When Sir Keir Starmer entered Downing Street in July 2024, many expected the Labour Party to usher in an era of economic pragmatism rooted in fairness – a corrective to the market excesses of Conservative rule. Yet within little more than a year, Starmer’s government has begun dismantling one of the few remaining institutional barriers between corporate power and ordinary British consumers: the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA).

Once regarded as a bastion of regulatory independence, the CMA has been transformed into an instrument of the government’s pro-business agenda. Under the banner of “growth,” Labour has aligned itself with the interests of Big Tech, finance, and private equity – often at the expense of market competition and consumer protection. Critics say the Starmer government’s approach not only betrays Labour’s social-democratic roots but also risks entrenching monopolistic dominance that will cost ordinary Britons dearly in the years to come.

The unraveling began with the removal of Marcus Bokkerink, the former CMA chair and a one-time Boston Consulting Group executive. Bokkerink’s tenure was defined by his insistence that robust competition policy benefits not only consumers but long-term economic growth. His view was clear: “whenever the CMA has stepped in to keep markets open by preventing attempts to lock out competing investors through anti-competitive mergers,” he argued, “we have seen new investment flow in.”

But that philosophy ran headlong into the ambitions of a Labour government desperate to prove its “business-friendly” credentials. Bokkerink’s decision to block Microsoft’s $75.4 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard in 2023 – a move widely praised by economists but reviled by corporate lobbyists – painted a target on his back. After Labour’s election victory, ministers swiftly ousted him, replacing him with Doug Gurr, the former head of Amazon UK.

“A monopolist has been appointed to lead the anti-monopoly watchdog,” one competition lawyer remarked. To critics, the symbolism was unmistakable: Britain’s regulators were being brought to heel.

The prime minister made his intentions explicit at the International Investment Summit in October 2024, held in London’s historic Guildhall before an audience of global financiers and tech executives. “We will rip out the bureaucracy that blocks investment,” Starmer declared. “We will march through the institutions… and make sure that every regulator in this country takes growth as seriously as this room does.”

The rhetoric echoed Margaret Thatcher’s neoliberal crusade of the 1980s but with a modern, technocratic polish. In Starmer’s calculus, regulatory “reform” means aligning oversight bodies with the priorities of investors,........

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