservative MPs, which played a key part in the removal of Theresa May as prime minister and was often involved in the chaos which engulfed the party.
While it is clear that the Labour Growth Group is a very different beast to the ERG, there was still surprise that Labour MPs, just a few weeks into the job, would feel emboldened enough to launch a bid to hold their Prime Minister's feet to the fire.
But is that what is really going on?
One MP on the left of the Labour Party told PoliticsHome they believed the group was actually the brainchild of 10 Downing Street and a "front" for its pro-growth policy programme. In other words, an extension of its power, rather than a check on it.
Labour left MP Clive Lewis came out as an early sceptic of the group. “Every shitty corporation or two-bit developer looking to build some extractive, horror development or vanity project … now has 54 constituencies that just went to the top of their shit-list,” he posted on X.
Key members insist that is not the case.
“He [Lewis] takes it as a front for factional politics but it isn’t actually that,” one of the group's MPs told PoliticsHome. “It’s fine if he wants to impose conditions [on infrastructure projects] and lots of members of the group would agree with that.”
The letter, however, did get No10's approval before it was published, PoliticsHome understands.
The group grew out of a conversation between mostly new intake MPs including Josh Simons, now the Labour MP for Makerfield. Simons is the former director of think tank Labour Together, which is close to Starmer’s leadership and used to be led by No 10 head of political strategy Morgan McSweeney.
PoliticsHome understands that Labour Together is closely linked with the group but was not the instigator.
The Labour Growth Group is currently in its infancy and has not yet had a single meeting. Nonetheless, there are murmurings about what it might organise at Labour Party conference in Liverpool in late September, and plans are in the works for a reception in Parliament next month once MPs have returned from the summer recess.
Insiders are confident the group’s MP membership will rise. One Labour source familiar with the group said the signatories of the letter did not represent even half the levels of support in Parliament. “They simply represent the number of backbenchers who respond quickly on WhatsApp and the small number approaches reflects a terror of it leaking,” they said.
Other members include newbies Chris Curtis and Dan Tomlinson, the Labour MPs for Milton Keynes North and Chipping Barnet respectively, who are “totally obsessed” with building houses and making sure people have homes. “They have been [obsessed] for years – they’re not going to fuck around now they’re in," the same insider said.
Underlying their broad aim of growth, these MPs hope the caucus will offer a space to negotiate with ministers about what kind of infrastructure is needed alongside housing – from parks and GP surgeries to energy infrastructure.
There are unanswered questions, though, abour what will the group will ultimately become.
“When we all come back, the question is, what do we turn it into? What does it mean? That’s all TBC,” said one member.
Another said the group would "start to get jittery" if "it became apparent that we [the Government] were consistently cancelling infrastructure projects", but there is currently "no evidence for that".
Chancellor Rachel Reeves last week announced that several transport projects would be axed, but insisted this had to be done to plug a £22bn "black hole" left in the public finances by the previous Conservative government.
It remains unlikely the group will throw its weight around Westminster straight away. One member said that the “groupiness” of the band of MPs is “overrated”.
It is possible, however, that it finds itself on one side of a growing divide within the parliamentary party: between those MPs more willing to put local interests to one side and accept more building on their patch, and longstanding MPs on Labour's left who appear to be more sceptical about development and developers.
"One of the tasks of the group will be to keep the Labour Party united behind its most important mission," a Labour Growth Group MP told PoliticsHome.
"In the past we have seen too many bed-wetters in politics, who understand the importance of growth, but quickly buckle under local pressure. We can't afford to go down that path again.”
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