A Liar And A Betrayer: I Cannot Vote For Keir Starmer’s Labour Party

Let’s get the date out of the way first of all. Yes, the local elections are to be held on May 4th. No, I’m not a fan of Star Wars and can guarantee you this won’t be filled with nonsensical jokes, apart from the nonsensical joke, Keir Starmer. 

On 4 May, more than 8,000 seats will be contested at 230 councils across England. Mayoral elections are also taking place in Bedford, Leicester, Mansfield and Middlesbrough. 

The Tories are bracing themselves for a fucking hammering. Cabinet ministers are making limited appearances in targeted areas and party insiders say they are likely to lose hundreds of seats - possibly as many as 1,000 - although that could simply be a case of expectation management. 

Labour will undoubtedly make significant gains off the back of the Tories unpopularity, but their strategists will be watching closely to see if they are making enough progress in areas where they need to pick up seats at a general election. 

Places such as Darlington, Derby, Plymouth, Thanet and my hometown of Swindon will be the councils to watch on election night because these are the voters that hold the keys to power. 

But a word of warning to the supporters of the dullard Starmer. 

Ed Miliband gained more than 800 council seats in the mid-term local elections, yet just a couple of years later Miliband picked up just 30.4% of the vote at the 2015 general election. There’s a long way to go.

I’m regularly asked who I will vote for on 4th May. I’ll never vote for a Conservative candidate for as long as I live because I am still in full possession of my faculties. 

But let me leave you with absolutely no doubt whatsoever. 

I cannot and will not vote for this poisonous Labour Party or any of its candidates. 

I know they’ll do reasonably well on 4th May but I don’t just give my vote to a party or person because they’re predicted to do reasonably well, as that would make me no better than Starmer himself, the man that abandoned any recognisable glimpse of a principle in the quest for power, and media acceptance. 

Keir Starmer is a shameless Tory sellout with the believability of, erm… a member of parliament that is funded by lobbyists and Tory donors? 

Starmer’s principles are non-existent and he cannot be trusted. His credibility is plummeting as quickly as his lead in the polls and he now finds himself with a lower favourability than Rishi fucking Sunak. 

If you wish to enable further conservatism that is entirely your choice. We on the left accept democracy because we are democratic socialists. The centre-right Labour Party is cut from the same cloth as the Tory party. They are an enemy of democracy. 

How in all good conscience can I possibly give my vote or encourage anyone else to give their vote to a party that is fully signed up to the neoliberal ideology that is at the root of all of our problems? 

I’ll leave the hypocrisy to the demonic chameleon Starmer and his band of once-FBPE-now-make-Brexit-work boneheaded centrist stepdads, if you don’t mind? 

I cannot vote for a Labour candidate knowing the party has abandoned ‘for the many, not the few’ and replaced it with, for the donors, and fuck all for you. 

Can you? 

I cannot vote for a Labour candidate knowing the party leader has swapped any form of principled leadership for a column in the Daily Mail and an article for Murdoch’s Times, behind a fucking paywall. 

Can you?

I cannot vote for a Labour candidate knowing the party has excluded thousands of socialists and even stopped the former party leader, Jeremy Corbyn, from contesting a seat he has held for the Labour Party for forty years. 

Can you? 

I cannot vote for a Labour candidate that represents a party that thinks the exploitation of sexually abused vulnerable children is somehow fair game in their quest for principle-free power. 

Can you? 

The idea of putting an “X” next to any Labour candidate on the 4th May is a bad idea. You may as well give the fraud Starmer a ring and pledge your allegiance to his out-Torying-the-Tories project. 

I asked a couple of former Labour Party members, activists, and voters why they cannot and will not be voting for a Labour candidate at next month’s local elections. 

Geoff Marchant is a chef from Liverpool:  

“The decline of the Labour Party has been a slow, arduous process... drawn out over decades. 

I've watched depressively throughout my membership, solely a familial duty via a procession of socialist forbearers of my genetic code. The Neoliberalism creeping in throughout Blair and Mandleson, the soul selling of Kinnock. The ineptitude of Miliband. 

I moved to Liverpool in 2004, The staunch Socialist vibe was apparent in the people and the policy, the city was on the up, the ideals were inspiring. 

Fast forward to now, a Labour lead Council headed by a Starmer gerrymandered stooge, the City nearly bankrupt, in hock to big business, an education system in tatters, all overseen by a Tory Commission welcomed by Murdoch's new plaything, Sir Keir. 

I can't vote for "My Party" in its current state. The party is no longer a Democratic Socialist Party, now merely another Neo-Thatcherite tribute act. 

May 4th will be an interesting time here.” 

Melissa Pubè-Underhill is a data analyst from Darlington.

“Acolytes of Starmer? Absolutely not, I decline, no thank you. 

Why? The reasoning is pretty simple, although tell any Starmer supporter that and they will argue the toss with the usual call of 'Tory enabler' 

It's because, simply, I'm a left leaning resident of the UK who believes in higher taxation for the rich, an NHS that is properly funded, nationalisation of all major public industries, a fair working raise for ALL disenfranchised workers and strengthening unions. 

All of the things that Starmer's Labour seems to have turned its back on, and with barely a whimper of complaint from any of them, from the party's ranks be it councillor or MP I'm done with the party. 

Undemocratic de-selections, parachuting in candidates with no local ties and kicking out all left leaning members for having an opinion such as Palestinians deserving peace... I cannot in good conscience continue to vote for Labour, I refuse to enable this disgusting lurch to the right and I absolutely cannot go against my head and heart and vote for something that I know doesn't represent me.

Call me a Tory enabler all you like, but Labour have no one to blame but themselves.”

I really don’t think I can put it much better than Geoff and Melissa. 

Let me finish by saying this. 

I will not vote for any candidate that represents a party that isn’t on the left as this would be an act of political self-harm and stupidity on a grand scale. 

But I am a democrat and I believe apathy is almost as dangerous as Keir Starmer or Rishi Sunak. Indeed, the biggest winner at the last general election was apathy. 

Use your vote. It is the only weapon you have to defend yourself from the onslaught of conservatism from Labour and the Tories, and without proportional representation it’s really not much of a defence mechanism, so use it as wisely as you can. 

For me, that means I will vote for a candidate that best represents my views both locally and nationally, regardless of how likely they are to win or lose. 

Values matter. Honesty and integrity has been in extremely short supply for the last three years because the red Tories have been pre-occupied with challenging the left. 

Keir Starmer would’ve been home and dry by now had all of their misplaced anger been directed towards the Tories in government. 

They think they can kill us off by starving our ideology of the oxygen it needs to survive, but that will never happen all of the time when people like you are speaking truth to power. 

Until next time, 

Rachael 

Thank you for taking the time to read my thoughts, if you want to chip in towards improving my ongoing campaign, and it would cause you *no hardship*, you can do so here: