Starmer wants to ‘paint in primary colours’ – but red is missing. ‘Effective opposition’; economic justice; climate justice; peace; human rights; strong unions; equality – all these are now openly anathema to the ‘Labour’ ‘leader’
Keir Starmer’s team have been heavily briefing the press this weekend, most notably that he wants to ‘paint in primary colours’ – whatever that means – and ‘move away from his ten leadership campaign pledges’, because this will supposedly make him more electable (or at least slightly less invisible to voters).
The management-speak infection in Starmer’s Labour continues to run rampant – and it’s been obvious since about two weeks after he ‘won’ the leadership election that he never had the slightest intention of keeping any of the ‘pledges’ with which he conned Labour members into voting for him.
But the fact that his minders are now admitting that he has no interest in keeping them is massively telling – because just look at what they were:
These are the things that Starmer wants to define his leadership – by their absence:
- economic justice
- climate justice
- social justice
- human rights
- peace
- common ownership of public services for the public good
- stronger rights for workers and stronger unions
- more evenly distributed power, wealth and opportunity
- equality
- and even effective opposition
Starmer’s latest briefing amounts to a declaration that he’s neutered the Labour party as a force for anything except the status quo, the Establishment that protects wealth and privilege and keeps the many down. This is no Labour leader and no Labour party under him. The Labour party has been body-snatched and is a mere husk housing something pulsingly malignant.
Now none of this is news. The left, at least the part that doesn’t have a blue tick, has been pointing out these facts for more than a year now. But it is an admission and even his supporters can no longer cling to a shred of credibility if they deny it.
Primary colours? Yeah, right. Tory blue – tick. Coward’s yellow – tick. Red? Not a trace of it in Starmer’s new, finger-painted declaration that he’s the Establishment and f*ck all this country’s suffering millions who need hope and real change.
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Break your pledge? Go the way of the LibDems
Tcliverpool
Yellow Tories
In the epic words of Maximus Peake ‘If your not voting Labour your a tory’
Pledge 6 is interesting – full voting Rights for European Nationals.
Is Right Wing Labour trying to ‘Gerrymander” a potential Referendum to re-enter the EC (if it wins by a miracle, it won’t) with these new voters giving it a Yes majority?
Of course this is yet another slap in the face for the likes of Red Wall voters and is a BREXIT Right Wing Labour gift to the Tories that they just keep giving.
I would give such nationals a vote as they work here and contribute plus pay tax here but NOT on the EC issue, that is settled plus they have EC Rights in their own countries.
No wonder Starmer is in a hurry to sweep these pledges under the carpet (after conning the most politically niave Labour members).
And remember Labour in Scotland didn’t do too well taking up Blairism with the opportunist SNP ever so grateful for Old Labour’s clothes.
Starmer et al – Scotland is calling!
The coalition of the “Dammed” All the colours of the rainbow but it’s still pi..ing on the working class and the Labour members?
“Labour” is an involuntary coalition of The Damned! Democratic Socialists went to sleep when The Brand Name “Labour” won and The Neoliberal Neolabour Party TORIES started the complete takeover unfortunately most missed Team Blair/Murdoch Creating ‘The People of The SUN’ and Campbell/Mandelson ‘The People of The SUN in Sheep’s Clothing’ aka The Guardian and took Centre Left, “Working/Middle Class” People and dragged them all the way over to the same spot Thatcher Once Occupied with Thatcher/Reagan’s Neoliberalism with a Big Dollop of Neoconservativism!
When the Democratic Socialists all started waking up, playing dirty and joining the ridiculed Corbyn, Benn, etc, etc it was too late The Parasite Party was deep Rooted and Popular by the MSM Sheeple!
It reminds me of out battles 2015 to 2020, we’d be frantically defending ourselves/UK Labour Party and Jeremy from tsunamis of some of the foulest, violent, threatening abuse, yet it was us who were painted fanatics and whatever else in the MSM for the People of The SUN!
