Opposing War Doesn’t Make You A Kremlin Mouthpiece, Mr Starmer
I’m no expert on geopolitical warfare, but thankfully we do have thousands of former epidemiologists that seemed to have hastily retrained as military experts to keep us informed of the latest developments.
You probably know my thoughts on war. There are no winners. Most conflicts begin and end with words. Military involvement should only be an act of self-defence, when we have exhausted every possibility of constructive dialogue.
But I’ll tell you what I find absolutely staggering…
The right, and much of the centre, seem to confuse a morally principled opposition to war as some sort of support for the Putin regime.
The centrists are particularly familiar with this ridiculously offensive conflation. You know, the one where they tell you that you must be on Boris Johnson’s payroll because you cannot bring yourself to support Labour’s very own authoritarian leader, Keir Stalin?
I’m guessing nearly everything you have seen and heard over the last few days has been centred on the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and rightly so - although it’s a shame the global media refuses to show the same concern for the Israeli occupation of Palestine.
But is this likely to stop me from writing about the Kremlin’s useful idiot Johnson, and the Tories useful idiot, Starmer? Of course not.
There seems to be an unwritten rule that you’re not supposed to hold politicians to account during times of national crisis. The amount of people that were absolutely fine with Boris Johnson clocking up the 4th highest Covid death toll in the world still sends a shiver down my spine.
“Leave ‘Boris’ alone, he’s trying his best”, was the cry of the blinkered Conservatives, or “now isn’t the time, we support the government”, was the official line from Starmer’s Labour Party, while thousands and thousands of body bags were being zipped up and sent to the morgue.
Starmer’s steadfast support for this government goes way beyond factional spats on the left. What Starmer believes to be his public duty is in fact just further evidence of his determination to out-Tory-the-Tories.
Johnson had one flag in the background when he delivered his sombre Ukraine speech on Thursday morning. Not to be outdone, Starmer had two flags for his response, which seems a little odd given his willingness to wrap himself up in the flag of the European Union when the establishment needed Jeremy Corbyn ousted.
Boris Johnson is a write-off. There are no words that adequately describe my disdain for the matted scarecrow, so please don’t ever confuse my contempt for ‘two flags’ Starmer for anything other than what it says on the tin.
We are lumbered with one of the most disingenuous politicians I have ever had the displeasure of walking past. He has no redeeming features, and an utterly broken relationship with the truth. He has caused division and distrust, and if he ever fulfilled just one promise it would be a remarkable improvement on where we are now.
And Boris Johnson is even worse.
Did you wonder why Keir Starmer was so suddenly obsessed with the Stop The War coalition?
Some 11 Labour MPs signed an open letter by the Stop The War Coalition, which posed some pretty awkward questions regarding the legitimacy of NATO.
The letter also accused the Tories of having "no proposals for a diplomatic solution to the crisis" and said "Britain needs to change its policy, and start working for peace, not confrontation".
Seems reasonable to me.
But the warmongering Labour hierarchy told the 11 Socialist Campaign Group MPs, “you can be a Kremlin mouthpiece or a Labour MP, but you can’t be both”, and the MPs sadly withdrew their names from the letter, under pressure from Labour’s Chief Whip.
This sort of ridiculous hyperbole doesn’t help the people of Ukraine. Just imagine using this desperate crisis to settle a few personal scores. Classy.
Shutting down dissenting voices, because they don’t agree with the jingoism of the establishment, seems remarkably Putinesque to me.
Don’t worry, I’m not even beginning to compare the hostility and the militarism of the Putin regime with the spitefulness and the factionalism of the Starmer regime.
A protest against the act of war *is* a protest against the Russian dictator's aggression.
It is a protest against the illegal occupation and oppression of the Palestinian people by the Israeli apartheid regime.
It is a protest against the supply of British bombs and British expertise to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The prolific human rights abusers have slaughtered thousands of innocent Yemeni men, women, and children, with OUR weapons of death.
It is a protest against the Conservative government supplying arms and military equipment to 39 of the 53 countries castigated for a poor record on political and human rights by Freedom House, the US human rights group.
Do you get where I’m coming from? I’ll repeat it. Being an opponent of war doesn’t make you a Putin apologist, a Hamas sympathiser, a Houthi rebel advocate, or even a Taliban tubthumper.
It makes you an opponent of war. It makes you a better person than someone that has no problem sending your loved ones to die on a battlefield, and it certainly makes you better than the loathsome individual that sent a hideous email to Labour MP, Zarah Sultana, threatening her, and calling her “Putin’s whore”.
Inflammatory language has consequences, Mr Starmer, you nasty piece of work.
The Labour right went a bit further on Friday when they decided to undemocratically seize the official Twitter account of the affiliated Young Labour.
I have found the Young Labour twitter feed to be an excellent source of information, but it seems the Starmer regime didn’t agree, because Young Labour continued to offer a Democratic Socialist perspective to their 37,000 followers.
You see, Keir Starmer’s Labour Party is a horrifyingly authoritarian place to be.
Spurious suspensions, threats to MPs of whip withdrawal if they refuse to back the party line, the ban on internal debate and being told what you can and can’t talk about - and that’s before you get on to the multiple rule changes that have been pushed through without a sniff of democracy in mind.
And for 4 long years the treacherous projecting Starmerites called us “Stalinists”, and “authoritarian”?
These reactionary liberals preferred free Covid-19 with Boris Johnson to free broadband with Jeremy Corbyn.
Despite their denials and their haughtiness, the centrists demanding you get behind Keir Starmer enabled a hard-right Tory government in December 2019 themselves.
The Labour Party should be unashamedly against the principle of war, not trying to position itself next to a calamitous despot like Boris Johnson.
But this is what Starmer does, time and time again, hoping to win over a minority of Conservative voters while completely abandoning the left, and not giving a second thought to the millions and millions of the apathetic who look at Labour and the Tories and (rightly) think they’re all just the same.
If we don’t put an end to war it will be war that puts an end to us. The Labour Party should be leading the efforts to ensure there will always be a place for dialogue, not acting as a bag-carrier for Boris Johnson, the friend of the oligarchs.
Solidarity with the people of Ukraine and Russia. A people free to choose will always choose peace.
Until next time,
Rachael
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