The General Election of July 4, 2024 delivered a victory for Labour against a deeply divided and power-weary Conservative party whose reputation for reliability and competence had been substantially damaged. Labour’s return to office after fourteen years in opposition is a sufficiently rare occurrence in British electoral history to warrant the use of the adjective historic in relation to the party’s victory. The coincidence of the formation of the Starmer government with the centenary of the election of the first Labour government ever, albeit a minority and short-lived one, is an invitation to look back on the history of Labour in office and implicitly raises the question of its place in the Labour tradition and of its political inheritance.

International conference organized by the Laboratoire d'Études et de Recherche sur le Monde Anglophone at Aix-Marseille Université in collaboration with the Observatoire
de la Société Britannique

Argument

The General Election of July 4, 2024 delivered a victory for Labour against a deeply divided and power-weary Conservative party whose reputation for reliability and competence had been substantially damaged. Labour’s return to office after fourteen years in opposition is a sufficiently rare occurrence in British electoral history to warrant the use of the adjective historic in relation to the party’s victory. The coincidence of the formation of the Starmer government with the centenary of the election of the first Labour government ever, albeit a minority and short-lived one, is an invitation to look back on the history of Labour in office and implicitly raises the question of its place in the Labour tradition and of its political inheritance.

The swing of the pendulum of July 2024 brings back memories of Tony Blair’s New Labour whose victory at the polls was at the time described as a landslide. The echoes of 1997 are manifold : the scale of Labour’s victory in terms of parliamentary seats (418 in 1997 and 411 in 2024); the electoral context, characterized by the sheer drop in popularity of a discredited Conservative Party, much to Labour’s benefit; the internal dynamics of the party, which, in a context of ideological rivalries, renews its leadership and senior members and imposes a sharp break with the orientations favoured by its left-wing and the Momentum movement, while establishing  that a return to the centre is the necessary precondition for electoral success. To read More click here.

Programme

19-20 March 2026

Campus Schuman, Aix-en-Provence

Jeudi 19 mars / Thursday 19 March

Salle des Actes – Bâtiment Pouillon

Faculté de Droit et de Science Politique d’Aix-en-Provence

• 9h Accueil et inscription des participants / Delegates’ welcome and registration
• 9h30 Ouverture du colloque / Conference opening

9h45 – 10h45 Session 1 Les travaillistes et l’Europe / Labour and Europe

Présidence de séance / Chair Karine Tournier-Sol (Université de Toulon)

• 09h45 – 10h05 Pauline Schnapper (Université Sorbonne Nouvelle) The Labour Government and Brexit: Ending Ambiguity?
• 10h05 – 10h25 Thibaud Harrois (Université Sorbonne Nouvelle) Playing Safe: Game Theory and Starmer’s EU Policy
• 10h25 – 10h45 Discussion

10h45 – 11h Pause-café / Coffee break

11h – 12h Session 2 Politiques migratoires / Migration Policy

Présidence de séance / Chair Vincent Latour (Université Toulouse – Jean Jaurès)

• 11h – 11h20 Hélène Grinan-Moutinho (Université Sorbonne Nouvelle) La politique migratoire du gouvernement Starmer : un prisme pour analyser le réalignement idéologique du Parti travailliste britannique, entre rupture, continuité et glissement vers le centre
• 11h20 – 11h40 Anna Stoiljkovic (Université Toulouse – Jean Jaurès) “Brexodus” in Data: EU Migrants in the UK Labour Market
• 11h40 – 12h Discussion

12h15 – 14h00 Déjeuner / Lunch

• 14h – 15h05 Conférence plénière 1 / Keynote Lecture 1 Emmanuelle Avril (Université Sorbonne Nouvelle) Fear and Loathing in Labour: The Limits of Keir Starmer’s Managerial Control
• 14h45 – 15h05 Discussion

15h05 – 15h20 Pause-café / Coffee break

15h20 – 16h20 Session 3 Politiques publiques / Public Policy

Présidence de séance / Chair Timothy Whitton (Université Clermont Auvergne)

• 15h20 – 15h40 Nicholas Sowels (Université Panthéon Sorbonne) The Fiscal Challenges for the Labour Government
• 15h40 – 16h Anne Beauvallet (Université Toulouse – Jean Jaurès) Education Policy Under Starmer: Change or Continuity?
• 16h – 16h20 Discussion

16h20 – 16h30 Pause

16h30 – 18h Table Ronde 1 / Roundtable 1

Le rôle des droites extrêmes et radicales dans la diffusion et la normalisation du discours anti-immigration dans le débat public britannique : perspectives croisées

Animée par Vincent Latour (Université Toulouse – Jean Jaurès) et Karine Tournier-Sol (Université de Toulon)

Amphi Dumas – Bâtiment Pouillon

18h – 19h Cocktail (Bâtiment Pouillon)

20h00 Dîner du colloque / Conference dinner

Vendredi 20 mars / Friday 20 March

Salle des Actes – Bâtiment Pouillon

Faculté de Droit et de Science Politique d’Aix-en-Provence

• 8h30 Accueil et inscription des participants / Delegates’ welcome and registration
• 9h – 10h05 Conférence plénière 2 / Keynote Lecture 2 Matt Beech (University of Hull) Back to the Future? Starmer, New Labour, and the Dilemmas of the Left
• 9h45 – 10h05 Discussion

10h05 – 10h20 Pause-café / Coffee break

10h20 – 11h40 Session 4 Décoder les stratégies travaillistes / Decoding Labour Strategies

Présidence de séance / Chair Emma Bell (Université Savoie Mont Blanc)

• 10h20 – 10h40 Toufik Abdou (Université Sorbonne Nouvelle) Decoding Keir Starmer’s Manifesto
• 10h40 – 11h Yves Golder (Université de Strasbourg) Keir Starmer’s Political (Non-)Communication
• 11h – 11h20 Clémence Lévêque (Université de Toulon) Yellow Peril Looming? The Liberal Democrats’ Labour-Facing Strategy
• 11h20 – 11h40 Discussion

12h – 14h00 Déjeuner / Lunch 

• 14h – 15h05 Conférence plénière 3 / Keynote Lecture 3 Mark Garnett (Independent Researcher) An “Impossible Office”? Sir Keir Starmer’s Conduct of the British Premiership
• 14h45 – 15h05 Discussion

15h05 – 15h20 Pause-café / Coffee break

15h20 – 16h00 Session 5 Les travaillistes et l’État multinational / Labour in a Multinational State

Présidence de séance / Chair Gilles Leydier

• 15h20 – 15h40 Edwige Camp-Pietrain (Université Polytechnique Hauts-de-France – Valenciennes) Keir Starmer’s Labour Government and Scottish Interests: Progress or Betrayal?
• 15h40 – 16h00 Stéphanie Bory (Université Jean Moulin Lyon 3) Keir Starmer: Welsh Labour’s Greatest Enemy?

16h00 – 17h Table Ronde 2 / Roundtable 2

Les travaillistes et l’État multinational

Animée par Gilles Leydier (Université de Toulon) et Stéphanie Bory (Université Jean Moulin Lyon 3)

Samdi 21 mars / Saturday 21 March

Excursion à la Villa Minna, Saint-Cannat