Starmer is letting Tories order him around. Is this an unexpected twist in the lobbying scandal?
Keir Starmer: the face of shame, again.
We all know the Board of Deputies of British Jews is dominated by Conservatives, don’t we?
The use of anti-Semitism accusations may therefore be seen as a way for Tories to exert unwarranted influence over the Labour Party.
Now it seems they are extending that influence – by which I mean the following:
Labour leader Keir Starmer let a Tory-run organisation order him to reject an invitation to an interfaith event.
The Board of Deputies told Starmer to avoid the virtual Iftar event because one of its organisers is a member of Cage, an international advocacy organisation with a focus on Muslim detainees and communities impacted by the so-called War on Terror.
Apparently this person had shared a demand for a boycott of Israeli dates.
Is it true? Were there good reasons for it if it was? These questions are relevant but don’t really affect the core issue.
What matters is that Starmer let a Tory group order him around and that will never be acceptable in a Labour Party representative.
And at a time when he is trying to make mud stick on Boris Johnson and the Tories for letting former MPs and ministers, party donors and friends influence them, it is shocking that Starmer would show himself to be so easily-led by a Tory-led group.
The Twitterati have been having a field day:
This is no different from withdrawing from an event in the 1980s because one of the participants was urging a boycott of products coming from Apartheid South Africa.
Labour is a pro-apartheid party. It is the enemy of progress. https://t.co/9ErHMOPPrh
— Matt Kennard (@kennardmatt) April 22, 2021
https://twitter.com/NatalieStrecke1/status/1385280313006436355
https://twitter.com/MattDuncanUK/status/1385280313056800768
This can only do further harm to Starmer’s chances in the local elections…
… but right-wing Labour is spinning like a top in its efforts to make him look supportable.
Labour is plummeting in the polls, with Starmer’s leadership the clearest reason, but that didn’t stop Peter – sorry, Lord – Mandelson taking a pop at former leader Jeremy Corbyn. He told Huffington Post‘s Paul Waugh:
“The memory of Jeremy Corbyn is still strong on the doorsteps amongst Labour voters here, it’s still coming up and I’m afraid we have still got some way to go before we rebuild the confidence and trust that we just threw away.”
No, Peter. It’s your boy Starmer who’s throwing away confidence and trust.
Meanwhile, the object of the Right’s continued enmity has managed to remain astonishingly equivocal about Starmer – but still couldn’t manage to say anything nice about him when questioned by LBC’s Iain Dale:
I love how he simply ignores the request to say something nice about Starmer and just keeps making his point about the importance of an opposition (clearly implying that Starmer is crap at it). Corbyn is really great here.
— Frank (@AhoFrank) April 22, 2021
It is a class act – especially in contrast to that of Starmerites like Mandelson.
They fling dirt at Corbyn thick and fast – while he merely comments from experience about what a Labour leader should do.
One thing a Labour leader should never do is be seen to allow Tories to dictate his schedule to him.
Source: Starmer withdraws from Ramadan interfaith event after Board of Deputies warning | Jewish News
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What riles me is that the Labour Party policy on Brexit, which was to ‘Respect the Vote’, was well suited to the ‘Red Wall’ areas who had voted Brexit and didn’t want lectured about it. Starmer started to, wrongly, say that the policy was for a second referendum and muddied the waters. HE pushed and pushed and got his way. He knowingly caused Labour to lose all those seats. After having spent years briefing against his own leader to oust him and shredding the party in order to do so, he finally got his way by the ultimate betrayal, knowingly damaging the party’s chances at a GE.
Add to this that he is Tory in all but name. It feels like when a band break up and they fight over the right to use the name to tour with a backing band. Labour gets rid of these right wingers occasionally but they drag the party down. They will focus group policy rather than make the case for it. It should have been settled in the 80s when the right wing went off to the SDP and then joined the Liberals to form LibDems. They want their cake and eat it. The country gets Tory hardiners or Tory-Lite.