Another Future Is Possible Without Starmer, But Only The Left Can Deliver It

It’s make or break time for Keir Starmer. 

Now, you wouldn’t be wrong if you said Starmer chose the “break” option some time ago, because the facts speak for themselves. 

In just under two months the Labour leader has lost control of 8 councils and 322 councillors. Starmer has also lost the former Labour stronghold of Hartlepool to the Tories, and just a couple of weeks back he ensured a humiliated Labour were dealt their heaviest by-election defeat in 100 years in Chesham and Amersham, where they did so awfully they actually lost their deposit. 

Before I go any further… can you honestly imagine Jeremy Corbyn getting away with a record like that? 

An angry Tony ‘Skeletor’ Blair would escape from his mausoleum to appear on Radio 4 to insist ‘hard-leftist’ Jeremy should be at least 104 points ahead of the Tories. The Parliamentary Labour Party, barely a sniff of socialism between them, would burn effigies of Corbyn in Parliament Square. Peter Mandelson will slide his way through the doors of any media outlet that will have him, once they have cleared the studio of garlic, holy water, and wooden stakes, and Margaret Hodge will pop up on every radio station, from Kerrang to Kiss FM, or those grotty little internet radio stations that have nearly as many listeners as Lib Dem’s have MPs, insisting the lifelong anti-racist and peace award-winning former Labour leader is in fact a threat to national security and a “fucking antisemite and a racist” - assuming the Jeremy voodoo doll hasn’t already done the job.

But this is Keir Starmer, the bland, uninspiring, charisma-free, principle-starved choice of the establishment. 

Isn’t it fucking depressing?

A good leader would take full responsibility for the catalogue of losses, rather than blame everyone but themselves. Starmer’s depleted team has already made clear that he will still be the Labour Party leader, regardless of what happens in Batley and Spen. The arrogance is utterly astonishing. 

I hate to say it, but Keir Starmer’s Labour is a cesspit. With the Batley and Spen by-election just hours away, some strategical disaster of a human decided a briefing to the Mail on Sunday - a devout and unashamed Tory rag - would help get out the Labour vote. 

The toxic briefing said: 

“We’re haemorrhaging votes among Muslim voters, and the reason for that is what [party leader Keir Starmer] has been doing on antisemitism. Nobody really wants to talk about it, but that’s the main factor. He challenged [former leader Jeremy Corbyn on it, and there’s been a backlash among certain sections of the community.”

That’s right, the reason Labour are crumbling like a pack of Custard Creams being danced on by an elephant is because Keir Starmer has been ‘tough on antisemitism’ and Muslims aren’t very pleased about it. 

This is how low the once-mighty Labour Party is needing to stoop in a desperate attempt to gain credibility with the working class, because in the minds of the tribal neo-Blairites, the working class can be won over with a few racist tropes and no political substance.

Just because it works for Boris Johnson it doesn’t mean it will work for Keir Starmer. Labour voters want something to vote for. We have other options, including apathy. Walking around pointing at things just doesn’t quite cut it for someone queuing up at the food bank after a 12 hour night shift.

This really was the briefing from hell. 

The poison of antisemitism exists in all walks of life. This cannot be denied - in fact, it would be thoroughly dangerous and offensive to claim otherwise. But to tarnish Muslims as antisemites because they’re not getting behind a centrist stand-for-nothing politician is a disgusting act of desperation. 

It is dishonest, and quite frankly, fucking repugnant, to stigmatise all Muslims based on the repulsive views of a tiny minority. 

Nearly 18 months after the 2019 general election defeat, and more than a year since Jeremy Corbyn stood down, Starmer’s people are still blaming Jeremy Corbyn, and they’re blowing the dog whistle harder than ever before. 

We’re actually talking about the Labour Party here, not the Conservatives. You expect these poisonous briefings from the Conservative Party, but there is so little difference between the red and blue Tories these days you’re left with the feeling both Starmer and Johnson believe the recipe to electoral success is built upon flags, football, beer and underpinned with an unhealthy dose of minority baiting. 

A report in the centrist Guardian just this morning claims Labour’s own strategists believe they have around a 5% chance of winning the Batley and Spen by-election. This is a seat Labour has held since the days of Britpop, won by Blair, and likely to be lost by a neo-Blairite. 

Times have changed since 1997. Capitalism has fallen flat on its face and a DNR notice would probably be the kindest thing for it. We’ve had major recessions, wars, a global pandemic, Brexit and a succession of Prime Ministers that shake hands with and sell arms to human rights abusers, terrorists and rogue states while projecting an image of great and global Britain that simply does not exist. 

