Starmer’s failure on migrants shows he is breaking his leader election pledges as fast as he can
Keir Starmer: he’s no revolutionary. In fact, he’s abandoning his stated principles one by one.
Do you think Keir Starmer ever bothers to think about the 10 pledges he made to Labour members when he was campaigning to be elected party leader?
He certainly can’t have been thinking about Pledge #6 this week. It states:
“Defend migrants’ rights
Full voting rights for EU nationals. Defend free movement as we leave the EU. An immigration system based on compassion and dignity. End indefinite detention and call for the closure of centres such as Yarl’s Wood.”
I mention this because his current shadow shadow immigration minister, responding to the Tory government’s homicidal determination to get rid of asylum-seekers – no matter what harm it causes them – hasn’t.
According to LabourList editor Sienna Rodgers, shadow immigration minister Holly Lynch said:
Today they have announced a new “comprehensive action plan” but have failed to reveal what that involves or when it will be enacted. We’re calling on the government to urgently provide the detail, and reveal why it has taken them this long to make any progress on a solution.
I don’t even see an attempt to “defend migrants’ rights” there. Mention of “a solution” suggests that the Starmer leadership considers migrants/asylum-seekers/refugees as a problem, rather than as people.
Contrast that with the comment of previous party leader Jeremy Corbyn’s shadow immigration minister, Bell Ribeiro-Addy [bolding mine]:
We have a legal & moral responsibility to refugees fleeing famine, war and violence. They are not the problem. The problem is the dangerous routes they must take.
We should be looking at safe and legal routes, not intimidating them with Navy ships.
Compare the comments for yourself – Bat020 has tweeted them both side-by-side:
Labour's shadow immigration minister today v her predecessor yesterday. pic.twitter.com/EtJyB9sryi
— bat020 (@bat020) August 11, 2020
We should not be surprised by Starmer’s about-turn over migrant rights, though.
He ditched the very first of his 10 pledges as soon as he could. That was the one that promised Economic justice, saying that he would
Increase income tax for the top 5% of earners, reverse the Tories’ cuts in corporation tax and clamp down on tax avoidance, particularly of large corporations. No stepping back from our core principles.
He did step back from it, though.
Also unlikely to see the light of day in a Starmer government is Pledge #3: Climate justice:
Put the Green New Deal at the heart of everything we do. There is no issue more important to our future than the climate emergency. A Clean Air Act to tackle pollution locally. Demand international action on climate rights.
Back in June, a Starmer spokesperson said he was considering dropping climate change targets written into the Green New Deal, in order to win elections.
A spokesperson for Keir Starmer said that he had supported the plans included in Labour’s last manifesto, but that the party had lost the election.
It seems migrants are just the next group set for betrayal by Starmer.
His pledges mean nothing.
It seems he doesn’t stand for anything other than himself.
Source: 10 Pledges | Keir Starmer
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Erm…. Haven’t we heard something similar in the past where Fascists had a “problem” and condemned certain races that were “infesting and invading” a country so they created The Final Solution ?
when seeing Starmer all I can think of is Monty Python. To misquote:
‘He’s not the leader of the opposition, he’s just a very naughty boy’
Just like Neil Kinnock.