News diary 23 – 29 September: Labour conference, UN high-level meetings

A look ahead at the key events leading the news agenda next week, from the team at Foresight News.

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres gives a remark on the 72nd UN General Assembly in UN Headquarters on September 19, 2017 in New York, USA. Picture: Aditya E.S. Wicaksono/Shutterstock

A look ahead at the key events leading the news agenda next week, from the team at Foresight News.

Leading the week

Instead of basking in the glow of a generational election victory, Labour approaches conference season facing up to the reality that governing is much less fun than being in opposition. Embroiled in a series of rows over its pensioner-bashing economic policies, gloomy messaging and – with a little nod to previous administrations – political donations that benefit the prime minister’s spouse, the party will arrive in Liverpool this weekend knowing that the honeymoon period is now well and truly over: so what can we expect from Keir Starmer’s top team over the next few days?

Given the party’s desire to keep blaming the Conservatives for the dire state of the economy and public services, expectation management may be the watchword for ministers’ speeches next week. Deputy leader Angela Rayner delivers the first big speech of the event on Sunday (September 22), and she may need to resort to some cheerleading as the warm-up act for Starmer and Rachel Reeves; she can at least point to the introduction of the renters’ reform bill as proof that she’s getting down to business in her housing brief.

This time last year Reeves was vowing to be an ‘iron chancellor’, and we may get a taste of how she intends to live up to that promise when she steps up to the ACC stage on Monday (September 23). Despite the purse strings being loosened in recent weeks to deliver union-friendly public sector pay increases, it’s unlikely the chancellor will be announcing any member-pleasing spending commitments or shiny new projects ahead of the Budget, though she may be in a position to drop some hints about whether there is, in fact, any fiscal headroom to take advantage of October 30.

Keir Starmer may not arrive at conference on a jet ski, but he could be forgiven for looking for a way to distract from his recent woes. With his favourability rating falling steadily, headlines about his wife’s wardrobe and his chief of staff’s salary are the last things Starmer wants to be focusing on in the lead up to his conference speech on Tuesday (September 24). The prime minister now faces the tough task of shifting the narrative away from sideline rows and back onto his missions for government and delivering the positive change that was promised during July’s election campaign. It is, as they say in football, too early to talk of crisis, but Starmer definitely needs a big performance in front of his home crowd next week.

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Former Defence Secretary Ben Wallace is up in front of the Independent Inquiry relating to Afghanistan on Monday (September 23) after hearings back in February raised questions about his handling of allegations that British special forces units, particularly in Helmand province, killed unarmed boys and men detained during night raids between 2010 and 2013. Wallace commissioned the inquiry in December 2022 after a BBC Panorama investigation claimed dozens of detainees may have been executed by the SAS.

Former Veterans Minister Johnny Mercer, who lost his seat at the general election, previously criticised Wallace after Mercer gave statements to the Commons that claims of ‘death squads’ were untrue, only for emails to emerge in The Sunday Times in 2020 that showed that UK special forces officers knew that serious concerns had been raised about 33 deaths in 2011. Mercer also accused Wallace and special forces director general Roly Walker of failing to investigate the allegations of war crimes properly. The inquiry used a court injunction to force Mercer to provide ‘further information’ on the source of the allegations that unarmed Afghan men had been shot by SAS troops, though Mercer insists he did not name those who confided in him. Following Wallace’s testimony, the inquiry is set to hear evidence in ‘restricted closed hearings’ which involve ‘grave allegations of war crimes’.

Looking abroad

World leaders descend on New York next week for the UN General Assembly’s high-level week, sometimes referred to as the Super Bowl of diplomacy. While the conflicts in the Middle East, Ukraine and Sudan loom large over this year’s gathering, a host of other issues of global concern are also set to be discussed.

The centrepiece as ever is the General Debate, which opens on Tuesday (September 24), when world leaders and ministers deliver what are supposed to be 15-minute interventions, though they frequently overrun. In keeping with tradition, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres delivers the first address, followed by Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and US President Joe Biden, in what will be his final address before the November election. Other speakers on Tuesday include Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Argentina’s Javier Milei and, in what is likely to be another closely-watched address, Iran’s new president Masoud Pezeshkian.

On Wednesday (September 25) all eyes will be on Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who is likely to once again make the case that his country’s fight against Russia is central to upholding the rules-based international order. Then on Thursday (September 26) we’ll get Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech, his first since the Hamas attack last October that sparked the ongoing war that threatens to engulf the region. Prime Minister Keir Starmer makes his first big international address on Friday (September 27), looking to make his mark after his predecessor Rishi Sunak last year became the first UK premier in a decade to skip the gathering. Neither Chinese President Xi Jinping nor Russian President Vladimir Putin are attending, but their representatives will speak on the Saturday (September 28).

Beyond the General Debate, the UN Security Council meets on Tuesday (September 24) for a high-level briefing on Ukraine, followed by an open debate on ‘leadership for peace’ on Wednesday (September 25), chaired by Slovenian Prime Minister Robert Golob and likely to feature interventions from a variety of world leaders. On Thursday (September 26), the Council holds an informal session on the threat of regional escalation in the Middle East that is likely to garner attention after Israel’s interventions in Lebanon this week.

Other highlights to look out for – notwithstanding last-minute bilateral and multilateral encounters – include the second day of the UN Summit of the Future on Monday, when both Zelenskyy and Pezeshkian are due to speak, a summit Biden’s hosting on synthetic drug threats, and a leaders’ event on defending democracy hosted by Lula, both on Tuesday. On Wednesday, G20 foreign ministers hold their first-ever meeting on the margins of UNGA, and the US, EU and Saudi Arabia co-host a high-level ministerial meeting on the humanitarian crisis in Sudan. And as things begin to wind down in New York, Biden will host Zelenskyy at the White House on Thursday. Watch out, too, for celebrities – Prince Harry, Matt Damon and Meryl Streep are among those in town to support the charities and NGOs they work with.