Keir Starmer’s Great Betrayals

There are some people who were alive when JFK was assassinated on 22nd November 1963 who say they still have a vivid memory of the moment they first heard the terrible news and can recall exactly where they were at the time, as if it were yesterday. I have a vivid memory like that. Mine is from 30th April 2019.

The 30th of April was the date I received a message that Labour's National Executive Committee had just decided the party would support a second referendum. I was at Hackney Wick train station in London when I read the DM. I have a vivid memory of it because it was at that precise moment I realised Labour were going to lose the next general election.

How did I know Labour was going to lose? Let me explain.

At the 2016 referendum 52% of the electorate voted leave and 48% voted remain. While most remain voters accepted the result, some used the apparent closeness of the result as justification to dispute the legitimacy of Brexit. They claimed further justification for refusing to accept the decision by saying Brexit would damage the economy.

EU supporters then rallied around the People's Vote to campaign for a second referendum. The campaign spent millions of pounds and aggressively lobbied Labour to support a second referendum. Labour did eventually support it but that was largely thanks to Keir Starmer and not the People's Vote campaign. Starmer insisted Labour support a second referendum, claiming it was the only way Labour could win power, but instead of bringing victory the policy brought defeat. Labour lost 52 leave seats and gained just 1 remain seat by supporting the second referendum policy Keir Starmer had championed.

In the rest of this article I will unpack the two previous paragraphs because I think the issues they raise go to the very heart of the Brexit question and reveal the pivotal role Starmer played in Brexit. I will argue that Keir Starmer played the role of the Great Betrayer and that he played his part perfectly. I know, it does sound rather dramatic and possibly even far-fetched. I concede that it is a strong claim but I have strong evidence to support it and I will now set out the five Great Betrayals Starmer committed to prove my claim is true.

I will begin by providing a very brief review of the events leading up to the first of Starmer's Great Betrayals.

False justification...

While it is true the popular vote share at the referendum was close (52/48), popular vote share is not relevant to the election of a government. We live in a majoritarian parliamentary democracy, UK governments are not elected by popular vote like a US president. Parties have to win a majority of constituencies, or negotiate with other parties to achieve a majority, in order to be able to form a stable government.

In the context of the majoritarian system we have in the UK, the constituency breakdown of the referendum result is a more important statistic because it determines which party will govern, whereas popular vote share has no bearing on the matter. Referenda are different to general elections in that way. It is an obvious point to make but one rarely made.

The constituency breakdown provides a completely different interpretation of the result. 65% of constituencies voted to leave the EU. 70% of Tory and 62% of Labour constituencies voted leave. That is an overwhelming majority of support for leaving the EU, it is an unassailable two thirds supermajority. As constituency seats decide which party wins power, the constituency vote share is the only referendum statistic that really matters.

So, while the claim that the result was close by popular vote percentage is true, that statistic is largely irrelevant for the reasons already given and is therefore a rather weak truth, certainly too weak to provide the level of justification one would need to refuse to accept a ballot result.

And equivocation...

People also argue that Brexit has been a disaster, that it has all been a big mistake and we should rejoin the EU as quickly as possible. The Labour lord, Andrew Adonis, is already lobbying Keir Starmer to support rejoin and Starmer's support base is mostly made up of EU supporters who want the UK to rejoin the EU as soon as possible.

The problem with the rejoiners' disaster argument is that it is based upon an equivocation. In plain English, it is a dishonest argument. I know this might be hard for some readers to accept but Brexit isn't the problem, the problem is the Tory government's terrible Brexit deal.

EU supporters conflate Brexit with the hard Tory Brexit that is damaging the UK economy. They are equivocating, which is usually the sign of an uncertain argument. Brexit and a hard Tory Brexit are two different things. It was not always a certainty that Brexit would mean economic damage and inconvenience. It was possible to leave the EU with the minimum of disruption.

The question is, why didn't we? The largest single decisive factor, the main reason the UK did not leave the EU with a soft Brexit deal, is because Keir Starmer sabotaged the Labour and Tory Brexit deal talks. By doing so, in one fell swoop, he betrayed every single person in the UK.

The first and second Great Betrayals

But I am jumping ahead of myself. Let us do this in the correct order and begin with Keir Starmer's first Great Betrayal. This one is common knowledge and a matter of public record, so can be covered quickly. Starmer had been a Labour MP for less than a year when he took part in the 2016 coup to topple Jeremy Corbyn. Starmer's indecent haste to betray a person who treated him respectfully and fairly revealed Starmer's disloyalty and also a contempt for Labour members and democracy.