Anyway, yes we have an Involuntary Coalition of the “Dammed”, since Blair Gnawed his way into Parliament via the Westminster Sewers dragging that Thatcher/Reagan’s Fandangle of Neoliberalism with a Big Dollop of Neoconservativism, in behind him!
Involuntary Coalition of TWO Polar Opposite Incompatible PARTIES!
The HOST PARTY: Democratic Socialist UK Labour Party=Labour=For The PEOPLE!
The PARASITE PARTY: Thatcher’s Neoliberal Neolabour Party TORIES= NOT Labour, Bona Fide TORIES=For THEMSELVES and The ELITES/ESTABLISHMENT, NOT THE PEOPLE!
Joseph
When I started work there was a bloke who was a couple of months off retirement, he was a very quiet man, but before he left he pulled me to one side and said
‘We don’t object to being shit on, but we do object to it being done from such a great height’
“In order to win that election, we have to win the future,” he said. “We have to modernise and we have to be the party of the next 10 or 20 years, not the party that simply looks back at the last 10 years and says: ‘You could have had something else if you’d voted Labour.’
“The top priority is a Labour government. That’s the whole purpose of the Labour party. I came into politics to change lives, I didn’t come into politics to be in opposition. However much you may use social media to say what you did in a vote, if you lost the vote, you didn’t change anything. I have burned into my memory the fact that in the first 12 months, as an MP, I voted 172 times and lost 171 times. That is not changing lives. The No 1 priority is winning that election.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/aug/21/keir-starmer-ill-paint-a-picture-of-my-vision-in-primary-colours
What a hypocrite, Starmer needs to be constantly reminded that if it wasn’t for him and his fellow back stabbers we could have had a Socialist government.
Socialism is not a thing of the past as he is trying to portray, it is the only way a civilised society can function without setting one group of people against another. But of course this is how wealth works, by using exploitation.
The silly man whose attitude appears to be ‘if you don’t like these lies I have more’ cannot see that it is he and the money grabbing Blairites with their Ayn Rand objectivism which will drag us back to the dog eat dog past.
Can you give us a list of successful Socialist states
Really, Steve? You’ve embraced the “socialism is Stalinism” canard now? None of the states that called themselves “socialist” were actually run on socialist principles- had they been, the workers would have run every workplace and there’d have been no closed borders or secret police. What failed was Stalinism/Maoism, the creation of antidemocratic regimes that pretended to be socialist. No one who advocates socialism today advocates creating anything even remotely like those.
And even you must know, SteveH, that if Labour ever goes back to Blairism, the party will be pledging to help no one at all and will have no reason to exist.
And again, the polls prove that moving right and persecuting socialists is never going to be the recipe for a Labour victory- a Labour Party where the Left is no longer welcome is a Labour Party that is indistinguishable from the Tories- Blair was a MacMillan Tory, AT BEST- and will stand for nothing.
Given that a Labour Party that goes bland centrist and prowar will not be elected as the polls prove, is never going to win an election, what PRACTICAL case is there for Labour turning itself into that party.
It’s time to end the purges, reinstate the people drive away just for being socialists, admit that criticism of the Israeli government or refusal to support Zionism as a now-permanently right-wing ideology is never AS.
The TORIES are the enemy, not the Left- not ANYONE on the Left.
kenburch – So that’s a No then
To Steve H. All the bloody Scandinavian countries including Iceland just for starters.
I don’t usually reply to your inane comments, and I won’t be doing so again, but sometimes I just wonder about you ………….
Joe – I agree, a well regulated mixed market economy is the ideal but that is a long way from what many who comment on these pages would regard as socialist.
