Bland and treacherous LibDems surge to take seat from chaotic Tories. Bland and treacherous Labour loses more than 56% of its vote share
Last night’s result in the North Shropshire by-election is being hailed by the media as a triumph for the LibDems and a disaster for Boris Johnson after the LibDems almost halved the Tory vote to beat Johnson’s party by more than fifteen points.
But the bigger disaster was that of Keir Starmer’s Labour. In an election created by the resignation of the previous Tory incumbent in a scandal, Labour didn’t just fail to win the seat but lost more than 56% of its vote share at the last election under the supposedly unpopular Jeremy Corbyn.
Starmer and his factional allies have, of course, been vigorously rewriting history to suggest that Labour lost the 2019 general election because of Corbyn’s supposed unpopularity ‘on the [mythical] doorstep’ and greeted Starmer’s accession as the turning point that would show how much the country was clamouring for their diseased version of Labour.
Well, last night the LibDems showed that a bland, toxic and treacherous party can win a by-election – if the governing party manages to be even more toxic – but that there’s only room for one.
The LibDems are forever tarnished by their collusion with David Cameron’s Tories in the 2010-2015 government and in particular their betrayal of young people in the student fees fiasco and of the poor in a succession of Tory cuts while the LibDems held Cameron’s coat.
But even they could win last night – while Labour’s vote collapsed.
The message is a grim one for the right’s whole shtick. If people want Tory, they’ll vote for the ‘full-fat’ version. If they want ‘not-Tory and we don’t mind bland and treacherous’, they have the LibDems to vote for. So the right’s attempts to mimic the Tories and the LibDems in the foolish hope it would win them seats from either have put them in a position where nobody’s buying the weird mix they’re offering.
In other words, people saw through Blair and they have no interest in his cheesy tribute band.
People expect Labour to offer an alternative. They saw what that can look like when Jeremy Corbyn made and won the political argument on austerity and presented an actual vision for actual change. Starmer’s taste-free snake oil has no appeal when it comes to the actual event of putting an ‘X’ on parliamentary ballot paper.
Tragically, a country in desperate need of real change has none on offer at a parliamentary level. Starmer’s destruction of the one vehicle of hope for that change is unforgivable and last night voters got the chance to deliver him the message yet again. And after Starmer-driven disasters in Hartlepool and Chesham and Amersham and a dirty, racism-based scrape-through in Batley and Spen, the already-threadbare excuses just won’t wash.
It’s time for him to go while there’s still an outside chance he might be replaced by a genuine Labour MP.
SKWAWKBOX needs your help. The site is provided free of charge but depends on the support of its readers to be viable. If you’d like to help it keep revealing the news as it is and not what the Establishment wants you to hear – and can afford to without hardship – please click here to arrange a one-off or modest monthly donation via PayPal or here to set up a monthly donation via GoCardless (SKWAWKBOX will contact you to confirm the GoCardless amount). Thanks for your solidarity so SKWAWKBOX can keep doing its job.
If you wish to republish this post for non-commercial use, you are welcome to do so – see here for more.
But surely grown up politics being back in charge was gonna win for Starmer…… time for him to go if he has a shred of decency. So I guess he will remain for the foreseeable….
I see Starmer’s policy of expelling all socialists on the pretext of antisemitism and persuading all the disillusioned Tory voters to vote for a Socialist free Zionist party of nodding dogs has failed. Big surprise that isn’t it.
Indeed Smartboy.
Think on, if Jeremy Corbyn were still leader of Labour and Graeme Currie, the Labour candidate who’d come second in the last three North Shropshire elections had fought the seat, Labour would very probably have won (or at least not come behind the Conservatives).
When you said “…if Jeremy Corbyn were still leader of Labour…” it reminded me of a headline I saw yesterday in The Torygraph that said “If you think Boris is bad think how bad it would be with Corbyn”. Trouble is people believe this nonsense and don’t realise they are being lied to, misled and manipulated against their interests.
Reply to Qwertboi and Apple Crumble
If Jeremy had still been leader and even one person had died of Covid he would be currently either in jail or on bail for allegedly mishandling the Covid situation and causing the death. The MSM would have been leading the charge to bring back the death penalty as a punishment for this.
I am glad that for his own sake Jeremy is now on the back benches and has lost the Labour whip- the PLP has absolutely no control of him now . They have stupidly put him in a position where he has nothing to lose – he can do as he pleases without fear -he can seek peace and justice at home and abroad without being disciplined for it.
