Starmer’s First Big Test Could Well Be His Last

I always look forward to writing my Sunday rant. Most of the time I honestly haven’t got a clue what I’m going to write about. But I’m going to start by dazzling you with some Sunday facts. 

Did you know that months that begin on a Sunday always have a Friday the 13th in them? 

And be careful if you happen to find yourself in Salt Lake City, Utah, because you can be fined up to $1,000 for whistling on a Sunday. 

And finally, it is thought if Keir Starmer waves his flag on a Sunday, he will be twenty points clear in the polls by Monday. 

Fair enough, I made the last one up.

But enough of this landslide of vital knowledge, because we need to talk about the local elections. 

On Thursday 6 May, elections will be held across England's county councils, metropolitan boroughs, unitary authorities and district councils, as well as for the London Assembly.

Elections will also be held for police and crime commissioners in England and Wales, as well as for 13 directly-elected mayors in England - including in London. 

So, May the 6th is a huge day in politics, and all being well, the nine most vulnerable groups in the UK should also have received their Covid vaccines under the nationwide vaccination programme. You will still need to bring your own pencil though - assuming you don’t go down the postal vote route. 

Now, I would encourage everyone to use their vote - whoever you choose to vote for - although my encouragement is unlikely to stop apathy from being the biggest winner on May 6th. 

If you think about what we have just lived through this past year, it should be a disaster for Johnson’s Tory councillors and a night of massive gains for the official opposition. 

Do you remember the UKIP council gains? They were won on the back of a tide of anger towards David Cameron’s Conservatives, because Dave didn’t want to have a referendum on membership of the European Union. This was a protest vote. 

So what would the protest vote look like based on the tragic and unnecessary deaths of 111,000 of our loved ones? 

You’ll get some unpropitious ‘expectation management’ from the Labour Party soon enough, but we know, and they know, it should be a night of huge gains for the opposition, and a night of humiliation for a Conservative government with so much blood on their hands they cannot wash it off. 

I can remember quite clearly the electoral expectations made of Jeremy Corbyn during his leadership. 

We were told how we were up against the worst ever governments of David ‘chaos with Ed Miliband’ Cameron and Theresa ‘strong and stable’ May, and how we should be cleaning up across the country when the local elections came along. 

But the pragmatic amongst us knew it was never going to be the case all of the time the political landscape was dominated by Brexit. 

Leave voters mostly, but not exclusively, backed the Conservative Party, and Remain voters were scattered out amongst Labour, the Lib Dems, the Greens, and in Scotland, the SNP. The Labour Party also had around 4 million Leave voters, which makes Corbyn’s 2017 result even more remarkable. But Labour had a different Brexit position in 2017 - by 2019, Keir Starmer, Tom Watson, and the People’s Vote Ltd, utterly destroyed that position, while the media smeared and attacked Corbyn more than any other British politician in recent history.

It didn’t take the brightest spark to work out how a Brexit-divided electorate would vote. Corbyn was never going to make huge council gains all of the time we were being fed a diet of Brussels bureaucracy, Project Fear, that darn red bus, and Brexit means Brexit. It would be either staggeringly naive, or thoroughly dishonest to suggest Corbyn’s years weren’t dominated by Brexit. 

But that time has passed. 

Brexit is done. Project fear is now Project here. Former Remain cheerleader Starmer is now signed up to Boris Johnson’s Brexit, in full. Starmer has turned his back on freedom of movement in the same way he turned his back on the left of the Labour Party. 

Starmer will have been leader of the opposition for thirteen months by the time the local elections arrive. This is plenty of time to leave his own impression on the direction he wishes to take the Labour Party, and he has. Oddly enough, the right-wing of his Party don’t like him, it’s not just a vast majority of the British left that can’t stand this fence-sitting chancer with the charisma of sandpaper. 

A senior trusted Labour left source told me -

“Even the right of the party has had enough of Keir Starmer and realise he isn't going to get them where they want to be, not that they ever really saw him as more than a stop-gap. They were happy to set fire to Labour when Jeremy was leader, but they didn't seem to realise how hard they'd make it for themselves after he went. But who else have they got? Yvette or Rachel aren't going to be any more appealing, but then as long as they have one of their own running the party, they'll be prepared to live with it.” 

See, it’s not just us.

He won’t be able to blame Jeremy Corbyn. Try as he may, it will not wash. Corbyn handed in his resignation in December 2019 - the elections are in May 2021. And if they truly believe the legacy of Corbyn is so “toxic” it still damages their electoral hopes, more than a year after the MP for Islington North stepped down, they can only blame themselves, for it is they who did everything within their power to destabilise the Corbyn leadership and create a baby-eating Stalinist monster of Jeremy, who is in fact a peace-loving, marrow-growing Arsenal fan.. 

