Ian Austin: he’s attacking Keir Starmer – and let’s hope this spat goes the distance.

This is hilarious.

After Keir Starmer had his party’s National Executive Committee ban former leader Jeremy Corbyn from ever standing as a Labour candidate in a future general election, rabid anti-Corbyn activist Ian Austin attacked him.

That’s right – now two right-wingers who both oppose Jeremy Corbyn are at odds. The Corbyn-haters have fallen to fighting each other.

Austin published his opening shot in rabidly anti-Corbyn rag the Jewish Chronicle. He stated:

He could have taken the opportunity to address concerns about his support for Jeremy Corbyn during the period when antisemitism poisoned the party.

After all, in 2019, he said, ‘I do think Jeremy Corbyn would make a great Prime Minister’.

When Louise Ellman said that Corbyn was ‘a danger to the Jewish community’, Starmer insisted: ‘I don’t accept that. I don’t accept that’.

And in 2020 during the leadership election, he even attacked those who campaigned against him, saying: ‘The attacks on Jeremy Corbyn were terrible, they vilified him.’

His supporters insist it is not necessary for him to apologise personally, but his challenge is not to persuade the already committed. He needs to reach out to those who still harbour doubts and concerns about his support for Corbyn.

He does need to account for his support for Corbyn’s leadership and his absence from the fight to tackle the racism that poisoned the party under his leadership.

Of course, it’s a load of nonsense.

Starmer had no option but to support Mr Corbyn in 2019 because Mr Corbyn was not responsible for the accusations of anti-Semitism in the Labour Party at the time and had done everything he could to tackle any genuine anti-Semitism that was there.

Many of the accusations were false, or were falsely upheld, remember. Right-wing factionalists in the party at the time seized on these and built them up, while at the same time slowing down the process by which they were handled, in order to make Mr Corbyn look bad.

He put a stop to that in 2018 when he installed his choice of general secretary and she in turn installed new measures to speed up the handling of complaints.

Starmer supported Mr Corbyn in 2020 – although that was more likely to be a brazen attempt to dupe the hundreds of thousands of Corbynites who were still in the party at the time to vote him into the party leadership.

But then he changed his tune, because he now had the power of the party leader and could do what he liked.

So he started throwing left-wingers out – including left-wing Jews. He justified this by claiming they had broken new rules he had made or were anti-Semites (yes, even the Jews).

And while this makes him two- or even three-faced: he supported Mr Corbyn then – he doesn’t now; he said anti-Semitism accusations against Mr Corbyn were unfair then – he doesn’t now; and he claimed to support left-wing values then – he doesn’t now… that doesn’t mean he should apologise for supporting Mr Corbyn.

It means he should apologise for turning against Mr Corbyn.

Neither of these fatheads will accept that they need to stand down, so hopefully we’ll see them butting heads for long enough to ruin them both in the eyes of the public.

Let’s hope it goes the distance.

Source: Starmer can’t erase his former support for Corbyn – The Jewish Chronicle

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