Regarding the headline in the gutter press that Apple Crumble refers to – I think most people are starting to realise that they were duped and Jeremy is not the Devil Incarnate. Telegraph Readers probably knew this all along but they are mostly dyed in the wool Tories so it pleased them to believe it.
Very True AppleC. That’s what the vast majority tend to do (even if it means damaging themselves)
@Smartboy. Yes – if JC had not been nade unelectable by the LabRW and the synchronised MSM, the attrociously dangerous and malign ‘Covid Narrative’ would not be doing terrible things to our health and wellbeing – BUT – just like Syria or Venezuela (or any set-up that threatens the MSM’s oligarchy, we’d all be living in a “Police State” today.
(Peter Ford, former UK Ambassador to Syria, told Vanessa Beeley
:
“I always like to say that maybe Syria is a police state because in states which the West tries to subvert (or destroy – qw) there is a lot of policing to be done!”)
Smartboy, I agree with you that Starmer’s priority is to expel socialist from the Labour Party. However, I don’t believe Starmer’s is seriously considering booing Tory voters to vote Labour, he cannot be that stupid, can he? Since when stupidity is a membership requirement for joining the membership of the Trilateral Commission?
I know I am a cynic, right now it is very possible that Starmer is delighted that the LibDems have won this seat, since I believe that in the future what Starmer and chums would like best is to amalgamate with the LibDems. This can only be possible if the Labour Party is purged of socialist first and cuts its links with the Trade Unions.
Conclusion Starmer is set to destroy the Labour Party as a political alternative to the Tories and it is been pretty successful about it, so far.
Thus, we need to seriously consider supporting incumbent former Labour Cllrs standing as Labour independents so that they can keep the seats they are holding; on the same ticket to run socialist candidates alongside the incumbents and kick to the kerb the presently Labour Cllrs that behave like Tories.
We have election in the metropolitan areas this May, if Liverpool and other cities manage to keep the Cllrs that have been either expelled or resigned from the Labour Party plus manage to elect socialist Cllrs and kick out a few of the red Tories, then and only then Starmer would be forced to resign as leader.
Reply to Maria V
I think there is no question that independent Socialist candidates expelled from the party for ” antisemitism” i.e. for being Socialists, Anti-Zionists or disagreeing with any items of party policy will be backed to he hilt members and supporters who understand what has been happening. Its up to us to make sure they do understand by knocking on doors and exposing the whole rotten mess.
Regarding your comments about Starmer attracting Tory voters I think he has stated that that is his aim. Of course his real aim is to neutralise the party ( no Socialists Anti Zionists or dissenting voices) , lose the next 2 elections and by the start of the next decade people will want a change and vote in a Tory light Labour Party which is virtually indistinguishable from the real Tory party. That is why he has set about alienating so many of out traditional supporters – e,g. our Black, Irish, Muslim , Arab , Kashmiri LGBT Jewish Non Zionist brothers and sisters.
I don’t know about a possible merger with the Lib Dems – I think the Lib Dems would not want to be in any way associated with the viciousness and the vindictive and undemocratic behaviour which characterises Starmers Labour so I don’t think this is on the cards.
As as his policy of expelling JEWS on the pretext of antisemitism.
Starmer’s wholesale expulsions of Socialist Anti Zionist Jews is a disgusting example of antisemitism. However the silence of the Chief Rabbi, the BOD, CAA and other groups who maligned Jeremy Corbyn for alleged antisemitism is deafening and evidence that their problem with Jeremy and others is not their alleged antisemitism but their antiZionism .
You say “It’s time for him to go while there’s still an outside chance he might be replaced by a genuine Labour MP.” I think we need a genuine Labour Party first, Starmer’s party isn’t it. I don’t see a genuine Labour Party happening before the next general election. ( …and I’m a Labour Party member ) The chance was missed, as soon as it was clear that Starmer had broken all his leadership pledges, a new party should have been launched.
Where is Mandelson? Surely he should be on TV chanting “Looose, looose, looose.”
Why he’s won. Brand “Labour” is Thatcherite Neoliberal TORY. You’ll only see him Blair, Campbell if Democratic Socialists manage to somehow swing Brand “Labour” back and put the TORY Trash out.
The election leaflet Labour were using for this election was headlined “ It’s a two horse race in North Shropshire between Labour and the Conservatives “ Coming third in a two horse race now that’s a real achievement.
Lesson from this, Ignorant Arrogance bites arses.
