The Starmer files…
JVL Introduction
So Keir Starmer “will abolish House of Lords to ‘restore trust in politics’”, according to the Observer.
Pity Starmer doesn’t mention the long socialist tradition of supporting abolition as part of a desperately-needed programme of radical constitutional reform. But then Tony Benn and Jeremy Corbyn are the real bearers of this tradition, so who would want to be associated with that…
Equally with the rest of the radical programme that Starmer was so willing to endorse in his leadership campaign, now consigned by him – but not by us – to the rubbish heap.
No wonder your web editor is hopping mad!
Lest we forget the extent of the fraud perpetrated on the labour movement we repost his Ten Pledges, and some of Starmer’s tweets as he ran for office, claiming he could unite our movement.
“We won’t do that by abandoning our values or the radicalism we have rediscovered”, he affirmed.
Hell no, never!
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PS: on 24 Nov the London Economic reported that “Sir Keir Starmer received [2022] Politician of the Year to whoops and cheers at the Spectator awards last night.”
This article was originally published by Twitter on Fri 17 Jan 2020. Read the original here.
Why I'm standing to be the next leader of the Labour Party.
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Starmer is now more and more blatantly and unashamedly displaying his neoliberal credentials. If there was any doubt, his award this week from the Spectator along with his attendance at a Sun Reception demonstrates that he is the safe pair of hands for the establishment. There has indeed been a massive fraud against the Labour Movement.
There is no easy label to describe how Starmer won the post of Leader of the Labour Party but a ‘constitutional coup’ is a good start.
“We must hardwire the Green New Deal into every part of our politics.”
Although we may block or attempt to block motions submitted to Conference promoting the GND. A bit. Twice. There again if a motion is passed I don’t agree with I will ignore/reject it. And then again in an unacknowledged U-turn Green is now good again. For now.
This was always going to happen. No one in the Labour Movement will get elected who doesn’t essentially support the status quo and US/UK foreign policy. Labour is and always has been a reformist party. The media is owned by the rich and the powerful and is overwhelmingly conervative. The Guardian have been captured by those who equate social liberalism with market liberalism. Social media is increasingly targeted for censorship by algorithm. Blair was never a danger to ‘the establishment’ and Starmer has learned from that. He wants to be PM so that’s what he will do: cosy up to those whyo own ‘The Sun’. I have contempt for him and what Labour has become BUT what does he care? For the majority of ordinary people even a shitty Labour Govt. will be better than a Tory Government. This is the eternal predicament.
I don’t think the Starmerites realise what they have done by expelling Jeremy Corbyn. Sixty per cent of the party voted for him in 2015 and 2016. Starmer signalled to 60 per cent of his members that they were not welcome in his party. If Corbyn’s not welcome, neither are his supporters. I voted against Corbyn in the leadership elections – twice. But I was utterly shocked by his expulsion. Metaphorically, it was like the execution of Charles I. It was a trauma. And it was unfair. Corbyn told the truth. The vast majority of Labour members are not anti-semitic. That isn’t to diminish the hurt caused by anti-semitism levelled at Jewish and non-Jewish Labour members. It was an attempt at seeing the issue in perspective. The hurt, incidentally, cut both ways. I was verbally abused while campaigning for JLM supporter at Emma Whysall to be MP for Chipping Barnet. With a great deal of spite, I was twice accused of supporting anti-semitism on general election day at Barnet Tube Station simply for representing the Labour Party. My accusers generalised in the way racists and anti-semites generalise. Jeremy Corbyn had our back. He said that most ordinary Labour members are not anti-semitic. Thank you for that Jeremy Corbyn. So how do we get over the trauma – which has bitterly divided us and, in my view, rendered the party dysfunctional? How do we campaign, organise, leaflet, canvass together when we are so split on such a visceral issue? Jeremy was widely respected and liked by members – including me. He was loved by others. And he commanded massive support among young people. “Oh Jeremy Corbyn” at Glastonbury was not our imagination. It felt personal. We won’t get over it by the continuing purge: punishing members for contravening rules before they were the rules; conflating anti-colonial criticism of Israel with anti-semitism to harass octogenarian Diana Neslen; putting hands over ears when Black and Asian people express concerns over racism in the party as they did in the Labour Files; going on puerile “Trot hunts.” I fear for the Labour Party. You don’t get over trauma by refusing to talk about and inflicting further trauma instead.
