Promises broken: Jeremy Vine also pressed Keir Starmer on his reasons for abandoning the 10 pledges on which he was elected Labour leader.
Here’s a balancing view to set against This Site’s earlier article about Keir Starmer’s plan to tackle the cost of living crisis.
In the same Jeremy Vine interview when he discussed that plan, Starmer refused to support strike action by the TSSA (Transport Salaried Staff Association) union, saying he had to focus on his own ambition to be prime minister.
This Site’s friend Cornish Damo has this to say about it:
Keir Starmer appeared on #JeremyVine this morning & repeated he has no intention of attending picket lines now he's fixated on his own ambition of becoming Prime Minister at the next Election. They were good enough for him when he wanted to be Labour leader though… #DamoRantspic.twitter.com/mgPwhxDJux
— Damien Willey #SupportTheRMT (@KernowDamo) August 31, 2022
He’s got a good point, hasn’t he?
Starmer also discussed with Vine his u-turn on plans to renationalise the privatised energy firms; apparently the Covid-19 pandemic changed everything and now he can’t justify it.
Damo says this is nonsense and – from the arguments This Writer has heard over the last few years – he’s the one making sense:
So aside from telling striking workers to do one this morning on #JeremyVine, Starmer also faced questions on his refusal to now renationalise energy. Apparently we can't afford to now because of the pandemic. Try again & learn some economics you liar. #DamoRantspic.twitter.com/mHqa4xO5tp
— Damien Willey #SupportTheRMT (@KernowDamo) August 31, 2022
It’s all worth thinking about, when you’re weighing up whether a Starmer-led Labour Party deserves your support at the ballot box.
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Keir Starmer: it seems he actually has a point (for a change).
To answer the question in the title, if you watch this clip of Jeremy Vine attacking Keir Starmer’s plan – to his face – you may think the answer is no:
But if it knocks headline inflation down by four points, it has to be good – right?
And in the meantime – it is to be hoped – Parliament as a whole can work on a multi-headed strategy to bring down the cost of living.
Also – you may not know this, but the Labour plan apparently saves poorer people, who don’t pay by direct debit but by pre-payment, £300 more.
This Writer is no fan of Starmer – but at least he is offering something.
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This is a bit of an oldie (the clip is from September last year) but relevant as we prepare to have a new prime minister forced on us by electors in the Conservative Party.
The message is clear: don’t think for a moment that you can change UK politics by electing Keir Starmer’s Labour Party instead of the Tories, because he is just the same as them – another member of the ruling Establishment.
The last Labour leader who wanted real change was Jeremy Corbyn – and he was hounded out by the Establishment’s client mass media, who proved exactly how far they can influence the weak-minded by convincing huge numbers of people that the peace-loving Corbyn was a hate-filled racist.
Here’s the clip:
From a personal point of view, I like that point that it is a badge of honour if you are attacked by the Labour leadership and pushed out of the party; it means they think you are important – you matter.
This Writer was among the first people to be attacked in this way.
It’s nice to know that I have an effect on the world.
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Time for real change: Jeremy Corbyn’s only crime as Labour leader was failing to remove right-wing/’centrist’ treachery and backstabbing from the party. It stopped him winning the 2017 general election and allowed the hysteria over false anti-Semitism claims that have continued to this day. The sooner party members realise this and eject the cuckoo Keir Starmer, the better.
I use “blackmail” in the headline advisedly. This may very well be a criminal offence.
For those who are unaware, blackmail occurs when a person (or several) make a demand of another person (or indeed organisation), accompanied by the threat of a particular consequence if they don’t comply.
(For example, if a group of so-called anti-Semitism “whistleblowers” threaten the Labour Party with bankruptcy either fighting or settling legal claims, unless it expels Jeremy Corbyn.)
The intent must be to make a gain for someone (not necessarily themselves) – or a loss for someone (not necessarily their victim).
