Starmer is not about hope – that is up to us
JVL Introduction
Starmer’s government offers no hope and is committed to depoliticisation, to continuing much of the Tory policies not only fiscally but also in terms of immigration and law and order.
The article looks at the record and failure of the Tories, especially post Johnson but also notes that many of the causes usually associated with the far right, championed by the Tories are also reflected in “Labour’s continued indulgence of British nativism, Islamophobia, and anti-immigrant agitation alongside an assortment of moral panics.”
The article also quotes Ambalavaner Sivanandan from decades ago: “What Enoch Powell says today, the Tories say tomorrow and Labour legislates on the day after”. For this government, wanting to keep Tory anti protest laws and the promise, for example, to re-open detention centres are two among many examples illustrating how prescient he was.
Is there anyone still harbouring illusions that a Starmer led government will result in any meaningful progress towards eradicating poverty, advancing equality, stopping wars or wider justice?
LL
This article was originally published by Vashti on Thu 29 Aug 2024. Read the original here.
Starmer’s project is not about hope
Labour’s response to the race riots reveals their broader political strategy
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Conservative vote suppression laws are being retained by Labour.
Those on the left still trapped in the Labour party by nostalgia for a largely mythical past would do well to note the very recent abandonment of support for Starmer’s economic policies by the influential economist David (Danny) Blanchflower, the epitome of respectability amongst UK “centrist” economists. Blanchflower’s sudden scathing attack on the Starmer-Reeves austerity programme and his dire predictions of economic collapse and social unrest are recorded in an interview by Owen Jones:
https://youtu.be/77ACO8X59Mg?si=k_0HOp7Ej3w3Cy8p
This is all the more significant in evaluating the rapidity of the collapse in public support for Starmer because the congenial but sanctimonious Blanchflower, an admirer of Gordon Brown, cannot possibly be described as a leftist. Indeed as a professor at Dartmouth College in the U.S. he was one of a minority of faculty who supported the college president’s decision in May this year to call the police to clear a peaceful Gaza encampment, an action which had resulted in brutal police violence against both students and at least one of Blanchflower’s colleagues. The Dartmouth faculty later voted to censure the president for her decisions which Blanchflower had applauded.
https://www.thedartmouth.com/article/2024/05/we-dartmouth-faculty-members-support-the-recent-actions-by-college-president-sian-leah-beilock
https://www.nhpr.org/nh-news/2024-05-22/dartmouth-faculty-censure-beilock-for-pattern-of-calling-police-on-protesters