Labour’s “Change” manifesto is not a manifesto for change
JVL Introduction
Perspectives on the general election (13)
As Aditya Chakrabortty points out, election manifestos “summarise the values of our would-be leaders, and lay out visions of what our country could be”.
He looks at Labour’s new manifesto in that light, drawing on the work of Kevin Farnsworth who has crunched labour and Tory manifestos since 1945, coding and categorising terms, phrases, patterns.
What stands out is how much Corbyn’s manifestos in 2017 and 2019 were in Labour’s tradition while Starmer’s decidedly is not. It turns out to be surprisingly close to Ted Heath’s in 1974.
The tragedy of it all is that the country is ready for change, but Starmer is not.
RK
This article was originally published by the Guardian on Sat 15 Jun 2024. Read the original here.
Drill into the policy, ignore the puffery: this is a Starmer manifesto more than a Labour one
Perspectives on the general election (13)
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You can’t stick a cigarette paper between either Labour or Conservative Party manifesto’s. Both support supplying weapons for the Zionist Genocide in Gaza. Both perpetrate the same militaristic and war narrative as Washington. Neither of them offers any hope for working class people in terms of welfare support or increased access to public healthcare. Starmer is happy to retain the two-child cap on family allowance but won’t cap Bankers or CEO’s bonuses of privately owned public utilities. Local Authority properties will still be sold off at give away prices, whilst thousands will remain in emergency accommodation or substandard housing. Labour’s silence on welfare, housing and public health has been deafening.
The problem is going to come once the honeymoon period is over and people become aware that they are facing the same issues, and being fed the same austerity, but from a different hand with a different spoon. Even if the Labour Party gets the predicted large majority, there will be opposition from within the Labour Movement and those of us at the grassroots, who wont put up with the promise of “jam tomorrow” or another 14 years of attacks on workers rights, poor living standards, attacks on benefits and the right to a decent publically-funded, publically owned, NHS. At that point Starmer will show his establishment credentials and show us what we already know: he doesnt represent the interests of the working class or trades union movement, only the tiny economic and political elite and its own self interests. It will be interesting to see what happens after the honeymoon.
Yes, Sir Starmer has indeed changed the Labour Party. The man lied his way to the leadership and now he’s busily lying his way towards Premiership. Moving on from “merely” lying to Labour Party members, we now have his “tough choices” – in other words yet more lies, but this time aimed at duping the entire nation! The only way to impede the nasty creature and his horrible henchmen is to vote for decent independents and/or Corbyn supporters. A vote for Starmer and his Labour Party is a wasted vote – it will not bring “change”, nor will it address the many, many ills that beset Britain…
All Labour want to change is the personnel that run capitalism, that’s it. They have no intention of a different, for example socialist, system, and despite supposedly being the party of reform, they don’t even offer that – in fact, if Labour win, it will just be more war and misery.
‘With Keir Starmer’s leadership, the Labour Party has returned to its roots as the party of working people’
This wicked lie is within a recent Labour begging letter.
The changed for the bad Labour Party has indeed regressed, but it is back to chumming-up with the rich and influential. The reinstated establishment hierarchy of the Labour Party is visibly very opposed to the aspirations of working people.
Further dissemblance by the Labour Party includes that it has been telling us that it is being out-funded by the Tories and that Labour relies upon thousands of individual donations. The Labour Party is currently leading the Conservatives in general election funding and the reason for this is massive single donations from wealthy individuals and companies.
Everything from the changed Labour Party, inclusive of its windy manifesto, is deceptive, hypocritical and hollow.
The warning that suppressing Labour’s authentic left offer in 2017 and 2019 would create a vacuum which the far Right would fill, Is already coming true. Door knocking these past few days for independent left candidates leaves an unmistakable impression of disillusion with the main parties and the system as a whole. Labour supporters who don’t think they can be bothered to vote either at all, or at best reluctantly; Tory supporters who are going to switch to Nigel Farage.
Yet many who might warm to the independent offer being put to them now, find it hard to believe that anyone seeking election could be genuine and different, so pervasive is the disbelief in politics and politicians.
Starmer’s most evident recent contributions have been to reinforce the negativity by his repeated lying, and his party machine’s mendacious expulsions and deselections which have been underhand, cynical, manipulative and cruel.