(For example, if Jeremy Corbyn loses his Labour Party membership.)
The demand must have been “unwarranted” – that is, it should not be possible to justify it reasonably, and its reinforcement with menaces should not be proper in the belief of the perpetrator.
(For example, if Jeremy Corbyn has not done anything to justify expulsion from the Labour Party – and he hasn’t – and if those making the threat are able to take legal advice showing that their demand is not proper – and they are.)
So, if the Mail‘s story is true, Labour should file a complaint of blackmail, with the police, against those people taking legal action against the party.
The party’s current leader, Keir Starmer – useless though he has been on anything relating to anti-Semitism accusations so far – should be aware of this, having been a Director of Public Prosecutions (and therefore a lawyer himself) prior to being a member of Parliament.
I note that the Mail states only that “sources close to some of the ex-party staffers” made the threat, so presumably the litigants themselves will be able to deny it.
Even if blackmail could not be proved – and I think there’s a strong case for it – the threat is unwise.
I refer you to this comment on Facebook which states: “The disloyal staffers who would be claimants in this action are claiming personal insult, hurt feelings and career damage. To make an alternative offer of accepting Jeremy Corbyn’s head on a plate would damage their case by giving the impression it was politically motivated.”
And of course they are doing their best to claim that their lawsuits are not motivated by political gain but by injury to themselves. If it could be proved that they are trying to harm left-wing influence in the Labour Party instead, then their cases would fall.
“Secondly, there is no point making such an offer if it would only pacify ‘some’ of the potential claimants.”
True – the party would still face the possibility of having to pay a fortune in compensation.
“If it satisfied them all, they would look like participants in a conspiracy to engineer a right-wing coup in their party, which is surely not the impression they would want to give.”
Again, they would be showing political motivation.
“And thirdly, Corbyn would have excellent grounds for appealing his expulsion.”
He would. If Starmer expelled him in order to avoid expensive litigation/compensation payouts, without charging him under any of the party’s disciplinary procedures, holding an investigation into those charges, and hearing the evidence at an NCC hearing – the very process other (innocent) members have had to undergo – then Starmer would have broken party rules and Labour would be vulnerable to a hugely-damaging lawsuit from Corbyn himself.
The result is that Keir Starmer is now in danger, no matter what he chooses to do.
And this is the man the Labour right – sorry, ‘centrists’ – said was the brilliant leader who would make the party electable again!
Needless to say, the situation has attracted serious amounts of scorn online:
Well done Keir. By settling you've given legal weight to anybody in that leaked report to bring an action against the Party. You gave away £600K now it could be millions more. OR, you boot Corbyn out. Bankrupt the Party one way, destroy it the other.
If the Labour Party acquiesces to the rumoured financial extortion that is being publicised in the gutter press, and expels Corbyn from the Party, a movement will coalesce around him that will see the Labour Party consigned to the dustbin of history for ever more.
— CrémantCommunarde#ActivistLawyer ⚖️ 😷 ✋ (@0Calamity) July 26, 2020
Personally, This Writer’s favourite comment on the whole issue comes from Corbyn’s long-term friend and former Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell:
As my friend, Jeremy Corbyn, gets on with job of being an incredibly hard working local MP & throwing himself into huge range of international, humanitarian campaigns I see the campaign of character assassination continues apace.They just don’t get it. You’ll never break this man
— John McDonnell MP (@johnmcdonnellMP) July 26, 2020
Hear, hear!
Oh, and one more thing: My own court case against Labour is still set to take place on October 2.
If I win, then Labour will be vulnerable to further court action from me.
It has been suggested that Labour is in fact extremely vulnerable because members are leaving en masse, taking their subscription money with them. I’ve seen rumours that more than 300,000 – half the membership under Corbyn – have voted with their feet. So aggressive action from a party member who has suffered genuine wrongdoing over a period of years could be crippling.
I’ll have a much stronger case than these others and I won’t be inclined to be lenient.