Critically, Starmer won’t be able to blame the Brexit divide. That’s the divide he played a massive part in causing. 

Jeremy Corbyn didn’t betray Labour Leave voters, trust me. He fought continuously to stand by Labour’s 2017 manifesto position, because he knew anything more Remain friendly would have utterly devastating consequences at the following General Election. 

Shock and horror, Corbyn was right. Again. 

I can also absolutely confirm that Keir Starmer went entirely off-script at Labour’s 2018 conference, when he declared that nobody was ruling out campaigning for Remain in the event of a second referendum - which Mr Corbyn didn’t want. Not because he was a secret leaver on the Putin payroll, but because he is a democrat. 

It was that very moment Keir Starmer destroyed any hope we had of forming the next government. That alone is unforgivable. That is why I will not be supporting Keir Starmer.

I asked former Labour Party member and committed activist Jack Foy if he planned to help out during the local election campaign. His answer might not surprise you, because you’ve probably heard other people saying pretty much the same thing. Mr Foy said - 

“Like so many, I was inspired by Jeremy Corbyn, so it felt like campaigning for the Labour Party on the doorsteps in 2019 was the right thing to do. 

I campaigned with Angela Rayner in 2019. She was re-elected as my MP. Then decided she'd turn her back on Jeremy Corbyn - given the opportunity I will campaign against her at the next election.

When Starmer became leader, I knew the Labour Party as we knew it was dead in the water. I handed my membership back, I am a socialist and the Labour Party is an anti-Socialist Party, I really haven't looked back since. 

Now the party as a whole is unrecognisable. Too far to the right, never mind the centre.”

Sound familiar? It does to me. 

While Corbyn inspired thousands and thousands to join Labour and turn it into the largest political party in Europe, debt free, Starmer has inspired thousands and thousands to leave the Labour Party, particularly BAME members, and was last seen arranging Tory-like fundraisers for the influential and powerful to get together, purchase their bit of Keith, and try and stop the party from going bankrupt. LOL.

Let’s not pretend Starmer isn’t up against the most catastrophic misshaped turd of a Prime Minister in our lifetimes. He is. The Johnson government of a year ago isn’t the same as the Johnson government of today. Yet they still poll several points ahead of the Labour Party on a regular basis. 

How and why is anyone’s guess, but I’d be the first to offer the simple fact that Starmer’s version of the Labour Party isn’t all that dissimilar to David Cameron’s Conservative Party. Basically, socially conservative. In fact, one of Starmer’s leading Shadow Cabinet members, Rachel Reeves, didn’t mind the idea of the Labour Party being tougher on benefit claimants than the Tories. 

Who knows, Labour might perform rather well in the local elections, after all, this is the first opportunity the public have had to express their dissatisfaction with the Tories since the 2019 General (Brexit) Election. 

But will they? 

While some people will vote on local issues, such as keeping the local swimming pool open, potholes and the provision of services, a vast majority will be voting on the basis of which party, and party leader they prefer. 

My local council has been Conservative-held for many years, although Labour are strongly represented. Normally, I would vote for whoever the Labour candidate might be in my ward, knowing it won’t make any difference because my ward is around 80% Conservative. 

But not this time, unless the candidate truly represents socialist values, because these are the values of the real Labour Party. The Labour Party of Hardie, Attlee, Benn, and Corbyn. If the local candidate doesn’t hold these simple values, I will not have the motivation to get off my backside and give them my vote. 

I don’t think that’s particularly unreasonable because I do not believe in power at any cost, when the power is void of principle. You achieve power to improve our lives, not to keep things ticking along as they are. 

The power in this country has been held by a few for as long as I can remember, I expect it’s the same for you. The establishment has their own Carousel of elitists. Johnson was sat on his horse for five decades before he got his chance, and when he did get it, he totally blew it. Starmer doesn’t have a horse to sit on, don’t get me wrong, he is on the Carousel, he just prefers to sit on the fence, waving his fucking flag like the plastic patriot that he is.

But when one elitist falls, the Carousel rotates, and we get another over-promoted vacuous goat guff with the charm of a leaking colostomy bag - and the establishment know their offshore funds are safe, and their corporation taxes will remain the lowest in the G7. 

As I said at the beginning of my rambling, apathy could end up victorious on May 6th. You may well have someone or something worth voting for, so don’t let your vote go to waste. 

Anything less than HUGE Labour gains on May 6th will be a disaster for Starmer, no matter how they try and spin it. 

I’ll be watching closely, and I’m sure you will be too. 

Enjoy your day guys, and take good care. 

Rachael x

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