Breaking Exclusive

Exclusive: Labour lays off NINETY more staff during unemployment crisis

Party’s employment record under Starmer has been appalling

The Labour party has continued its appalling record on unemployment under Keir Starmer and acting general secretary David Evans.

In June last year, the party tried to kick out furloughed staff as soon as it would have cost Labour anything to keep them on the scheme, but was forced into a temporary u-turn by union action led by Unite’s Howard Beckett, also a member of Labour’s National Executive Committee, who won workers a reprieve. In September, Labour did it again – while calling on the government to extend the scheme for others – and in February, it laid off the party’s entire ‘community organising’ team as Starmer’s outfit gave up on reaching communities it needs to win back, relying instead on insulting flag-waving.

And now the SKWAWKBOX can reveal that ninety party staff have received letters telling them they will be out of work from the end of May.

The news comes as the party’s financial woes continue, after the departure of more than 100,000 members since Starmer declared war on their democracy and freedom of speech and steep reductions in union support. Keir Starmer’s inability to lead or inspire – or even oppose – is costing Labour staff their livelihoods as well as inflicting disastrous polling and betraying communities.

One Labour insider close to events told Skwawkbox:

Labour was founded and grew on the principle of protecting workers, this announcement flies in the face of those principles and is not just a shock but a terrible blow to the people affected.

Keir Starmer and David Evans are presiding over a huge subversion of democracy. They’ll blame the party’s finances for this but they’re directly responsible for the state of those finances. They haven’t listened to members, workers or the public and have failed utterly during this pandemic crisis. If Labour isn’t sticking up for workers in such a despicable and shameful way, it’s disaster for the country.

The Labour party press office always declines to comment on staff matters.

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44 comments

  1. Doners want their easy earned cash to be spent prudently, as Gordon would say. I suggest some left field thinking is needed to save the donors money and the party’s dwindling funds ……outsource all staff to Millbank and share them with the Tories.

  2. Establishment figures are a menace and its why not only this country but the whole world is in crisis

  3. I have seen nothing to indicate that we have less members now than we had prior to the 19GE, they are just different members.
    Whatever else he is Len McCluskey is not stupid, he will have known full well that stopping Unite’s contributions to the Labour party would inevitably lead to job losses.

    1. I think £650k might have kept them all in work for an extra few weeks; but now they can look forward to the likes of rachel reeves demonising them and telling them they’re gonna cop it if she has her way…

      Who renumerates you, wee man?

      1. Toffee – Well you can blame the person who naïvely issued an official Labour party statement without getting the party’s lawyers to check it first for that one.

    2. “I have seen nothing to indicate that.”

      Of course you haven’t. And nothing that shows NHS GPs’ “yellow card” death numbers within 2 weeks of taking a COVID-19 ‘vaccine’, or the true nature of Labour Party antisemitism accusations or that Matt Hancock has personally awarded nearly £2b to personal acquaintancs of senior tories and party sponsors.

      Doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen/ isn’t true.

    3. And you won’t because they won’t publish the numbers. Rather they give anonymous briefings to friendly Tory media.

    1. The Neolabour Party Tories killed HOPE when they killed The UK Labour Party!
      RIP UK Labour Party!
      Long Live Democratic Socialism!

  4. you know, I make two regular payments to organisations that seem to stand for positions and interests that I’m finding myself disagreeing with more and more:

    – The BBC (licence fee), and
    – Labour party (membership due).

    1. There are a great many good causes to make gratefully received payments to. “The Labour Party” currently occupied by Thatcherite Neoliberal Neolabour Party Tories most certainly is not one, at least not until the Democratic Socialist UK Labour Party is restored to it’s Original Roots.
      The People’s Fighting Fund, The Peace and Justice Project, The Communist Party of Britain, etc, etc, etc.

  5. It will be interesting to see the demographics of the 90, I am sure there will be a specifically targetted group/groups. It will come out in the wash, always does with this sloppy incompetent bunch of Thatcherite Neolabour Party Tories! Interesting days ahead!

    1. Labour’s HQ staff appear to be employed on Fixed Term Contracts so it is far more likely that it is simply a case of their employment contracts coming to an end and not being renewed.

      1. Probably so, but a political party that supposedly promotes the interests of the Many should maybe use fixed term employment contracts less than PLP does.

        Also, as skellyknell wondered (above), are the who and what specifics disclosive or Sir Keir’s strategic thinking?

        Also also, allowing another ninety staff to disappear shows Starmer, Rayne and Evans are hardly in “market-making mode” (as Evans might say)

      2. qwertboi – I am guessing there are many reasons why fixed term contracts are used, maybe someone as ‘politically aware’ as yourself can think of a few.