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Keir Starmer: he’s no leader – not even a fake military one, as depicted in this mock-up.
It is worth pointing out, on the day Keir Starmer paid out around £600,000 and apologised to so-called anti-Semitism “whistleblowers”, that his actions are only perpetuating the saga – prolonging the agony.
Take his sacking of Rebecca Long-Bailey from the Labour front bench a few weeks ago: on Monday, Labour Party members, supported by Salford TUC, made a formal complaint – I take it to the party’s National Executive Committee – about Starmer’s conduct.
The group points out that Ms Long-Bailey’s sacking on the pretext of her having shared a link to an interview with a constituent who shared an “anti-Semitic conspiracy theory” is wrong, for these reasons:
Maxine Peake’s statement – that US police learned from Israeli operatives the method of killing people (like George Floyd) by exerting pressure on their necks with a knee – may well be accurate; there is evidence available to that effect.
There are unimpeachable arguments that Ms Peake’s statement was not anti-Semitic in any case.
The group wants an appropriate and thorough investigation of whether Starmer’s publicly-stated reason for sacking Ms Long-Bailey was accurate, proportionate and fair.
If it was not, then the group wants a public statement to that effect, including that the party will always challenge unfair dismissal in whatever context; an apology to Ms Long-Bailey; and her reinstatement to her former shadow cabinet post – or an appropriately-substantial such post – at the earliest opportunity.
It is doubtful that Labour under Starmer is capable of carrying out an appropriate and thorough investigation of anything. But it will be interesting to see how the party’s leaders respond.
And this is just the tip of an ever-growing iceberg. Already challenges are being prepared against the use of party members’ subscription money to pay off the group who appeared on Panorama to denounce Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour leadership.
And concerns that Starmer is about to remove the Labour whip from Jeremy Corbyn are provoking a strong response.
Party members are already demanding to know why their membership money is being used in such a perverse way, and (so far) Starmer has been unable to come up with a response.
It seems clear that if he continues to use party money to fund unfounded attacks on members, he is likely to face a very large rebellion by grassroots members.
He came on as the blazing hope for the Labour Party when he was elected in April.
If he doesn’t want to drop out as a damp squib after only three months (and change) as leader, he’d better rethink his approach double-quick.
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Keir the clueless: he thinks he’s putting Jeremy Corbyn and the former Labour leadership in an impossible position; in fact, all he’s doing is boxing himself in.
It should come as no surprise that new New Labour leader Keir Starmer would rather pay hundreds of thousands of pounds to so-called anti-Semitism whistleblowers than contest their claims in court – and perhaps win.
We know that the party had received advice that it had a strong defence against the claims by a group who spoke out in last year’s Panorama documentary, Is Labour Antisemitic?
Here’s former leader Jeremy Corbyn saying as much:
Former Labour leader Mr Corbyn said the legal settlement “risks giving credibility to misleading and inaccurate allegations about action taken to tackle anti-Semitism in the Labour Party in recent years”.
He said it was a “political decision, not a legal one”.
“Our legal advice was that the party had a strong defence, and the evidence in the leaked Labour report that is now the subject of an NEC inquiry led by Martin Forde QC strengthened concerns about the role played by some of those who took part in the programme.”
He said Mr Forde must “fully address the evidence” in the “internal report” in order to “give our members the answers and justice they deserve”.
But Starmer instead decided to apologise unreservedly without contesting the claims, and to spaff hundreds of thousands of pounds of party members’ money up the wall paying off the so-called whistleblowers.
I say “so-called” because several of them are mentioned in the leaked Labour report on how the party handled anti-Semitism, which is the subject of an internal inquiry by Martin Forde QC, as mentioned by Mr Corbyn.
Will they be vindicated when that report is published? The result will show how much we can trust internal Labour reports, I expect.
One of the group was also involved in the allegations of anti-Semitism against This Writer, that led to my expulsion from the party under false pretences.