In North Shropshire, Labour was sent to the knackers’ yard.
kenburch
New New Red Tory Labour
Luke Akehurst your boys took a beating, Margaret Hodge where are you now, War Criminal Mushy Peas listen to the crowd, you utterly useless Weapons of Mass Self Destruction
God bless the New New Red Tory Labour Party for the bucket of shit you really are
Don’t know why guardianistas and #FBPE’ers are getting all excited today. Do they need reminding that Starmer has already ruled out any ‘progressive alliance’ in that FT interview he gave, by saying, there will be no deals or cooperation agreements, ‘either before or after the election’. With other politicians you could probably safely dismiss that as the usual political bravado, but with an establishment stooge like Sir Keir Starmer you can wager he’d rather force another election, risking a Tory revival, than compromise in negotiations with centre-leftish parties like the Lib Dems and SNP. Parties, that are now, bizarrely, probably quite a bit to the left of this RW Labour outfit.
I mean, how could he agree to ‘supply and confidence’ in negotiations if it meant following through on things like an elected second chamber – a longstanding aim of both the LDs and SNP. Not after breaking his own pledge to expressly rule that out. See what a wretched place he’s put the party with his political shapeshifting & downright lies.
They don’t need to sell anything. Thatcher’s Neoliberal Neo-New-Labour Party Parasite TORIES are TORIES, bona fide Parasite TORIES, infesting and consuming Labour inside out.
UK Labour Party = Democratic Socialism = FOR The PEOPLE.
Neo-New-Labour Parasite TORIES = Thatcher/Reagan’s Flavour of Neoliberalism, NOTHING left/centre/liberal/bogus centrist about it, PURE TORY = FOR Themselves and FOR The Elites/Establishment, like ALL TORIES.
Only one good thing to do with them, vote them out, with their strongest opponent. Unless there are any Democratic Socialist Exile Candidates, then coordinate a massive drive for them to win. We probably don’t need to worry which party, all the exiles and UK Labour should naturally draw together once we voted all the Sabotaging TORY Filth out and done some serious Housekeeping and put ALL THE TRASH OUT!
Labour to Win’s propaganda presents them as offering raw, unstoppable electoral pwnage..
Reality: Losing 327 Councillors in this year’s Local elections. Losing the Hartlepool by-election; barely clinging on in Batley in Spen after cynically playing the Jo Cox ‘sympathy vote’ card for all it was worth and ignoring normakl rules to impose Kim Leadbeater. Two thumbs down in North Shropshire.
*Batley and Spen
At a recent general election, there were reports that the SNP had decided to canvass a village.
Problem: Around 50 people turned up and the village only had 500 houses. And so it was just 10 each.
Not a problem Starmer’s Labour Party is going to have to worry about.
If Welsh Labour, for all their faults, on a hand or two full, could canvas and make available a candidate for every English Seat, they’d kick BOTH TORY Parties out of the House!
After Apparently Fucking Up GE2019, The PEOPLE are DESPERATE for a Party that remotely speaks as and with them. All they have now are Two Equally ‘worse’ TORY Parties! Thatcher’s Neoliberal Neo-New-Labour Party Parasite TORIES or Thatcher’s Neoliberal Conservative Party TORIES!
As you say, for all its limitations, the Welsh Labour Party and devolved government have shown a way forward – radicalism, vision, competence, generosity and more.
Yep or in one Corbynism.
What a travesty that the MSM and Neo-New-Labour Party TORIES could destroy a good man’s character in such a way that The PEOPLE who most needed his government deserted him to the hyenas and vultures.
Say we did win, The UK Labour Party is in Government, can you imagine the onslaughts, it would have been a nightmare like never before like the assaults on any Socialist South American Nation. The Neo-New-Labour Party TORIES colluding with CIA, MI5/6 and Mossad directly, never mind the MSM, in coup after coup, after coup, even if we booted them all, the X-lateral Commission would simply stick them in a War Craft room of their own as lead by Blue Keef.
if he had half a wit, then he would have stood labour down and asked supporters to vote green. this way he could have avoided the embarrassment of his naivety and arrogance to keep his job. i wonder how much labour spent on this further waste of money? labour needs a partner to win future fights and the greens are the only that has future and the young generation who are facing debt, housing crises and HOPE (starmer is a perfect example of the comfortable class).
I’ve noticed the resident gobshite’s conspicuous by his absence…
I guess somewhere in the Caribbean there’s furniture being ferociously gnawed at by someone who once again told us that we should wait and see how keef’s labour got on before directing any criticism at him.
…Mind you don’t choke on those splinters 👍😉
Calling Lib Dems treacherous is STUPID. It is akin to saying Starmer’s Labour Party is unchanged from Corbyn’s. Most of the “treacherous” Lib Dem MPs are no longer MPs – unlike the treacherous Labour MPs.