If A Tory With A Red Rosette Is The Answer, We Are Asking The Wrong Question

I must admit, I thought the next general election - to be held by December 2024 - was a forgone conclusion. But I’m not so sure it is.

Even now, a return to Downing Street for Rishi Sunak looks extremely unlikely, but not quite as unlikely as it did a couple of months ago. 

There’s a very simple reason why Keir Starmer cannot be certain of a Labour victory next year, and that very simple reason is Sir Keir Rodney Starmer KC. 

Starmer has had it ridiculously easy over the last year or so. All he has needed to do is turn up for work each day and sit back and relax while the Tories stagger from one crisis to the next.

Starmer has been afforded the luxury of a mostly positive press because the press and the Labour leader are both owned by foreign oligarchs that are hellbent on maintaining the status quo at all costs. 

Keir Starmer is as much of a threat to the repulsively rich and powerful as I am to Gary Lineker’s seat on Match of the Day. You don’t get to become a knight of the realm by promising to kickstart the revolution. 

The opinion polls are still putting Labour some distance ahead of the Tories, but the 25 - 30 point lead is now a 15 - 20 point lead. In fact, this poll from Savanta puts Starmer’s Labour just 11 points ahead. 

That’s only a couple of points up on the previous Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, and he faced the most vicious smear campaign in the history of British politics, a Labour Party that preferred Brexit with Boris Johnson to common sense socialism with Jeremy Corbyn, and the wrath of the least trusted press in Europe. 

Starmer’s criticisms of the Conservative party are still relatively muted because he doesn’t want to face the question that spreads fear throughout the Labour front bench. 

What would Labour do? 

We know Starmer has had around a dozen relaunches over the last three years of beigedom, and we also know Starmer keeps a collection of three-word sound bites that look great on his little podium but translate to no more than a continuation of the last thirteen years of abject failure. 

But we also know Keir Starmer is a fraud, a traitor and a liar. 

Sure, it wouldn’t be politically astute to announce your entire manifesto more than eighteen months away from a general election because this would just give your opponents more time to rip your spending plans to shreds. 

But we are approaching the point when Starmer is going to have to start showing his hand before the British people no longer see him as the lesser of two evils but merely a Tory in a red rosette. 

There’s every chance Keir Starmer will inherit the Tories broken economy, but how will the people know how Starmer plans to fix it if he doesn’t meticulously detail how the poor and working classes will be better off under a Labour government? 

Starmer’s own personal approval ratings are nothing to write home about, and a credible Labour leader with an ambitious agenda would most likely be home and dry by now. 

I remember a time when Keir Starmer was considered to be the least worst option. I also remember when he was being touted as “Corbynism without Corbyn”, but what they really meant was Blairism with Mandelson.

Seriously, the Labour Party is an absolute cesspit. Anti-Black racism, Islamophobia and antisemitism are now actual problems, rather than some massively exaggerated smears from the bowel of Lee Harpin and his anonymous Labour sources. 

But the mainstream media doesn’t really show much interest in Labour Party racism these days. They would have you think it all magically disappeared the day after Jeremy Corbyn resigned, but in reality it was only just beginning. 

Take the comments from Martin Forde this week. 

Forde said: 

“I think I was approached by one [media outlet] on the day of publication, but they candidly accepted that they hadn’t actually read the report and I suggested they might want to do that first and then they didn't come back to me.”

Had Forde’s report - commissioned by Labour’s National Executive Committee in May 2020 - been massively critical of Jeremy Corbyn you can absolutely guarantee Mr Forde would’ve been surrounded by reporters for days on end following the release of his report. 

But the independent Forde report, initially said to be a bit too independent for Keir Starmer’s liking, was quietly brushed aside by the mainstream media because it destroyed the narrative of everything being Jeremy Corbyn’s fault.

Keir Starmer and the British press are working hand-in-glove to manipulate you in the same way they have been gaslighting you under the Tories. 

They really are all in it together. 

I know I will be asked the same questions as usual. Do I prefer a Tory government to a Labour government? Of course not, my record speaks for itself. I was pushing hard for a Labour government when most of Starmer’s supporters were backing Jo Swinson to become the next Prime Minister. 

I see very little difference between Labour and the Conservatives because you can barely fit a Rizla paper between them. 

Sure, there will be some fluff from Labour, and I would expect a plethora of new three-word treasures from the Londoncentric think tanks and focus groups. 

But when you peel back the layers that are displayed to the British public you will discover both Labour and the Tories report back to the same media barons and foreign oligarchs. 

What is the point of a Labour Party under the leadership of Keir Starmer when it is stuck inside the body of the Conservative Party? 

You can’t be telling me, “at least it’s not the Tories”, when it would be an establishment-backed rotation of the elite that is designed to protect the wealth of the richest 1%. 

Do you ever remember not knowing what Jeremy Corbyn stood for? You didn’t need to second guess what might be in our manifesto because you knew Mr Corbyn had unvanquishable principles, whether you happened to agree with him or not. 

But we cannot say the same for Keir Starmer because he is an opportunistic political chameleon that is relying on the unpopularity of the Tories to hand him the keys to power. 

Keir Starmer has betrayed you. He has cheated you. He has stolen your hope and replaced it with division. You once dared to dream of a better tomorrow, now the best you can hope for is replacing one set of Tories with another? 

I expect a Labour leader to stand alongside the poor and the working classes to fight the Tories class warfare, but this Labour leader is a co-defendant of the useless shower of shit in government today. 

Let’s be honest, the only reason Labour find themselves ahead is because so many people have had it up to their eyeballs with the Tories. It is not an endorsement of the Labour Party - far from - but a rejection of the Conservative party. 

I genuinely believe if Starmer continues to refuse to support the poor and working classes, and if he continues to fail to offer an ambitious alternative to the Tories his lead in the polls will continue to fall. 

I have absolutely no faith in the Labour Party in the same way I have absolutely no faith in the Conservatives. I don’t know about you, but I really want an opposition that doesn’t desperately compete for Tory votes when they have a big poll lead?

The time for Keir Starmer to set out a progressive and ambitious vision is NOW, with real Labour policies that will resonate with Labour voters. 

But do I think he will do this? No. 

Keir Starmer’s Labour vacated the left some time ago and he better hope he doesn’t need our votes at the next general election because I’m afraid, Mr Starmer, we don’t vote for Tories. 

Until next time, 

Rachael 

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