I am taking Labour to court – for breaching its contract with me in the way it handled the case – and the party will go on trial on October 2, in Bristol Civil Justice Centre. The hearing will begin at 10am.
What will Starmer’s grand gesture be worth when I win my case, I wonder?
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Not for sale: the NHS shouldn’t be – unless you’re a super-rich Tory or a member of Keir Starmer’s new Labour Party, because they’re the only people who can afford privatised health.
Read this:
This is probably the most telling comment of the Starmer leadership. Faux patriotism counts more than stopping American corporations buying parts of the NHS. https://t.co/v5romZqLxU
To This Writer, it is an act of shocking treachery for a senior member of the Labour Party – let alone its leader and Shadow Foreign Secretary – to hide evidence that a UK government is willing to sell the National Health Service, or at least all the parts of it that make it valuable to UK citizens, to foreign corporate interests for profit.
Labour founded the NHS in 1948, remember, based on the information in the so-called Beveridge Report, by the Liberal William Beveridge.
The Conservatives opposed its creation bitterly – although you wouldn’t know that to hear them talking about it today. It’s amazing how people’s minds can change when they realise they can make a huge wodge of cash, isn’t it?
And now it seems that Labour’s sell-out leaders are keen to jump onto the sell-off wagon.
It seems no matter which party the public support, we’re going to end up with a privatised health system that only the richest of us will be able to afford. If you want to know why you won’t be able to pay for health care, look up all my articles about the criminal US insurance firm Unum.
If you know anybody who voted Conservative in December, or for Starmer before April 4, why not ask them if they knew they actually intended to end their own entitlement to medical treatment?
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Starmer takes the knee for Black Lives Matter: to him it meant nothing more than a photo opportunity. Black lives don’t matter to him – as we discovered when he attacked the organisation shortly after. So Nelson Mandela’s life and work doesn’t matter to him – as we can see in the fact that he praises Mandela’s fight against apartheid while supporting a foreign government that has imposed apartheid there.
Let’s start this one with a tweet from Keir Starmer – and the acid reply it received from This Site’s friend Kerry-Anne Mendoza:
You’d have expelled Mandela for standing against Apartheid Israel.
You don’t get to invoke our leaders without having the courage or integrity to live their values. https://t.co/8Mfltbwp0i
— Kerry-Anne Mendoza 🏳️🌈🏴 (@TheMendozaWoman) July 19, 2020
She is right and Starmer is a hypocrite.
If Mandela really inspired Starmer, then he would not be giving Israel his wholehearted support as that country’s far-right-wing government prepares to invade huge tracts of Palestinian land, turfing out the people who own it – because they are Arabs.
And why is any UK politician giving the policies of a foreign nation their unreserved support in any case?
I didn’t know Mandela personally but everything I have seen and heard about him suggests that he would have been physically sickened by Starmer and his supporters, who say one thing and do another habitually, in the belief that they will fool the people into supporting their policies of – let’s face it – hate.
Now, some may say that this is too harsh – but is it? Really?
I have quoted Richard Snell in the past, whose Facebook post on the Equality and Human Rights Commission’s investigation of alleged anti-Semitism in the Labour Party – the lever Starmer is using to throw out genuinely left-wing, progressive party members who support multiculturalism rather than apartheid – suggested a series of questions we know are likely not even to have been asked.
In another recent post, he provides an opinion on Starmer’s behaviour:
“It’s been pointed out to me that Jeremy Corbyn’s supporters shouldn’t complain about the hammering Corbyn got when they are so willing to come down as heavily as many now do on Starmer.
“If we’re talking about abuse -and I’m afraid there are too many times when we are – then I agree. Abuse has no place in this argument on any side. The past does not forgive the present.
“But I would point out one difference between Corbyn and Starmer which is crucial in understanding the present furore surrounding Sir Keir Starmer.
