Starmer’s meltdown: he suspends Corbyn and splits the Labour Party
Out in the dark: Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party membership has been suspended – illegally and undemocratically. Labour members are quitting in their thousands.
It doesn’t matter which way you cut it, Keir Starmer has sabotaged the Labour Party.
Overreacting after Jeremy Corbyn responded to the EHRC report on allegations of “institutional anti-Semitism” in the party, he has acted undemocratically and illegally – and seriously jeopardised Labour’s electability.
The report itself was entirely reasonable. It didn’t find the “institutional anti-Semitism” that was claimed, said it could only show two occasions when “agents” for whom the party was responsible displayed anti-Semitism, 23 cases when the leader’s office showed “political interference” in anti-Semitism complaints – often prejudiced against the accused, rather than against Jews, and 42 cases when the complaints process discriminated against the accused, rather than against Jews (out of 70 in both sets of cases).
Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour leader at the time, responded by saying the report’s recommendations should be implemented immediately. He would; he had been trying to improve the system since he first became aware that it was a shambles, back in 2016 – with some success from 2018 when he was able to replace an unsympathetic general secretary with one who supported his leadership.
He also said the scale of the problem was dramatically overstated for political reasons by opponents inside and outside the party, as well as by much of the media.
And Keir Starmer, the current party leader, flipped his lid.
In his own response he said anybody who claimed complaints of anti-Semitism against Labour were “exaggerated” has “no place in the party”. Shortly afterwards, Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party membership was suspended.
Starmer backed away from this act, leaving his new general secretary, David Evans, to justify it.
He could not. He provided no evidence that Corbyn had broken any Labour Party rules and could not show that Corbyn had said anything that was not – in fact – accurate.
The EHRC report corroborates Corbyn’s claims – and also shows that his right to make them is enshrined in law – in his human right to free speech.
And the decision is hypocritical. The report condemned political intervention in complaint cases – even to speed them up – but the decision to suspend Corbyn’s membership is a clear intervention by the office of the Leader Of The Opposition (LOTO).
I noted that Starmer has today tried to justify Corbyn’s suspension, telling the BBC’s Today programme ,”I made it clear the Labour Party I lead will not tolerate anti-Semitism, neither will it tolerate the argument that denies or minimises anti-Semitism in the Labour Party on the basis that it’s exaggerated or a factional row.”
This is only going to make it worse because it is a lie. Corbyn didn’t deny or minimise anti-Semitism on that basis. His claim that is was exaggerated is true, as shown by the EHRC report. And he didn’t say it was a factional row – just that “opponents” used to to cause problems – and again this is accurate.
I am not the only person clever enough to see this.
But you are unlikely to hear much in complaint from Labour Party members – because the party leadership has gagged them. Communications from Labour HQ have made it clear that anybody taking to the social media – or any other media – to criticise Starmer’s behaviour will face punishment themselves.
Starmer’s people even set up a dedicated fast-track complaints system to ensure that his supporters could report offenders quickly – again in contradiction of the EHRC report’s findings, which demanded a single, simple process for everyone.
I thought he said he accepted the report in its entirety and would implement its recommendations fully? It seems this was a lie.
The result? Labour Party members up and down the country have been cancelling their Direct Debits and quitting – despite the efforts of many more level heads to encourage them to stay and exert influence within the organisation, for sanity.
My own view was that, as Corbyn has not been expelled yet, and has himself appealed for people to sit tight until the situation can be resolved “amicably”, people who still enjoy the privilege of party membership – rather than having been thrown out under false pretences like myself – should stay and fight his corner for him.
It seems likely that Starmer will expel him eventually. Any other choice now will make him look weak.
But this will split the Labour Party.
People are leaving because Starmer has shown he is unfit to lead the party, let alone the country.
His decision to suspend Corbyn was undemocratic and illegal. He overrode party rules and the rule of law to do it. And he is a lawyer, remember.
How can any responsible voter allow such a man a chance to run a government and disregard the law there as well?
I can see us entering a period when Labour will be hindered either by a plethora of left-wing candidates standing in elections against it – splitting the Left vote and allowing the Conservatives in to more constituencies, or by a new left-wing party standing against it.
The latter would be This Writer’s preferred choice as it may drag Labour back towards its proper place in politics – in the same way that the existence of UKIP pulled the Conservative Party towards fascism and illegality.
Whatever the future holds, it seems clear that Starmer has sabotaged Labour’s electoral chances for the next few years, no matter what.
Was this what he wanted?
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Labor split looms.
I have not been a financial member of the party for more than 25 years because
As in the U.K. they would prefer to tear themselves apart than the Tories.
They will purge the party of all Socialism, that’s their goal.
since starmer and the blairite faction helped the tories to two election victories i wonder if this was starmer’s remit! it doesn’t help that voters are a bit thick to put it politely!
UKIP wasn’t meant to pull the conservatives further to the right, it was created to entrans ill educated people with lazy fact less tropes pulled from the right wing press! thats why they only ran in labour seats
I am not a Labour party member, but I did vote labour because of Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership in the last General election, to try and get Labour in instead of the 100% Diasterous Tory party under the worst ever Tory party leadership. Keir Starmer has ruined the goodness in the Labout party. Jeremy Corbyn is one of the most honest & highly principled leaders.. WHY do people not like a truthful leader? Who is honest and wants to have REAL PEACE in Palestine/Israel. You’d never know from the absence of great support from many JEWS that Israel is acting as a terrorist country to a group of Semic peoples. Israel is run by Zionists who do not obey the 10 Commandments, Murder & Theft, and Terrorism. I know, I have visited Israel & Palestine, I know there are Jews who just want to live in Peace and be on friendly Terms with the Palestinans.
