Feeble bandwagon-jumping condemned
Keir Starmer has been shredded for his hypocrisy in paying tribute to human rights giant Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who has died today.
Starmer wrote this morning:
Desmond Tutu was a tower of a man, and a leader of moral activism. He dedicated his life to tackling injustice and standing up for the oppressed. His impact on the world crosses borders and echoes through generations. May he rest in peace.
But if Tutu had been a Labour member, Starmer would probably have expelled him, at least if he had the spine to do it, for comments in support of Palestinians and of boycotts and sanctions against Israel for its treatment of them, such as this:
In South Africa, we could not have achieved our democracy without the help of people around the world…through the use of…boycotts and divestment. My conscience compels me to stand with the Palestinians as they seek to use the same tactics of non-violence.
When Labour’s conference voted overwhelmingly in September for such sanctions against Israel, Starmer and his then-Shadow Foreign Secretary Lisa Nandy dismissed the motion as unacceptable and simply ignored it.
Hundreds responded to Starmer’s political opportunism and hypocrisy to point out this and more. Jackie Walker, one of the victims of Starmer’s purge of those showing solidarity with Palestinians, took aim at the beige knight’s ‘shameless appropriation’:
Others pointed out that Starmer’s generic ‘injustice’ avoided the correct word for the fight Tutu was primarily known for – the fight against apartheid, a word that Starmer and his ilk balk at using about Israel, even though it is clearly appropriate:
Still others pointed out Tutu’s repeated calls for sanctions against Israel, which Starmer simply dismisses:
Some pointed out that Starmer and his cronies are busy expelling even Jewish members who dare to criticise Israel or call for sanctions against the apartheid perpetrated on Palestinians:
And others were pithier still:
The Labour right, of course, tried to condemn those pointing out Starmer’s hypocrisy – but they had no ‘leg to stand on’:
Starmer’s newest fiasco is just the latest in a long list of embarrassing statements that have led to him being shredded by people for what he said or didn’t say: his fawning tribute to Johnson over a new baby, his feeble call for Matt Hancock to step down as Health Secretary when Hancock had already gone, his spinelessness in opposition, his interminable and Cameron-esque ‘essay’, his obsequious support for the hard-right Israeli ambassador after she ‘fled’ a threat that didn’t happen and his complete silence on Labour MP Zara Sultana after she was the target of disgusting racism or for former Labour MP Claudia Webbe after a man was arrested for planning to murder her as Labour cut her loose and dripped comments to the press against her.
And while Tutu stood resolutely for human rights regardless of personal cost or danger, Starmer has waged war on the rights and democracy of Labour party members, stayed silent on injustice, pandered to racists and has allowed Jewish people to be hounded out of Labour in the name of supposedly fighting antisemitism.
Skwawkbox view:
The world has lost a great man today, one who stood genuinely and courageously against all forms of discrimination and oppression. The man currently masquerading as Labour leader is not fit to speak his name, let alone try to associate himself with Desmond Tutu while avoiding mention of what Tutu stood for and against – for freedom, for Palestinians and against apartheid.
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God rest Bishop Tutu. God forgive Starmer the apartheid supporter.
Poor, poor Max Headroom. All of that forensic know-how but he can’t tell the difference between proponent and opponent.
Starmer is the very antithesis of Desmond Tutu. Desmond Tutu was a man of great integrity….. Starmer is a devious, duplicitous totally corrupt piece of unowhat!
Just read the following on JVLs website in their latest posting:
5.35pm. We have just heard that the The Guardian has deleted a post from Prof David Mond (Warwick) which expressed disappointment that the obituary on Desmond Tutu made no reference to the Archbishop’s support for Palestine and his comparison of Israeli policies to SA Apartheid. It was deleted five minutes after being submitted on the grounds that “it didn’t abide by our community standards”.
Shameful!
Community standards! What irony!!
The Guardian got the “shock of it’s life” when, at the height of “Corbynmania” it found out that the majority of it’s readership generally supported Jeremy Corbyn. From keeping an eye on the letters page, I would say we still do!
The interview with Rachel Reeves in today’s (Monday) edition is a real exercise in New New Labour propaganda.
Useless, but at least not the Times, Telegraph, Mail or Express……..
Well, they are right, aren’t they?
Just wow.
After hearing the sad death of Desmond Tutu and due to the support he gave Palestine I was only saying this morning I doubt Starmer would release a statement. Yet he’s proved me wrong again. Numerous tweets pointing out that he would have expelled Mr Tutu from the party for this are not wrong. His hypocrisy is shocking.
Every one of those tweets well deserved.
Starmer has no defence.
Hypocriite!
Neil Kinnock once accused Corbyn of being ‘stubborn’ for opposing nuclear weapons.
Would he have said the same thing about Tutu for opposing apartheid?
Probably. And the truth is, when Kinnock decided to keep The Bomb after all- and at a time when there was no decent reason to keep it, given that the Cold War was over and it had no purpose once the Cold War WAS done- Labour’s gains at the next election were too few to matter- Kinnock got no significant electoral rewards for abandoning peace, abandoning socialism, and abolishing internal party democracy. Nobody seriously thought anything even perceptibly different than Toryism would happen if Kinnock got in in 1992, and many people who hadn’t voted Labour in ’87 decided they couldn’t do so in ’92, because a man who gave up essentially everything he’d ever stood for in the space of five years simply couldn’t be trusted with power.