Jeremy Corbyn was determined to unite the whole of the Labour Party behind him, both left and right, as a matter of principle. He had no problem with diversity of opinion.
“Sadly, this turned out to be a huge strategic weakness in his bid to become PM, as it gave his opponents the space to act against him without any real action being taken against them in return.
“But nevertheless, he was by instinct a unifier. He may have fallen before the massed ranks of those who did not want unity and who were willing to tell blatant lies about him to achieve their aim; but the integrity he showed in maintaining his position despite them is difficult to question.
Starmer, by contrast, is hugely divisive as a matter of policy.
“He is determined to purge the party of its anti-Zionist left-wing, as his unquestioning acceptance of Zionism, his settlement deal with the so-called ‘whistleblowers’, and his acceptance of the BoD 10-point plan clearly indicate, his firing of Rebecca Long-Bailey for posting an anti-Semitic trope which wasn’t anti-Semitic being the cherry on that cake.
“His supporters may not like the angry response all this, plus his expressed aim to work with the Tories when he feels it appropriate to do so, has got him, but they can hardly be surprised.
“People who have always been loyal to the Labour Party are now being thrown out of it on a single trumped-up charge: and nobody should say anything?
And it is incredible that a Labour leader should in these times of huge financial hardship for the poor and sick turn his back on the idea of charging the rich just a little bit more for the privilege of being rich!
“It is not logical for Starmer’s supporters to solicit the support of those whom he is deliberately setting himself against and then complain when they have harsh words to say in response.
“Don’t tell us to unify behind Starmer. Tell Starmer that unifying the party is his responsibility, and that he is failing in it.”
Mr Snell knows his stuff. It was a weakness for Corbyn, seeking unity, to fail to identify and remove those in his party’s head office who were acting against his aims. Yes, they would have bitched about it, but they were bitching anyway – as the leaked report on Labour’s response to anti-Semitism accusations shows.
And Mr Snell is right about Starmer. He is divisive, but he thinks that by pretending to be a unifier he’ll get away with it.
The huge negative response from (some now-former) party members and supporters tells us everything about how well that strategy has succeeded.
Some may wish to take issue with Mr Snell’s use of “Zionism” as a pejorative term, and it is true that Zionism need not be a bad force in the world. At its heart, it is simply a movement for Jewish people to be able to live in the land where their ancestors lived – the historic nation of Israel.
But that is not the definition of “Zionism” used by the Israeli government and its supporters. Their version demands that Jewish people must forcibly steal land from its current owners – by violence if necessary (some would say “if possible”) – and that crosses the line into unacceptability.
Mr Starmer supports this definition of “Zionism”. In so doing, he is guilty of breaching Labour rules which demand that party members accept the right of all peoples to self-determination – including Palestinians.
Nothing is said about this. Starmer and his people hope that nobody will notice.
In the same way, he hopes nobody will notice that he is colluding with the Tories in policies that have caused the unnecessary deaths of between 60,000 and 70,000 people.
And he is failing in his duty to stand up for equality by demanding that the rich – some of whom have profited hugely from the Covid-19 crisis – pay a little more towards restoring our society as that crisis subsides.
Meanwhile, his supporters berate those of us who have pointed out these failings. Like those columnists for The Guardian newspaper, which has lost readers because, while claiming to be left-wing, it has been attacking those who are genuinely of the left, they also appear to subscribe to the “do as we say, don’t see what we do” school of politics.
That won’t work because we’re all sick of the lies.
Many of us may have been led astray by the honeyed words that successive generations of politicians have poured into our ears over the 41 years since Thatcher came to power on a wave of neoliberal balderdash.
More never believed any of it, but have been forced to suffer the consequences as the charlatans were swept into office again and again by those who did.
And what have we got as a result?
The United Kingdom is a ruined country, ruled by corrupt oligarchs who have taken what they wanted for themselves, farmed out the rest to their friends, and left us in the ruins of a system that no longer functions. The Covid-19 crisis is ample demonstration of that.