Who are you to say what other people think? You never discuss policy beyond the ‘mixed economy’ comment you always make. You assert that we are extremists but I’m guessing you would support a return to Afghanistan and that you support bombing Gaza. Certainly Corbyn was a step to far for you yet he offered the mixed economy you claim to want while Starmer offers primary colours, cracking conference speech and support for any NATO offensive on the table.
lundiel – Yes Corbyn did offer that and I voted for him on each and every occasion but by the time he and his bloody awful advisors had finished too many didn’t trust them to deliver what he had promised. He lost the trust of the electorate.
SreveH expressing his Toryism as usual, and misses the point with his own inquiry.
As it so happens, and with the impending ecological disaster we’ve all been warned of, but prefer to ignore, I’d actually place Cuba as an example of a success, and that country has been Socialist before I entered this World in the 60s.
Obviously, selling Cuba to an electorate addicted to consumerism and the expectation of ever rising living standards is a tough sell, still, not to worry, as economic carnage and ecological destruction all but guarantee this future, unless you are a fantasist or into global-wide genocide.
For you, a remain supporter to talk about Corbyn’s advisers is the height of hypocrisy.
SteveH, even you must realise how trite your question is. What is your criteria for a State to be Socialist? There are plenty of countries which embrace Socialist ideas and policies, where big business is not allowed to monopolise essential services and where the human rights of ALL people are respected.
However, try also putting your question to Starmer, because at the head of his list of pledges he says: “Another future is possible” and “BASED ON THE MORAL CASE FOR SOCIALISM, HERE IS WHERE I STAND” ….
Do you think he was telling us he wants to create a Socialist State in the future?
The problem is he doesn’t mean it because when considering point 4 on Human Rights, his support for Zionism ‘without question’ trumps everything.
The Stalinist states weren’t socialist and socialism is not to blame for their failures. Those states were not socialist because they never gave the workers control of the workplace. It’s enough to say that state capitalism failed. Corbyn’s proposals weren’t anything like what those states had- he was only going to nationalise electric/water/the rails, and there’s no decent reason for MONOPOLIES and UTILITIES like those to have ever been privatised-privatisation has never improved the performance of monopolies or utilities.
SteveH, you can’t seriously blame socialism for what the dictatorial nastiness in Stalin’s USSR or the East Bloc regimes. Or China, ffs.
Nothing he’s doing is GOING to win Labour an election, though- the continued Tory lead in the polls proves the voters don’t WANT Keir to keep persecuting the Labour Left while deferring endlessly to the Tories, and that they especially don’t want Labour lowering itself to the outdated and useless-in-this era 1997 policies- or to do what Liz Kendall and Jess Phillips want and go to the right of THOSE policies.
“If there’s one thing people don’t like, it’s when someone like the prime minister says one thing and then does another and they’ve just seen too much of that.”
He says as he rips up his pledges
This man is meant to be forensic…..
What do you think about Afghanistan SteveH? Centrists want to go back in, what’s your stance? Also, what do you think about Israel bombing Gaza when the people have nowhere to go to escape?
I want to know what you think for once, in primary colours.
lundiel – The desertion of Afghanistan to their fate under the Taliban is a Trump fuck-up that has been excasibated by Biden and Johnsons’ gross incompetence The abandonment of Afghanistan and its people is tragic, dangerous, unnecessary, not in their interests and not in ours. We will all live to regret this abomination.
As far as Gaza is concerned I think that the Israeli state should be prosecuted by the ICC for crimes against humanity.
“The abandonment of Afghanistan and its people is tragic, dangerous, unnecessary, not in their interests and not in ours. We will all live to regret this abomination.”
Oops, there goes one of the 10 pledges.
lundiel – Which one are you referring to?
“As far as Gaza is concerned I think that the Israeli state should be prosecuted by the ICC for crimes against humanity.”
Which makes your support for Starmer astounding given he’s an avowed Zionist who chose to see Corbyn’s speeding up of antisemitism complaint procedure as political interference and spun it as interference to impede the investigation of antisemitism.
“I voted 172 times and lost 171 times”.