IMHO Tuto never publicly proclaimed himself to be a democratic socialist, but as a theologian and an anti-apartheid freedom-fighter he bragged that his contribution to ANC consciousness amounted to taking the insights and axioms of (mostly South American)marxist “Liberation Theology*” and integrating them with the needs of an embryonic democratic state (Mandela’s South Africa).
He’d certainly be too left wing for Starmer’s World Economic Forum “New Normal” (‘show-me-your-papers’) Labour.
He’d a wanted Jeremy Corbyn to be a bit more assertive of his socialism too. RIP Desmond Mpilo Tutu.
Desmond Tutu forbade all the clergy from joining any political party.
Yes, “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to G*d and the working class the things that are G*d’s and the People’s.”
Works for me!
I think that all religious organisations should be de-affiliated from the party. There are only 2 of them.
Which is beyond the point for the purposes of this discussion. You’d have to concede, SteveH, that Keir is a hypocrite for pretending to praise Archbishop Tutu and pretending to be anti-apartheid- only the Labour Left were, among party members in the Eighties- when, had the Archbishop happened to have been a Labour member- we’re doing an hypothetical on that and the Archbishop’s ban on party membership for Anglican clergy is irrelevant to that point- Keir would have expelled him for treating Palestinians as human beings.
That is what matters, not the Archbishop’s policy on party membership for Anglican clerics within his archdiocese.
Probably the biggest humanitarian of our age. RIP Desmond Tutu, you’ve earned it.
The archbishop was a bit of a petrol head (we all have our sins). Used to go around in a zebra striped Sierra Cosworth. Legend has it that he spawned the tiger Stripe phenomenon of the early nineties.
As for Starmer. What an utter tool. Wonder what he’ll be remembered for?
For that matter what will he be forgotten for?
wobbly – What prompted you to reopen a discussion from last year.
Of course Corbyn campaigned MASSIVELY against
apartheid and was arrested once ..
There are pictures of him being picked up by the police ..
That was in the Thatcher days when the UK regarded
Mandela as a terrorist ..
What has Corbyn said about his death .. and has it
been reported?
“Jeremy Corbyn
@jeremycorbyn
20h
Sad to hear of the passing of Archbishop Desmond Tutu, an incredible fighter who dedicated his life to standing against the injustices of war, LGBT discrimination and apartheid in South Africa and Palestine.
https://twitter.com/jeremycorbyn/status/1475149027805175811
It wasn’t hard to find.
Well in following up on this story I
came across the following in the Daily Express –
that Galloway has been criticising Starmer for
hypocrisy. He pretty much said what your quotes did –
that Tutu would have been thrown out of
the Labour Party for his views.
The article contained a lot about Tutu’s support
for Palestinians so any attempt of the MSM to cover
this up has not succeeded.
All a bit strange?
Hmmm – it read a lot as if a DE staffer who was
also a Palestinian supporter used the excuse of an
expose on Galloway – to get Tutu’s support of
Palestinians sneaked in ..
I wouldn’t read too much into the DE journalist/wordsmith’s assumed support for Palestine. The world knows the affrontery of Israel’s occupation of Palestinian land. Israel is the single country that has 4 times more UN Resolutions against it than the next most censured country in the world. The conflation of Israel’s right-wing nationalism with the religion called Judaism is conceded by people of all politics, all education levels and all ethnicites – even ‘journalists’ working for the billionaires’ synchronised “free press”.
It’s just a logical inconsistency, aded and abetted by lots of self-delusion and ‘wooly thinking’ the pretend the inconsistency is unimportant.
The same thing will shortly apply to the anti-health and scientifically inconsistent ‘covid narrative’ and the power-grab/coup it facilitates/covers and the lie that a massive lie that a not-very-virulent virus (always 99+% survival rate) is a global medical “emergency”, a new type of epidemic called a “pandemic”.
Had it been smarmer snuffed it, and desmond asked for a sound bite, it’d probably have been:
“Keef who“??
Such is the yawning chasm between the two. One will forever be in the annals of history: the other the anal (sic) of obscurity.
God rest you, Desmond.
I spent a short time in S.Afrika maybe three years on contract in Swaziland and eighteen months in Pretoria and Valtaki nr Bronkurspruit Boar heartlands of the Transvall.IN the eightys some of the most draconian laws against all the population was used especially in the black,Indian and coloured townships.Unless you were a servant you had to disappear to your homelands after 5pm and if you had a accident you had to request a black ambulance(not a white one)same for shops hospitals cemetrys,and even in death mixed gathering at funerals was illegal.Tutu was a Anglican priest in them days and was arrested once with his wife for demonstrating against Apparthied 1981 I think but it was a long time ago and a strange evil world then so I tend to try to forget about the neckless burnings and Tar barrells.What many people forget about the country is that they were extremely religious and the beliefs of many of the Churches endorsed the Apparthied biblical interpretation of the sons of Kaine and Abel and many of the churches backed Apparthied segregation in their services.Whilst we are discussing Churchmen in the days of the system then Archbishop of Durban Dennis Hurley is second to none including Tutu.Hurleys dead now but was incarcerated many times and still urged his flock to oppose in the evil, of Apartheid and continued to have Mass and education and hospitals ignoring Apparthied such as the Mass we attended weekly and sometimes daily,and with my son attending Christian brothers college in Pretoria unlike mr anti Apparthied Peter Haynes ex bankster Labour mp who attended the notorious apparthied supporting “Pretoria High school.along with the majority of the white population.of school age..
