Is Keir Starmer a Conservative man? British MP Greg Hands shows off flip-flops with the likeness of the Labor Party leader on them. You can buy them in the Tories’ shop.
Photo: AFP/Justin Tallis
Keir Starmer prepares his party for the transfer of power at the Labor party conference in Liverpool, which runs until Wednesday. This is expected to take place after the British general election next year. However, this is not Starmer’s doing, but rather due to the desolate state of the governing Tories.
Starmer is the better Tory. He has already made several U-turns and sacrificed a few Labor principles on his way to power. When he wanted to become party leader, he was still half-left. For example, he condemned the Tories’ two-child policy, according to which parents only receive grants and tax breaks for the first two children. He now thinks the regulation that excludes 1.5 million children from this support is completely acceptable.
It was a “difficult decision,” says Starmer. It is always “difficult decisions” when you reach into the pockets of those who have little or cut the budget for social benefits. Tax increases for the upper income brackets do not fall into this category, as these are not on the agenda of either the Tories or Labour.
Rachel Reeves, the finance minister in Starmer’s shadow cabinet, categorically rejects a “rich tax.” Labor is at the service of industry and large companies and does nothing that could offend them – on the contrary: Starmer serves right-wing billionaires at private dinners who expect guarantees from him that their wealth will remain untouched. He is apparently counting on the electorate not to notice the imbalance in his politics. To combat the long hospital waiting lists, the crumbling infrastructure, the housing shortage and the declining standard of living, you have to spend a lot of money. How does Starmer plan to raise this money? By continuing the Tories’ two-child policy?
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Labour’s problems can all be blamed on the party’s left wing, claims Starmer. He blames the 2015 election defeat on then party leader Ed Milliband, who was not respectful enough towards the economy. Polls show the opposite: 42 percent of voters at the time thought Labor had been too lenient with industry.
Nevertheless, after his election as party leader, Starmer began a purge in the party, which culminated in him expelling his predecessor Jeremy Corbyn from the group. He will also be barred from standing for Labor in Islington North, where he was an elected MP for 40 years, at the next election. The party executive, which approved the move, said Labor’s prospects of winning the next election would be “significantly reduced” if Corbyn were allowed to stand.
It is the norm for Labour’s leaders to move to the right as soon as they take office. Corbyn was the exception. After his surprising election as party leader in 2015, he remained true to his line. And he was successful, even if Starmer and his followers would like to forget the 2017 election. At that time, Corbyn was just 2,227 votes short of becoming prime minister in a coalition government. Seven crucial seats fell to the Tories by the narrowest of margins. 62 percent of 18 to 24 year olds voted for Corbyn, while Labor gained ten percentage points. The success cost Theresa May her absolute majority. She called early elections because she – like the right wing of Labor – expected Corbyn to suffer a devastating defeat. Instead, “Corbynmania,” as the media called the phenomenon, set in and the 68-year-old was celebrated almost like a pop star.
The alarm bells then rang not only among the Tories, but also among Starmer and his followers as well as among the conservative media and even the BBC. An unprecedented smear campaign was launched to brand Corbyn the anti-Semite he never was, even if he made some mistakes and did not take the issue seriously enough.
The character assassination was successful. Corbyn suffered devastating losses in the 2019 election. One factor was Brexit: many Labor voters who were in favor of leaving the European Union feared that Labor would repeat the referendum – a fear fueled by the party’s then Brexit representative. That Brexit representative was Keir Starmer.
Under Corbyn, the number of party members rose dramatically, reaching a peak of 564,000 at the end. There are now fewer than 400,000. Reeves called this a “positive development”: These people should never have become members anyway, she said. It’s a declaration of bankruptcy: people should stay out of the political process if they don’t agree with the right wing of Labor?
Labor is now dominated by a right-wing, authoritarian camp that agitates not just against Corbyn, but against anyone who has a different political opinion from the party leadership. The members of the shadow cabinet must stay in the background during strikes, otherwise they will face consequences. You are not allowed to publicly advocate for a tax on the rich and government investments. Labor stands for the expansion of the private sector into public services and for the further rollback of the welfare state.
When Prime Minister Rishi Sunak spread lies in the House of Commons in November last year that Corbyn’s election manifesto called for abolishing the army and nuclear weapons, leaving NATO and strengthening relations with Hamas and Hezbollah, Starmer remained silent. He had worked on the election manifesto and should have demanded an apology from Sunak for the insinuations. He left that to Corbyn, who was mocked for it by the right-wing media.
Starmer defines himself as an opponent of his predecessor Corbyn and not as an opponent of the Tories. He has to be careful that parts of the traditional Labor clientele don’t prefer to vote for the conservative original next year.
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2023-10-08 15:48:19
#Tory #Keir #Starmer
