“The Labor Party’s National Meeting: A Boring Compromise Workshop with No New Political Moves”

The choreographed applause does not convince anyone that the Labor Party is riding a wave of enthusiasm.

But the relief that the national meeting took place peacefully and without personal conflicts is also a small victory.

The problem is that it is difficult to see any new political moves that catch on outside the national assembly hall.

The Labor Party is in crisis with an average voter turnout of 18.7 per cent in the polls in May. It is historically miserable, and the distance up to Høyre of 31.5 per cent is formidable. It is especially the so-called “purple voters” who have turned their backs on the Labor Party, i.e. those who are close to the center and are just as likely to vote Conservative as the Labor Party.

A basic problem for these voters is how unpredictable the Ap/Sp government is on taxes and fees, and significantly, several newspapers today have articles advising people with wealth to pack their moving bags before the revised state budget – for fear that the government will introduce an exit tax, which forces expatriates to pay tax on accrued gains they have not yet withdrawn.

The point here is not whether it is smart or not, but that we have been given a tax policy that is so unpredictable that almost anything can happen – for example a temporary/permanent (cross out what does not apply) extraordinary employer’s tax for salaries over NOK 750,000.

Boring national meeting purely politically

Stripped of rhetoric and concerted applause, the Labor Party’s national meeting was boring in purely political terms, and characterized by compromises. For example, the party is keen to increase the proportion who complete upper secondary school, while at the same time the party wants to remove the measure that has actually worked – namely the absence limit.

Another example is the decision to create and share. It appears that the party wants strong business development combined with fair distribution, but the word tax is not mentioned once in this document. It appears as nice words in an uncontroversial package.

The seas: The decision to create and share

The same applies to the decision on municipalities in change, city and country. Here, too, there are many good words, such as “trustful municipalities”, but not a word about the most inflammatory thing, namely municipal structure. It is unlikely to make the voters go mad that the Labor Party will “Strengthen the role of the county council as a regional development actor».

The Labor Party has a penchant for introducing guarantees, but is less good at ensuring that they become reality. At this national meeting, the party says it wants to implement a youth guarantee for everyone under the age of 30, which helps ensure that young people who need it receive close and individual follow-up from NAV.

Collection in bann

The Labor Party’s national meeting is a gathering in Bån, and is characterized more by relief than by excitement over new policies. Without new political measures, the conclusion is that the party offers voters more of the same that they do not want.

The biggest disappointment is the power policy, where electricity prices will not be lower in the foreseeable future. The Labor Party’s solution is to develop new climate-friendly energy. That’s all well and good, but for Norwegian electricity prices to be different and lower than Europe’s, something like 40 billion kilowatt-hours a year is needed (ie an increase of 25-30 per cent in Norwegian power production).

It will certainly not happen before the municipal elections this autumn or before the next general election in two years. That the party could agree to such a non-binding compromise is in practice pushing the problem under the rug. Electricity customers will notice that.

The problem is both politics, people and polemics

The Labor Party’s problem is both people, politics and polemics. With Jan Christian Vestre and Tonje Brenna joining the party leadership, the party gets a necessary renewal and rejuvenation. The criticism of Kjersti Stenseng before the national meeting is in reality a criticism of party leader Jonas Gahr Støre, and it shows that there is great dissatisfaction all around the party.

When it comes to the polemic, the Ap politicians are mostly concerned with talking about what happened under the previous government, rather than telling how Norway is going to improve with the Labor Party’s policies.

And to take the politics to the end: the Labor Party’s national meeting was hardly a politically potent ideas workshop, but rather a compromise workshop that ensured domestic peace.

And now there are only days left until the party can inject new oil billions into an already overheated economy, with increased interest rates and increased price increases as a result. If it is accompanied by an exit tax, as many lawyers believe, then it will be difficult to appear as a credible and stable governing party for the purple voters.