Singing songs about a nation living in harmony and unity under the glorious flag doesn’t make it true, but it is rather chilling.

Labour’s catastrophic approach to the Batley and Spen by-election is up there with Zac Goldsmith’s attempt to become London mayor. If you misjudge the electorate to this degree you have to expect to be punished. 

Starmer and his top team - what’s left of them - keep demanding unity, but they still haven’t actually offered anything to unify around. 

What does Keir Starmer’s Labour Party stand for? Who do they stand for? The very many, of the very few? They sure as hell don’t stand for me.

We do know the current Shadow Chancellor hasn’t got much time for social security recipients. We do know the current Shadow Foreign Secretary wasn’t sure if the racist Trump is a racist, although she seemed pretty convinced a disabled leftie housewife from North Wiltshire was an antisemite. We do know the Shadow Health Secretary is a duplicitous lilly-livered careerist that resembles a shiver looking for a spine to climb. We don’t know the Shadow Home Secretary because nobody has ever heard of him. 

Should I go on? 

Perhaps it’s time to scrutinise these individuals in the same way we would scrutinise the Conservative Government. They are not “Labour”. They are neoliberal weathervane shitehawks. 

Who funds them individually? What do the donors expect for their ten grand? Nothing? What about their expenses, down to every last fucking paper clip? What other interests do they have? Second, third and fourth jobs? Three hours ‘work’ for £750? Take a look at the Register of Members Finacial Interests - are they landlords cashing in on Housing Benefit? Do they provide adequate housing for their tenants? 

It was so much easier with Corbyn’s Labour, we didn’t have a Muslim problem, for starters. But we also knew that Jeremy’s basic principles wouldn’t allow the grubby corporate Pound to influence him. He wasn’t and still isn’t for sale - a rarity amongst the politicians of today. 

Just this morning alone I have seen two articles, one talking about Labour’s ‘Muslim problem’, and another with the title “Labour Islamophobia”. Where are you, BBC News? Where are you Panorama? Where are you, Newsnight? 

Hypocrites, each and every one of them. The hierarchy of racism that has infected the Labour Party is deeply sewn into the fabric of the British Broadcasting Corporation. 

All racism is bad, Keir, and you’re making it a whole lot worse. 

A new poll for Sky News was released this morning, and the most startling figure for team beige will be the one that says a massive 69% of Labour Party members would prefer Andy Burnham to Keir Starmer. 

That’s nearly 7 out of 10 Labour members that would prefer a leader who isn’t even an MP, such is the disdain, the despair and the disappointment in Sir Keir Rodney Starmer QC. 

Did anyone voting for this guy *really* think he was going to take it to the establishment? Why on earth would he punch himself in the face? He *is* the establishment. You told us he was electable, but that’s utter nonsense, based on the disastrous evidence that has been presented to us.

Starmer may well be strategically inept, he may well have the charisma of a cracked paving slab, and he may well lead Labour to yet another disaster on his watch when the voters of Batley and Spen pass judgement on him and his candidate, Kim ‘there’s no magic money tree’ Leadbitter, but he won’t punch himself in the face, just in case people think he is actually blaming himself for his own diabolical judgement. 

Is anyone with a bit of clout actually going to question Starmer’s judgement at some point? I’ve been doing it for a year, my platform is small in comparison to those on the left with the loudest voices. Speak up, use your platform for something positive, stop flip-flopping, or simply the shut the fuck up and get on with being a closet Keith fan.

Labour’s problem is Starmer. 

You simply cannot wave a few flags, drink a few beers, sing “Football's Coming Home” and dish out poisonous and unfounded accusations of antisemitism because British Muslims happen to think the current Labour leader is something of a disingenuous turd. 

Go and blow your dog whistle to your focus groups, Mr Starmer, because our communities don’t want to hear it. We don’t like you.

Whatever the result in Batley and Spen, Starmer needs to go, because the damage he is causing to the Labour Party - the natural home for all, regardless of skin colour and faith - could well be irreversible. 

The fight ahead is going to be utterly brutal. Now is the time to organise, and our movement must unite - not just to fight the Tories, because that is in our DNA - but to unite behind one left candidate, as a movement, as a force for good, and firmly insert the Starmer era into the bowel of history, where it belongs.

Be a part of it. You *are* the opposition.

All the best, 

Rachael x

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