Does it really surprise, that Starmer has transpired to be thoroughly dishonest? Did we not all experience that collective sinking sensation at his ‘election’ as leader? Look and contrast (with Johnson), at the speed with which he looked to distance RLB.
Imagine how much more difficult all this would have been if the UK possessed a worthy MSM, with proper and genuinely independent regulation. Hasn’t the situation in which the nation finds itself been made all the more easy through an ownership of media which is wholly unfit for purpose? In what sort of democracy is it credible that the current cabal of politicians- excepting a few more honourable back benchers- daily is able to pretend to represent all of its constituents?
People need to demonstrate against him whenever he appears in public.
He is utterly dreadful.
If this is what he stands for why does he expel members who would fully back such a set of ideals?
He’s also a liar. He turned his back on Assange, who was working for the very things Starmer says he is working for.
Frankly, I often wonder if he is actually working for the Tory Party.
A letter from me printed in the Northern Echo in February:
Labour’s shadow Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, recently welcomed the dramatic decline in Labour’s membership as a “good thing” as those leaving “never shared our values” and the exodus would rid Labour of the “stain” of antisemitism. She has also claimed that the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) found “institutional racism” within Labour. That is categorically untrue.
Keir Starmer was elected leader of the Labour Party on a promise to unite the Party, and on the basis of ten “pledges.” He has kept none of his promises, and the Party is more divided than ever. In withdrawing the whip from Jeremy Corbyn, he has defied both Labour’s own Disputes Panel, which exonerated Corbyn and lifted his suspension, and the EHRC, which advised that the Party Leader should play no part in disciplinary matters. He has overruled resolutions passed at Conference, where policy is supposed to be agreed.
Little wonder that so many members are leaving in disgust.
I was one of some 400,000 people who joined Labour when Jeremy Corbyn became leader. The insinuation that we joined because we are antisemites is a disgusting slur. We joined because we hoped for a better, fairer world, where the fortunate take care of the less fortunate. We joined because we believe in social justice, peace, human rights and internationalism, and oppose war, racism, religious intolerance, poverty and inequality.
If Reeves’s Labour does not share those values, it has no right to call itself the Labour Party.
During his leadership campaign, Keir Starmer also wrote: “I am immensely proud of the size and energy of the party. People were inspired in their thousands by Jeremy Corbyn to join Labour, and we must not lose that idealism and radicalism.”
That now rings very hollow.
Pete Winstanley, Durham.
Excellent letter Pete. Yes, I’ve often wondered how it is that people who want to change the world for the better could, simultaneously, feel hostility towards Jews.
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PS Well, being antisemites, we all recognised that Jeremy was a Jew hater and an antisemite extraordinaire who, if we elected him leader, and then managed to get him elected PM, we could then build our very own concentration camps etc and round up all the Jews etc, as we had all dreamed about doing for so many years.
The irony is that the black propaganda smearers were doing to Jeremy and his supporters what the Nazis did to the Jews (in the years after winning power, and prior to the Holocaust) – ie demonising and dehumanising them.
And only evil, malevolent and sadistic people are capable of doing such things.
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PPS And only evil, malevolent and sadistic people could have absolutely no problem whatsoever with causing concern and consternation amongst many British Jews in their quest to destroy Jeremy (and the left in general)……
The MSM, the Jewish newspapers, the BoD and CAA and JLM and Blairites and the Tories and the LibDem leadership et al!
Starmer gave us a clear warning that he was against Corbyn and his policies, when he campaigned for Owen Smith’s challenge to replace Corbyn as Leader. Too many members completely forgot about this, at the time Starmer had only been an MP for 2 years after being given a safe LP seat by Ed Miliband.
After becoming leader he sacked Rebecca Long Bailey on a Lie, I emailed him with a link proving that Rebecca had not retweeted a conspiracy theory (he never replied) and he clearly didn’t give her back her job in his Cabinet. Here’s the link. https://www.amnestyusa.org/with-whom-are-many-u-s-police-departments-training-with-a-chronic-human-rights-violator-israel/