And Keir Starmer feigns opposition to this while buying into it hook, line and sinker.
That is why his perversion of the Labour Party is haemorrhaging support – and why his supporters’ protests receive only scorn.
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Keir the clueless: if he won’t stand up against liars who present a false impression of the Labour Party, then his version of Labour is not worth your support in any way at all.
It seems Keir Starmer is set to pay out Labour members’ subscriptions and apologise to so-called anti-Semitism whistleblowers, in order to settle a court case that Labour would win – if he fought it.
Why?
What is the aim here, other than to humiliate the party and create a false impression that Labour was in the wrong?
Here’s the story:
Labour is poised to make a formal apology to antisemitism whistleblowers as part of a settlement designed to draw a line under allegations made during the Jeremy Corbyn era, the Guardian has learned.
The whistleblowers sued the party for defamation in the wake of a BBC Panorama investigation last year. No final settlement has been reached but sources said an agreement was imminent, prompting anger from Corbyn allies who accused the Labour leader, Keir Starmer, of capitulating.
Seven of the eight whistleblowers – all former Labour staffers – who featured in the documentary instructed the prominent media lawyer Mark Lewis to take action against the party.
They claimed senior figures had issued statements attacking their reputations and suggesting they had ulterior political and personal motives to undermine the party.
Labour is expected to settle a separate case with the veteran journalist John Ware, who led the Panorama investigation and who sued over a statement by Labour that the BBC had engaged in “deliberate and malicious representations designed to mislead the public” in its broadcast.
If they were justified in their action, then perhaps it would be fair for them to receive an apology and restitution. However:
Any apology will prove controversial among Corbyn loyalists, who questioned whether settling it is a good use of party funds. The Guardian understands legal advice provided to Labour under Corbyn’s leadership suggested the party could win the case.
Labour under Starmer has appeared eager to reach agreements to end ongoing conflicts over the party’s antisemitism crisis.
So on the face of it, Starmer is throwing Labour members’ subscription money away, in order to lie about the way anti-Semitism was handled by these former officers.
And it will be for nothing. Appeasement never stops anybody – it just encourages them to go on accusing and demanding, with each demand being more outrageous.
What impression is Starmer hoping to give?
That Labour is now utterly supine?
That the party will give in and go along with anyone who tries to bully it – like the Tories on the Covid-19 crisis and the sectarian groups among the UK’s Jewish community who demand absolute loyalty to the Israeli government, no matter what atrocities it commits against Palestine?
That Labour is no longer an anti-racist party as it will not defend even its own members who stand up against racism?
That Labour is no longer worthy of support in any way at all?
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Two-faced: Keir Starmer wants us to think he’s the left-wing alternative to Boris Johnson, but his behaviour shows that’s a mask for another Establishment stooge.
Labour’s Clive Lewis has warned that the politics of new party leader Keir Starmer needs to be defined quickly, before others do it. Too late!
Commentators on the decline of Labour under Starmer already know perfectly well that he represents a backslide into two-faced Blairism and are making a public impact with their revelations.
He said definition of ‘Keirism’, with “broad themes” and “red lines”, “needs to be done because if you don’t, other people begin to define you or try to define you, and that’s already happening.”
It sure is – and the verdict is damning.
So, for example, we get this piece in Libcom, which puts the two-faced Labour leader in context from the very first paragraph: “It appears that Sir Keir intends to combine a ‘forensic’, lawyerly critique of the government’s many failings with what he calls ‘constructive’ support for the most hard-right Tory administration since the 1930s.”
Writer Mark Kosman goes on to condemn Starmer’s response to the Black Lives Matter movement as “keen to reassure the entire British establishment that the Labour Party will continue to be a ‘most loyal’ opposition”.
You may remember Starmer belittled BLM, saying “I don’t have any truck with what [Black Lives Matter] is saying about defunding the police or anything else. That’s just nonsense.”