  6. Red Tories under war criminal lost 5million votes and almost bankrupted the party
    From the internal report we know it is not a coincidence that it is happening again
    This time they mean to finish the job

    1. Thatcher’s Neolabour Party have already killed The UK Labour Party, what we see is the dead skin squirming with Parasitic self serving Neoliberal Tories. The dead skin might say Labour on it, but on the inside it’s is nothing but Thatcherite Tories! Nasty Creatures!
      Vote for the Dead Skin of The UK Labour Party
      and
      We Get The Neoliberal Squirming Parasite Neolabour Party Tories!
      We can only revive the dead skin if we magically vote out every Neolabour Party Tory MP/Candidate and Vote in Every UK Labour Party MP/Candidate (if ‘they’ allow any Democratic Socialists Candidates to stand!) then start fresh with a temporarily smaller Party with a Massive Membership and with our Voice back! That will give us the HOPE of 2015 to 2017 which will revive that old dead skin and squash out all those Nasty Parasites!

      1. Skelly
        “what we see is the dead skin squirming with Parasitic self serving Neoliberal Tories.”
        Brilliant analogy – even that imagery provoked a sense of revulsion

      2. Thank you Iain, it is the least offensive feelings I have for the Parasite Invaders that destroyed The Democratic Socialist UK Labour Party and our ‘The People’s’ one chance in a lifetime to making long lasting change for every Child, Woman and Man in Britain. We were so close. Now we can only focus on what we achieved with a 20% PLP vs 80% PLP and bring ourselves to realise that The Neoliberals will NEVER make the same mistake of letting another Democratic Socialist slip the net again, they learnt as much from their mistake as we did, The People are hungry for Change, but the People are still easily manipulated by Propaganda, Sabotage, Lies, Spin, Coups, etc, etc, etc!
        We need some way of Keeping The People focused, sadly so many are Brand Hooked/Obsessed, Materialised and Commercialised that their gods in neon signs have them believing they are above themselves, The People, when they have the latest xyz in hand and has their Final say for them on all matters especially those matters that Siri, Alexa, Google, Microsoft, Android, etc etc, etc can eavesdrop on.

  7. Could be that UNITE cutting funding was a factor in this. Could be that Starmer and Evans trying to get rid of anyone to the left of Gordon Brown, and telling members that they can only debate flower arranging, was a factor in UNITE cutting funding.

    1. goldbach – Perhaps we’ll learn what Unite’s membership think about all this when we see the results of Unite’s leadership election.

      1. Elections turn on a whole range of factors. I don’t know what the outcome of the election will be and, when it is announced, I won’t know what the major factors were that led to the result. How about you?

      2. goldbach – Well for starters unless there is a vast improvement in the turnout we’ll know that the membership are apathetic about the political machinations of their <6% mandate leader.
        The choice between the two front runners appears to be fairly stark.

    1. …and yet they were selected by local Labour party members to stand as their candidates. Did anyone from the left stand against them and if so what were the elections results.

      1. Doesn’t matter. Now that the alleged leader of my party is declarig his support and enthusiasm for so many things many members dislike, we’re making it personal: The rosette isn’t enough, they have to pre-announce an intention to join SCG

      2. qwertboi – Will anyone care or notice?
        Do you have the candidates and enough support to make any difference?

      3. goldbach – Really?

        “[Eeyore] is generally characterized as a pessimistic, gloomy, depressed, anhedonic, old grey stuffed donkey who is a friend of the title character, Winnie-the-Pooh.

      4. “Do you have the candidates and enough support to make any difference?”

        You’ll see that for yourself on May 7, which seone has christened “Labour Annihilation Day”.

        Me, I prefer to think of it as “Starmer’s Just Desserts Day.”

      5. qwertboi – So we’ll take that as a no then. How many ‘RW’ candidates has ‘the left’ managed to replace in the May elections.

      6. Your constant pretence that all you need to do to win is field candidates is taking us for mugs. From the Guardian, a liberal centrist paper: “Politically, the Labour right benefits from the fact that under this system, Labour can only ever win by capturing votes directly from Conservatives, creating an inbuilt tendency for Labour leaderships to tack rightward, against the wishes of many of their own members and core voters. Institutionally, they benefit from the enormous and unaccountable power invested in the offices of the leader, MPs and even local municipal representatives: enabling the right to control decision-making on policy, strategy, staffing and campaigning at most levels of the party.”

        https://amp-theguardian-com.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/nov/20/only-electoral-reform-will-rid-the-labour-party-of-factionalism?amp_js_v=a6&amp_gsa=1&usqp=mq331AQHKAFQArABIA%3D%3D#aoh=16184299614554&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com&amp_tf=From%20%251%24s&ampshare=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fcommentisfree%2F2020%2Fnov%2F20%2Fonly-electoral-reform-will-rid-the-labour-party-of-factionalism

        Please stop treating us like naive children. We know how the party is structured and likewise the defanged unions who are only there to fight for jobs and wages these days.

      7. lundiel – I note that a good proportion of the article is extolling the virtues of Proportional Representation. Keir supports moving to a PR system for General Elections and he has already made moves to democratise the party by adopting PR for NEC elections.

    2. WAIIT, please don’t call than Dead Heads. They will never be DHs. Regards ☮️

  8. Wvidently the money for their salaries was paid out to traitors like Emily Oldknowe ,John Stolliday & that guy who wanted to jump off of Jennie Formby’s balcony.

  9. ” ….departure of more than 100,000 members since Starmer declared war on their democracy and freedom of speech …”

    Keep up Skwarky its now 100,002 members as me and the Mrs finally got around to cancelling our membership Direct Debits

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