That’s exactly it with Starmer. His priority is to be on the “winning” side. So he intends to vote for “what will win” rather than what is right, moral, just. This is the dross that the people of this country are lumbered with.
Kenburch @ 02:57am
“What failed was Stalinism/Maoism, the creation of antidemocratic regimes that pretended to be socialist. No one who advocates socialism today advocates creating anything even remotely like those”.
No one apart from the CCP-loving Morning Star, who know that if their motto For Peace & Socialism were altered to read more truthfully For Peace & Communism, their readership would evaporate!
“Cos if you go carrying pictures of Chairman Mao/
You ain’t gonna make it with anyone anyhow”, as an English Socialist once sang…
Even the Morning Star isn’t calling for a replication of Stalinism, though.
No, just lockdown hysteria, a semi-permanent state of medical authoritarianism and a disappointing eagerness to unquestioningly promote ruling class propaganda.
It’s what finally got them onto the late night Press Preview programmes and into the sticky embrace of the establishment. They must be so proud!
And the victims of Starmer’s anti-Left vendetta aren’t responsible for what The Morning Star does.
No one’s suggesting they are.
The top priority is to change society for the better not to pursue a course which continues and shores up an impractical and unworkable status quo which has no future. Simply assuming the election of the LP will achieve a change from this status quo is confusing means and ends. Treating the LP as THE ends rather then A means.
Sure I’ve heard this before……Oh yes, here it is TBs speech from 1999.
“And New Labour, confident at having modernised itself, now the new progressive force in British politics which can modernise the nation, sweep away those forces of conservatism to set the people free.”
I doubt that Blair will ever be forgiven for not using the majority gained in 97 to make transformational changes.
Or
He who pays the piper calls the tune, welcome to the Israeli Labour party
SteveH
Name a successful Fascist state, your man is one of the kleptocrats, the let them eat cakes, the pigs with their snouts in the trough
And no one votes for those fuckers
Doug – China, but how long it will last is anyone’s guess.
SteveH
Temporary Embarrassment and his bag carrier Evans were taught by China, bliddy hell and there’s me thinking it was Israel
Starmer is a member of the Trilateral Commission which should’ve been an instant disqualification to lead any party of the left.
The US and UK push very a aggressive neoliberal economic model for which there isn’t even consensus at home. Any of Germany, Sweden, Finland ; Denmark , Netherlands would be a huge jump to the left from where the UK is . Greater life satisfaction and cleaner environments too.
But Starmer doesn’t want that.
If you assume, as many here do, that Starmer & co simply want to put the kibosh on any hope of a viable left-wing alternative. The aim should be to remove him. Next May’s elections offer such an opportunity to produce a result bad enough to force him to quit, or force a PLP challenge.
It’s urgent, because If he’s the bad faith actor many assume, changing the party’s leadership rules, back to the electoral college from OMOV, will be his top priority.
You are right Andy The Scandinavian countries Germany Netherlands are streets ahead of UK they have balanced economies very good public services excellent pensions cheaper travel railways utilities What is not to like.
But the politically ignorant brits continue to punch themselves in the face. The political Illiteracy and I cant think of a better description that is civilised is very depressing.
There is hope but it is some way away I guess. The young generally are better educated than most of over 60s Brits. They dont bother with the right wing MSM so will not be influenced by the UKs one sided right wing media including BBC.
There was a poll done where they excluded the over 60s in the 2019 election. The result would have been the opposite Labour 38 5% Tories 35.6%
Corbyn had a greater % of vote than Blair last two elections also Brown Elections and Milibands. just shows what could have been done if everybody had got behind Corbyn confronted the nonsense re anti Semitism. But the LP right wing ex Blairites like Johnson Mandelson Et al the LP governance unit see Forde Report campaigned against a LP led by Corbyn.
It looks like Starmer was a Plant by the right wing. he said he would unify the LP carry out Corbyns modest 10 Pledges. He has done to total opposite.
