GILES UDY: I have spent decades studying Stalin's Russia - and Starmer's Britain is more similar than you'd think...

By GILES UDY FOR THE DAILY MAIL Published: 01:08, 22 May 2026 | Updated: 02:54, 22 May 2026 When Rachel Reeves’ Treasury this week floated the idea of imposing a price cap on the cost of everyday foodstuffs sold by Britain’s supermarkets, the proposal was met with outcry. Detractors included the chief executive of Marks & Spencer (‘completely preposterous’), former chairman of Ocado Stuart Rose (‘idiotic’ and ‘dangerous’), governor of the Bank of England Andrew Bailey (‘unsustainable’) and City guru Clive Black (‘flabbergasting’). In the face of such an onslaught, the Chancellor backed down. But it would be a grave mistake to think this marks an end to the Government’s embrace of measures more reminiscent of the totalitarian Soviet Union than a modern liberal democracy. Some years ago I published a book called Labour And The Gulag, which highlighted how the British Labour movement suppressed criticism of conditions in Stalin’s camps. While this Labour administration does not incarcerate dissidents in work camps or put opponents to death by firing squad, what they do share with Russia’s hatchet-faced gerontocrats of the Cold War era is the arrogant belief that they alone hold the moral high ground. This, in turn, fosters the belief that they should exercise total control over those who do not share their worldview. And our rulers have adopted the same tools used by Soviet leaders: tyrannical legislation enforced by co-opted courts and a politicised civil service, with dissent policed by hate crime orders. Just as Lenin believed it was up to a vanguard of intellectuals to imbue the working class with revolutionary consciousness, so the Labour high command thinks only a cabal of north London bienpensants knows what is best for the people. And so we see deranged policies such as Net Zero, with the aim of reducing the nation’s net greenhouse gas emissions to zero by 2050, and a hands-off approach to illegal immigration. Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and Chancellor Rachel Reeves. Giles Udy writes that the Government embraces 'measures more reminiscent of the totalitarian Soviet Union than a modern liberal democracy' The result is that a country which produces just 1 per cent of the planet’s carbon emissions has energy prices among the highest in the developed world, with all that means for companies’ profitability and the cost of living. And while Cabinet ministers in their ivory towers welcome ‘refugees’ and ‘asylum seekers’ with open arms, it is the impoverished masses – feeling the strain this puts on the housing stock and public services – who must live with the consequences of the influx. If ordinary people voice their discontent, they are condemned by the ruling elite, who despise the working classes in much the same way Stalin hated an enterprising class of land-owning peasants known as kulaks. Dissent is quelled by framing it as ‘Nazi’ or ‘fascist’, words used by Russia’s ‘Man of Steel’ to denounce opponents as he killed millions in the 1930s, and which have been used as insults by the British Left since. But more concrete measures are taken, too. The concept of ‘wrongspeak’ was invented by George Orwell in his dystopian novel 1984. Expressions of dissent in Orwell’s fictional dictatorship were punished by the ‘thought police’. And, in Labour’s Britain, prosecutions for offences against the prevailing orthodoxy have materialised on a huge scale. In 2025, there were 12,000 arrests for social media posts deemed to have crossed the regime’s approved line. Not just silence but compliance is demanded. The KGB were past masters at making examples of dissidents to control wider society and our own Government has taken a leaf out of their playbook. The sight of innocent people being arrested, locked in cells, and having their laptops and phones seized before being released on bail has a chilling effect. And it’s all the more chilling when the treatment of suspects at different ends of the political spectrum is seen to be inconsistent. Why did the Southport rioters receive sentences of up to 31 months but the police dropped all charges against Palestinian protesters who shouted ‘F*** the Jews, rape their daughters’ as they drove through London? Chief executive of Marks & Spencer Stuart Machin said Rachel Reeves' idea of imposing a price cap on the cost of everyday foodstuffs is ‘completely preposterous’ Nowhere is this doublethink clearer than in the trans debate. Ostensibly intelligent men such as Keir Starmer, Andy Burnham and Wes Streeting have all declared that ‘trans women are women’. Some of them have gone further. Starmer once said that ‘99.9 per cent of women… of course don’t have a penis’. While the Justice Secretary David Lammy went on record saying a man could grow a cervix. Radical trans activists even accuse lesbians who refuse to have sex with trans women of transphobia. But there is a wider campaign to eradicate ‘heteronormativity’ and, if it is to succeed, the brainwashing must begin in the early years. If the traditional roles of men and women in society are to be subverted effectively, goes the thinking, the more children can be confused by talk of women with penises the quicker this will be achieved. Which brings us to another battleground: our schools. Education, Marx decreed, must be wrested from the middle class and used as a vehicle for the state propagandising of children and youth at the most vulnerable stage of their development. Hence Labour’s choice – unique in the Western world – to add VAT to private school fees, a move that has already seen more than a hundred establishments shut, according to the Independent Schools Council. And where do the vast majority of these displaced pupils end up? Why, under the controlling hand of the State. This lowered proportion of children taught in independent schools is consistent with the Left’s attack on the institution of the family, because it is so often a place where small ‘c’ conservative values are passed down the generations. Another goal of our Labour Government is to make the workforce economically equal. Under Starmer and Reeves, this stems from a tactic called ‘wage compression’. By increasing the minimum wage at one end of the earnings spectrum and reducing income at the other through a raft of tax increases, the gap between rich and poor is narrowing. Not that the people in power are suffering. Like Russia’s communist apparatchiks, who always had access to contraband the people couldn’t buy, so Labour’s big beasts enjoy the perks of power. Starmer was given suits and spectacles by the media mogul Lord Alli, plus tickets to football matches. Reeves also relished a range of freebies such as VIP passes to a Sabrina Carpenter concert. And Home Secretary Yvette Cooper’s husband Ed Balls was given four tickets to a Taylor Swift gig after she pushed for the star to get a police escort. In the spirit of nothing being too good for the workers, Labour leaders appear to have no compunction about being lavished with gifts. Under the ‘people’s party’, Britain is becoming so repressive that any former subject of the Soviet Union or its satellite states would recognise the hallmarks of them here today. Every time Keir Starmer is given a chance to rein in his ‘Keir Stalin’ instincts, however, he instead doubles down. Month by month, things worsen. Only a majority government composed of either the Tories or Reform UK – and I have reservations about both – or a coalition of the two can reverse our decline into a very British totalitarianism. If they fail, we are all sunk. Giles Udy is a writer and historian who is author of At Dawn They Came – Soviet Terror And Repression 1917-1953. The comments below have not been moderated. The views expressed in the contents above are those of our users and do not necessarily reflect the views of MailOnline. By posting your comment you agree to our house rules. Do you want to automatically post your MailOnline comments to your Facebook Timeline? 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