For those reasons I think it meets the necessary threshold to be categorised as a Great Betrayal. It was a personal and grubby betrayal. Keir Starmer tried to present his resignation as being an honourable decision made in good faith but that was a lie. His resignation was in fact part of a co-ordinated submission of resignations intended to topple a democratically elected Labour leader. There is nothing honourable about a coup. The currency of plotters is treachery, not integrity.

Starmer's second Great Betrayal occurred during the Brexit negotiations between Labour and the Conservatives. In 2017 Jeremy Corbyn promised Labour would respect the referendum result and negotiate a deal with the EU which would minimise the impact of leaving. Labour proposed a bespoke customs union to allow frictionless trade to the single market without being a member. Labour discussed its plans with the EU and they were warmly welcomed. The fact that a deal between Labour and the EU was effectively agreed in principle shows that leaving the EU without causing harm to the UK was possible.

Fast forward from 2017 to April 2019 when the Brexit deal talks were taking place. Theresa May was in trouble and needed a way out to get Brexit passed. Labour and the Conservatives negotiated and a deal was within reach for a soft Brexit which would have avoided a hard exit. The Labour shadow secretary for Brexit, Keir Starmer, sabotaged those talks. An excellent account of what happened during this period is available in Oliver Eagleton's new book 'The Starmer Project'.

We have a hard and damaging Brexit today in large part because Keir Starmer sabotaged the talks which were just about to deliver a soft Brexit. He not only betrayed his party, he betrayed his country. It was another Great Betrayal. But there were more to follow.

The third Great Betrayal

65% of constituencies voted leave. By insisting Labour stop Brexit while the Tories supported it, Keir Starmer guaranteed victory for the Tories and defeat for Labour. I knew that outcome was inevitable the moment I received the news that the NEC had voted for the second referendum on that sunny but cold day on 30th April.

It was always obvious opposing a policy that 62% of Labour constituencies supported would be electorally disastrous for Labour. Starmer forced Labour to adopt a remain position which was supported by only 35% of constituencies, a vote share they were fighting over with the Liberal Democrats. Starmer made it impossible for Labour to win.

There are only two possible conclusions to be drawn from what happened at the 2019 election. The first is to believe that Keir Starmer is an incredibly stupid person who can't add up, and the second is that he threw the 2019 general election on purpose, probably so he could become the Labour leader. It is clearly not the first possibility. It is most likely he did it on purpose. Sabotaging the election of a Labour government is Keir Starmer's third Great Betrayal. Keeping the Tories in power is Starmer's Greatest Betrayal of all.

The fourth and fifth Betrayals

The fourth and fifth betrayals followed quickly on the heels of the third. After Starmer's insistence to support a second referendum lost Labour the 2019 general election, Corbyn was forced to resign and Starmer stood to be the leader on a Corbyn based platform. Almost immediately after becoming leader he began abandoning the policies he stood on to get elected. Like the former deputy Labour, Tom Watson, Starmer had stood on a entirely false prospectus. Like Watson, he had deceived members into voting for him.

The tragedy is that the Labour policies Starmer promptly abandoned are highly popular and are needed now more than ever. Many millions of people are depending on them. Starmer threw them away like they were worthless rubbish. So his fourth Great Betrayal is denying people in the UK policies that would have directly and significantly improved their lives.

His fifth and final betrayal was agreeing to reinstate the Labour whip to Jeremy Corbyn and then going back on his word. I think that betrayal is particularly damaging to Starmer because it proves his word is not his bond and therefore his words have little, if any, value. Admittedly it is not on the same scale as the other betrayals but it was yet another personal betrayal of Corbyn by Starmer. I think that suggests a trend of behaviour which calls into question Keir Starmer's claim that he is a man of integrity. A person of integrity would simply not have done that to Corbyn. They wouldn't have done it once, never mind several times.

Keir Starmer has betrayed his leader, his party and also effectively the whole country by sabotaging the Brexit deal talks between Labour and the Conservatives. The Labour leader has only been an MP for seven years yet has already committed five Great Betrayals. He has been busy, very busy indeed.

He has been so busy that he is quickly running out of people to betray.

@damian_from


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