From being the largest Political Party in Europe Starmer has successfully managed to lose thousand’s of young enthusiastic supporters . Under Evens a a process of getting rid of descent people like ken Loach and others is sickening let alone the absolute nonsense that Starmer has done in suspending Corbyn. Asking him to apologise for saying what was true. Its a absolute disgrace.
What hope in the future or the immediate future?
In case you missed it, the first thing Starmer says in his Ten Pledges is: ‘My promise to you is that I will maintain our radical values…..’. And so he DID!
Right up until the moment he was elected leader!!
“Starmer ‘plans to move away from leadership campaign 10 pledges”.
Wah hah hah hah!
Starmer Destroyed all 10 in less than six months! As far as his 10 Pledges and LGBTQ+ Pledges are concerned he already moved away………and now for the News, over to you Keith!
https://ibb.co/pw5xwz7
Could you take each of the 10 pledges in turn and explain how he has broken each one
Oh Fuck Off!
If you want breakdowns use the Internet, and get your own! If you want to prove me wrong do so with Facts!
Condescending Twunt!
skellyknelly – So that’s a No from you then. It’s amazing how unwilling ‘the left’ are to back up there continual assertions on this.
Amazing how Entitled and FUCKING Lazy The/YOU Entitled TORY Trash are ONE SIMPLE SEARCH, thousands of linked facts, knock yourself out!
https://www.google.com/search?q=Keir+Starmer+broke+all+his+pledges
Now go play with your fellow TORIES, My door is Slammed SHUT!
skellyknelly – Most people grow out of slamming doors behind them once they leave their teenage years behind. Do you still stamp loudly up the steps as well
*Doorbell Rings – Ugh – goes to check the front door, sees a little rat-man, stares down on it for a very brief moment, sighs and slams the door shut!*
skellyknelly – Not very original, I’ve heard that somewhere before.
*Doorbell Rings A-FUCKING-GAIN!– Ugh – goes to check the front door, sees a little rat-man, stares down on it for a very brief moment, sighs, contemplates briefly and slams the door shut!*
skellyknelly – Did you stamp up the stars as well?
No, just flopped back down in my comfy sofa and continued reading and enjoying my coffee, as a Little Rat Man stomps up the path chuntering balderdash!
skellyknelly – 😏
My Pleasure!
You seem to have plenty of time to comment here, rather more than a lot of us I suspect, so perhaps you would be good enough to take each of the 10 pledges in turn – and explain what single thing he has done to work towards them since his election. Perhaps on second thoughts please don’t bother…
Julia – I don’t feel the need to, People can draw their own conclusions about the reluctance of ‘the left’ to evidence their assertions.
“The abandonment of Afghanistan and its people is tragic, dangerous, unnecessary, not in their interests and not in ours. We will all live to regret this abomination.”
Oops, there goes one of the 10 pledges.
lundiel – Which one would that be
Hmm ..
Seen this sort of request before –
Straight from the Labour First / Progress script daily script-sheet
(possibly via an app like this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Act.IL ) of approved messages and repeated ad nauseam by extremist right-wing moderate drones until told to stop.
iamcrawford – Hmm ..
Seen this sort of response before when people can’t answer a simple question
Not one of his leadership pledges, but most definitely part of his shithousery that lost the ’19 election…
Remember when keef told you brexit wasnt gonna happen on his watch?
How did THAT one go, again, genius? 🤔
SteveH- The fact his close advisers are saying he’s backing away, is sign enough. When has he recommitted to them ,or even mentioned them?
Abolish tuition fees, Abolish the HoL, Prevention of Military Intervention Act, Public ownership of energy and water, repealing the Trade Union Act … do you see a party led by Starmer following through? And those are just a few examples
Leave him alone everyone in his own little world where dislike of Corbyn is paramount and where constructive engagement consists of endless “what about”-ery. Where there is no climate breakdown born of capitalisms endless striving for more and more profit. Where the American empire is in the early stages of decay. Where governments of countries across Asia are starting to see their interests are shared, but not with the US. Where Latin America is starting to stir again. Where people in “the West” are increasingly mistrustful of their governments but are being offered no alternative by the suppose opposition.