Mr Kosman describes BLM’s response – that Starmer was just a “cop in an expensive suit” as “incisive and memorable”.
But he goes further – pointing out that the Labour leader’s words were a far cry from what he said back in 1986 when writing about police attacks on pickets during the printers’ bitter dispute with Rupert Murdoch over his Wapping print plant:
Back then, according to Starmer’s former Highgate housemate, ‘he used to run an organisation called Socialist Alternatives from our house.’ Socialist Alternatives was the publication of the British section of the pro-self-management, ex-Trotskyist group, the International Revolutionary Marxist Tendency, and Starmer’s contributions to the magazine included an article about the Wapping dispute in which he denounced the use of ‘paramilitary’ policing methods. He then said:
This leads to the question of the role the police should play, if any, in civil society. Who are they protecting and from what?
Starmer’s comments appear to raise the issue of abolishing the police not just defunding them. According to one of his old lawyer friends, back in 1986, Starmer also advocated a ‘thorough critique of the prison system and how it didn’t work.
Well, it’s not uncommon for people to change their minds. And, as Mr Kosman points out, “Starmer’s subsequent depressing trajectory from ‘Marxist’ radical to cynical careerist is not uncommon on the British left.”
He goes on to add: “What is less common is Starmer’s trajectory from a lawyer who genuinely supported left-wing activism to one who became head of the Crown Prosecution Service – an organisation whose only interest in such activism is a determination to contain and prevent it.”
He goes on to direct us to a more thorough critique of the Labour leader’s grim record at the Verso blog. He states: “In ‘The Case Against Keir Starmer’, Oliver Eagleton runs through Starmer’s dubious positions on the Iraq War, Trident, state surveillance, Julian Assange and welfare cuts, as well as his apparent reluctance to prosecute the police officers who killed Jean Charles de Menezes and Ian Tomlinson.”
“There’s certainly no question that [Starmer] has become a convert to the establishment,” he writes. “Not only has he accepted a knighthood but he’s been a member of the pro-US, pro-market think tank, the Trilateral Commission, since 2018. Other members of this rather secretive organisation include not only Henry Kissinger but as many as seven former heads of the CIA and various other US intelligence agencies
“The head of the UK’s intelligence agency, MI5, is Jonathan Evans who was particularly grateful to Starmer for his decision not to prosecute MI5 for their role in the CIA’s overseas torture programme.”
Kosman points out Starmer’s supine response to the Covid-19 crisis, quoting Lancet editor Richard Horton’s protest against the Tory policies that have killed nearly 70,000 people (by the time I’m writing this): “Why are you allowing this government to orchestrate the deaths of your citizens, your families, your neighbours? This is a mass delusion. Resist. Resist. Rebel.”
And what’s Starmer’s response? “Starmer has never been quite this passionate about anything but, as a younger activist, he would, at least, have been able to appreciate and echo Horton’s truth-telling.
“However, now, as an older professional politician – one who is completely integrated into the establishment – he is simply unable to face up to the truth of modern Britain, let alone ‘speak out’ about it.
Finally – and crucially – Kosman lays into Starmer’s merciless “witch-hunt” against people on the left of the Labour Party – the wing from which he himself emerged:
His witch-hunt against the left, both inside and outside the Labour Party, has probably only just started.
If Starmer is prepared to smear his fellow front-bencher, Rebecca Long-Bailey, as a purveyor of ‘anti-Semitic conspiracy theories’, he won’t hesitate to slander and persecute any and all genuinely left-wing activists.
This ‘cop in an expensive suit’ is, at present, no threat to the Tory government. But, allied both with that government and with his friends in the police, he could easily become a very serious threat to those of us on the genuine left.
Those are the facts of the matter.
And that is why, after only 100 days as leader, it is now far too late for Keir Starmer to try to define his politics.
The damage has already been done – and he did it himself. We just said what we saw.
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