I am actually a Green Party Member.
A decent man been thrown under the bus by stammer the spammer now perhaps can we see a fight back and all these damed greedie MPs thrown out of the labour party
I agree with much of what you have said above, in particular that Corbyn’s suspension was an over reaction. One can see from events that Starmer was backed into a corner by his own statements that any attempts to either minimise or deny the anti-Semitism were unacceptable (whether this was intentional or not is inevitably up for debate). Personally I don’t think Starmer had any intention of suspending Corbyn when he started his press conference yesterday and he was visibly taken aback by the onslaught from the press challenging him to kick Corbyn out.
YouGov took a snap poll after Jeremy’s suspension which produced some surprising results
https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2020/10/29/most-britons-think-labour-was-right-suspend-jeremy
Q – Do you think suspending Jeremy Corbyn was the right decision or the wrong decision.
All Voters: Right – 58%, Wrong – 13%, Don’t Know – 29%,
Labour Voters: Right – 41%, Wrong – 26%, Don’t Know – 33%.
Also, (and I really don’t know what to make of this) LabourList reported the following.
LabourList understands that Angela Rayner and her team were in touch with Corbyn and his team about his response to the EHRC statement before it was posted – and warned that it would be problematic. and yet Jeremy went ahead regardless.
https://labourlist.org/2020/10/watch-kindly-think-again-says-jeremy-corbyn/
….and in the meantime we are all forced to endure the what seems like a 24/7 onslaught of gloating and in some cases nauseating TV appearances from those who betrayed and deserted Labour. Whilst we are all being instructed that we should welcome these individuals back into the Labour Party with open arms I and many other members that I know are struggling to see one good reason why we should.
I appreciate that I’m stating the obvious but we are living in confusing and volatile times. How things will turn out is anybody’s guess.
I think it should be noted that Starmer backed himself into that corner with words he spoke after Jeremy Corbyn responded to the EHRC report – so I think he did it intentionally.
I don’t think the YouGov poll produced surprising results at all. Most people are led by the nose by the media and don’t even try to understand the underlying issues. When BBC, ITV, The Guardian and the rest are all clamouring for Starmer to suspend Corbyn, they just shrug and say it must be right that Corbyn should go. It’s pathetic, but it’s the way people are.
It doesn’t surprise me that a time from the Labour leadership tried to blackmail Jeremy Corbyn into submission in his response to the EHRC. It is to his credit that he didn’t put up with it.
Those nauseating individuals you mention will indeed be welcomed back into Starmer’s New Tory Party with open arms, I predict – whether the membership wants them or not.
Mike – It doesn’t really come as much of a surprise that we disagree, it wouldn’t be the first time.
I’m just going on Starmer’s reaction to the onslaught from the press and it would be difficult to argue that Keir wasn’t taken aback.
I find it rather strange that Jeremy apparently made a conscious decision choose confrontation/martyrdom. What does he hope to achieve, how does he think his actions will advance the electoral prospects of Labour in the next GE?
Although having said that I find myself unfortunately having to agree with your last paragraph.
I’ve answered some of your questionable statements in a response to another comment. For now: don’t attribute motivations to people that simply aren’t there.
Routing the Left-Wing politicians who actually give a damn about their constituents and replacing them with self-centred middle class, right leaning career politicians will not make Labour more electable.
Add to this orders from above to do what you are ordered on pain of expulsion creating “Yes Men and Women” hardly puts a cigarette paper’s width of difference between them and the Conservative Party.
British voters given a choice always tend to stick with what they know when given such little difference between parties.
This is very alarming. The Labour Party was completely united under Corbyn.
I wouldn’t go that far!
Stammer is a closet tory there to distroy labour as a party, he need to cross the HOC and be with his friend in the tory party, JC was thown under a bus because of the right wing blair faction.
The EHRC report clearly states that under Mcnicol and his cronies the antisemitism complaints procedure was virtually non-existent, which is why Corbyn and his team consistently asked them to speed up the processes involved. They said they would, but didn’t. It was subterfuge. And it worked, because everyone piled on Corbyn and blamed him instead of Mcnicol. So basically Mcnicol and co. told Corbyn and his team they were implementing the recommendations of the Chakrabarti Report, but in reality they weren’t.
So in fact it’s Mcnicol and his cronies who should take all the flak for Labour’s extremely bad record on dealing with AS complaints. Instead, Corbyn gets suspended and Mcnicol gets a peerage.
From 2018 onwards everything speeded up, because Corbyn employed Jenny Formby to oversee the procedures and she made huge progress, despite being ill with cancer. While Mcnicol was in charge, Corbyn had no chance. He was being lied to by his own side, the people who were meant to help him.
It must be clear now, if it wasn’t already, that Keir Starmer is a Tory fifth columnist who has infiltrated the Labour Party. One of many, I think, but the most successful so far.
I’d sooner vote Tory than Starmer!
Even I think that’s a bit extreme!
Who was that woman on Question Time, from the British Board Of Jewish Deputies? What was most telling was that she commented on Trump and the deals that he brokered with Israel and the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain (excluding the Palestinians) as a positive but had nothing to say about Charlottesville, even when Bonnie Greer asked her to explain, quoting the protesters, “Jews will not replace us!” she had nothing to say. NOTHING! Plenty to say about Jeremy Corbyn and £abour but on this, nothing. Even when Bonnie Greer pointed out that the girl who was killed was Jewish. Nothing.
I stopped watching BBC Question Time a while ago because it had become too annoying so I can’t help. Can anybody, please?
Marie van der Zyl, president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews;
That explains a lot.