My suggestion is that, for one month, everyone responds with, to quote, “I don’t feel the need to”.
Whoops – “supposed’
Marvellous post. 👍
It’s the rich what get the pleasure
It’s the poor what get the blame
It’s the same the whole world over
Ain’t it all a bleedin shame
As the American Empire collapses followed by the implosion of the fiat monetary system, Corbyn ism fills the void
Huzzah
We always knew he’d be vindicated by history and so it is proving. He was a few years too early but his time is coming again, just leading a different party, that’s all!
Delegates and esp. those speaking on stage should wear T-shirts with the 10 Pledges on them at conference.
Nick Clegg abandoned a single Pledge on raising tuition fees, and it completely destroyed his credibility.
>>People can draw their own conclusions about the reluctance of ‘the left’ to evidence their assertions.
Well Sockpuppet Steve we are still waiting for you to admit your great leader lied about his 10 pledges and had no intention of honoring anything once he won. Now we have this WTF moment try shorting his latest slogan!
So no why the hell should we donostrate anything to you when you BS about numbers of membership, defend this muppet after he screws up again and again. The silence on what happened to all the millions he has squandered and now his 10 pledges he lied to get elected with and how long did they last weeks and were now onto WTF BS slogan.
So lets have you and this right wing cult of new Labour 2.0 evidence it’s damn assertions..
dg – I’m still waiting for someone to give me a detailed list of how he has broken each of these pledges.
As for party membership numbers and the party’s finances well here is confirmation that membership numbers had dropped dramatically before the 19GE and that this was causing cash flow problems because the party was living beyond its means. It looks like Keir inherited the problem from Jeremy.
Official figures put the total at just under 485,000 – down from a peak of 564,000 at the end of 2017.
That includes around 35,000 supporters whose subscriptions are in arrears, meaning the party now has around 450,000 fully paid-up members.
(which is inline with my calculation that several months later there were 440k members in the lead upto the 19GE)
The 14% drop in membership comes against a backdrop of dissatisfaction by many in the party at Jeremy Corbyn’s approach to Brexit and anti-semitism.
A senior Labour MP said the party’s budget was based on an assumption that the number of paying members would not fall below 500,000.
“It’s the biggest annual fall in our history – admittedly from a huge base – and it will only get worse.”
Glen O’Hara, Professor of Contemporary History at Oxford Brookes University, said: “The decline in official membership is very big – 14% or so in just 18 months.
https://www.politicshome.com/news/article/excl-labour-membership-dips-below-half-a-million-as-tens-of-thousands-leave-party
SteveH- He’s not had a chance to break them, so it’s pretty hard to prove.
But sensible people, from all factions; those who personally know Starmer, are absolutely convinced the 10 Pledges won’t be in any manifesto he’d be involved in fronting.
He’s been leader 15 months and he’s not said a darn thing about them. He does however praise Blair and New Labour at any given opportunity.
Plenty Detailed Lists there, why pretend you received none, when there are hundreds to pick from!? Oh yes, you TORIES like to pretend facts away, sadly you can’t, so here is the same link from this morning!
https://www.google.com/search?q=Keir+Starmer+broke+all+his+pledges
Here is another, plenty more links just here on WordPress
https://wordpress.com/read/blogs/174952300/posts/1951
Why would anybody trust a man with a chequered past for preventing paedophiles being brought to justice? This twitter thread is jaw dropping…
“How on Earth can Keir_Starmer win the future when he can’t even address his own past:”
.https://twitter.com/ciabaudo/status/1429412399757549573?s=20
And Loopholing Assange into Prison and creating impunity for The Spy Cops to do whatever they like in the Process!
PS not to mention thousands of documents that vanished from all Starmer’s Hot Cases!