Starmer silent after Hartlepool calamity. He knows he should resign but will he go?
Are you sitting uncomfortably? Keir Starmer’s relationship to the Labour leader has become akin to that of a squatter in an abandoned house after the loss of Hartlepool in yesterday’s by-election.
I honestly don’t know if Keir Starmer has failed dramatically, or actually achieved his goal.
As leader of the Opposition, his party’s loss in Hartlepool is devastating. A constituency that has been a Labour stronghold since it was created in 1974 has passed to the Conservatives. It means no Labour seat is safe from the Tories.
But many critics have suggested that Starmer’s job as a right-wing Labour leader has been to ensure that – at a time when the Conservatives are burdened with a corrupt and incapable leader, the consequences of failed Brexit and Covid policies, and rampant cronyism – Labour still cannot win an election.
If the latter is true, then he has succeeded monumentally.
Any sincere Labour leader would see that his time is up; his policies have failed and it is time to go.
But Starmer was silent when he left his house today (May 7). Maybe it is too soon to make official announcements (although Corbyn was prompt enough after the 2019 general election result).
He had claimed he would “carry the can” if the result was poor – but This Writer fears it is more likely that he will try to pass the buck instead.
Already Peter Mandelson has tried to blame the disaster on what he called “the two Cs – Covid and Corbyn”.
Many people consider him to be a certain kind of C, too.
His comment is reminiscent of the claims made by the Tory government many times since they took office in 2010, whenever they have been criticised over a policy failure – that the fault lay with the previous Labour administration.
The facts betray the lie in both cases. Here, it is more than a year since Jeremy Corbyn was leader of the Labour Party. Starmer had himself elected as a “continuity Corbyn” candidate, sure – but he subsequently dumped every single policy promise he made, replacing them with nothing.
As a result, voters were left with no idea what StarmerLabour represents – and it seems to me that this is what has put people off, more than the shadow of the previous leader.
As former Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell said, “You cannot go into an election without any policy programme, without explaining what sort of society you want. You can’t send candidates out there naked without policies to advocate.”
But that’s what Starmer did. There is also the question of whether he foisted an unwanted candidate on Hartlepool’s Labour party by interfering with the selection process (as suggested in certain parts of the social media).
Even right-wing Shadow Culture Minister Alison McGovern has implied that voters don’t consider Labour to be a viable alternative to a one-party state run by the Conservatives.
She said: “There are lots of people who will have voted Conservative with a heavy heart – who want there to be an alternative,” implying that people don’t see Labour as an alternative any more. And who can deny this after a year of Starmer supporting one Tory policy after another?
“The way to do that is to offer people a set of policies that give them hope for the future, [hope] that we don’t live in a one-party Tory state, that things can be better and different,” she added, implying that people think we do live in a one-party Tory state, and that Starmer’s leadership of Labour has turned it into a pale-blue imitation of the Tories that provides no alternative but merely shores up the corrupt Johnson government.
The most risible comment so far came from hard-right “Labour First” activist Luke Akehurst, who managed to get himself onto Labour’s National Executive Committee under Starmer. He said Labour needs to make sure it is relevant and talking about issues that big swathes of the electorate care about – which is hilarious considering the way his wing of the party has diligently steered it away from those issues.
Apparently the left-wing Socialist Campaign Group of Labour MPs is planning to demand radical reform of the party, possibly including a shift to a federal structure in England, with cities and regions having their own leaders who then exert influence over the Westminster leader.
This would de-centralise power, ensuring that Starmer could not force right-wing, un-Labour policies on the wider party membership. That would have the advantage of ensuring that Labour had a strong direction – if the local leaders could agree a policy position with party HQ.
But it also runs the risk of fragmentation.
An alternative suggested by the BBC is that Labour could re-focus itself as the centre of a combined Opposition, allying with other parties like the Greens. This risks a watering-down of some policies, which is exactly the problem that many believe Starmer has created.
No matter what happens in the long term, the short-term problem can be summed up in two words: Keir Starmer.
He has to go. The longer he delays, the worse Labour’s plight – and that of the UK as a whole under Boris Johnson’s corrupt Tories – will become. And this brings us back to the big question: is that what Starmer wants?
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Jeremy Corbyn should form a new left wing party
Keir-lamity Drone.
You can guess the already it’s Jeremy Corbyn’s fault that he hasn’t been in charge for a year! Nothing to do with this cult of new Labour 2.0 not having any policies or can you honestly tell me what they stand for? They have no policies and at every point, they see the grand leader just going we support the Torys or we abstain…
The current leader is a joke let’s be honest, with no personality or insipid at best so no connection with the average person.
I bet they just double down go even more right wing… Well carry on destroy Labour! Hopefully a socialist party will emerge from the ashes because this BS is not sustainable they must see this or go down in flames.
Jeremy Corbyn should start a left wing party
Labour is dead, which was the aim of Starmer and the majority right wing Labour MPs, councillors, Peers and internal admin.
The trade unions should have disaffiliated from Labour and put their political fund money to Tusc (Treade Unionist and Socialist Coalition), who ran only a few candidates who were mostly individual trade unionists.
That perhaps is the biggest mistake the trade unions have ever made.
Because of that, Tusc did not get sufficient television coverage, especially from Channel 4 television, that is supposed by law to offer alternative viewpoints.
Grey Swans has a petition to Channel 4 television to give full and free access to new parties on the Left, that is the only way to get the public to know they exist.
Because I found in many and various ex Labour voters, Corbynites, simply did not know alternative parties existed.
See petition link on my web page www. anastasia-england. me. uk