RIP Desmond tutu a towering figure in the early stages of the struggle.
When Mandela was to ill to open the World Cup Desmond Tutu stepped in
‘As you know we all originated in Africa
Welcome home’
‘For Africa is the Cradle of Humanity so we welcome you all home’
I knew I wasn’t fit to even misquote the great man
The defeat of South Africa’s Apartheid system of society was one of the successes that I’ve witnessed in my lifetime.
For years, I argued in my union’s branches / regional council / annual conference for affiliation to the Anti Apartheid Movement. The nay-sayers were always telling me that we were wasting our time and the union’s money.
Thatcher was there declaring Mandela to be a terrorist.
One of the great battles of our time now is the battle against the Israeli Apartheid State and its oppression of the Palestinian People.
We have Starmer choosing to stand with the Israeli State, choosing to stand with the oppressors, choosing to stand on the wrong side of history and whipping the PLP into voting to condemn Hamas as a terrorist organisation.
History will rightly condemn him …. as I do now.
Stop press: new fave’s, The Asov boys and sniffers Joe and Zelensky. He is a truly vile man. Silence about the brave boys of the IDF murdering a female journalist and defiling her funeral. Too busy getting pissed up with Red. They are having a bash in Lebanon again. Must be short on handouts, ran out of bombs during the 06 do. Now ukies are on the ponce and the mad ones want to take on the dragon. The buckets emptying and QE won’t cut it.
“There is good and there is evil. One must choose.” – Albert Camus.
The question for us all is “Do we choose the one chosen by Tutu or the one chosen by Starmer?”
goldbach – But you’re the one who has had to resort to desperately trying to hang your argument on a false premiss, which of Labour’s current policies is ‘evil’. .
Tutu in the Grauniad.
https://www.jewishvoiceforlabour.org.uk/article/labour-would-have-expelled-arthbishop-desmond-tutu/
oh, and it’s “premise”.
goldbach – Thanks for your help but according to the Collins Dictionary ‘premiss’ is a British variant form of ‘premise’
https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/premiss
goldbach – Thanks for your concern but our life in the Caribbean is anything but boring. We have the luxury of choice.
“There is good and there is evil. One must choose.” – Albert Camus.
Two TORIES both utter bastards, one shoved two rusty nails, GE2017 & GE2019 in your eye, which one should you eject from their seat for being the most dangerous damaging TORY BASTARD?
The one being a TORY Bastard or The one being a TORY Bastard with a handful of Rusty Nails!?
A TORY is a TORY, NOT TORY LIGHT or RED TORY!
Thatcher/Reagan’s Flavour of Neoliberalism is nothing but TORY!
It is NOT “Centrist” or “Left Leaning” or “The Right Wing of The Left” it is NOTHING but PURE TORY!
You just need to look across the Pond to the Successful Implementation of two wholly Establishment Elites’ Owned leading Parties and the Ugly Face of Pretending to be Left of Clinton & Clinton, Obama, Biden all equally as garishly ugly, tastelessly disguised and frightening as BLiar and Blue Keef!
PS, Of all the BoJoke nastiness, one thing we cannot take from him is that under him The UK’s UN envoy voted in favour Palestinian Right to Self Determination, Right to Exist and Return, some others also, of course he did some nasties also to appease the Zionist Regime. Still it is good to see the UK green on the screen on Palestinian issues, rather than red with the rest of the Killing Squad!
nellyskelly – Oh dear.
Oh dear, indeed, baa a a, mehhh, baa, baa a, meh, baa, baaa,……….
nellyskelly – Unfortunately for you bleating and empty rhetoric aren’t a substitute for evidence. Why don’t you give the condescension another go, you never know you might be successful one of these days.
To appease you? No!
To appease your fellow Sheeple? No!
If you can’t observe and analyse your observations by means of your own thoughts that is your deficit, but then again you Sheeple worship Murdoch Fact, Pollsters Fact, MSM Fact, Neoliberal TORY Fact so it should come as no surprise, really.
An Extraordinary Man and an Extraordinary Life, we can only hope his life’s energy remains on earth instead of floating off into the universe! In the World today Extraordinary People who want Peace, Justice, Freedom, Equality, etc are The Enemy of The Western World’s States, it certainly looks like 1984 3.0.1!
A really frightening thought is that The House of Commons is a Sea of Thatcher/Reagan’s flavour of Neoliberalism drizzled with a big squeeze of Neoconservatism! The only few Non-Neoliberal MPs are the DEMOCRATIC SOCIALIST UK Labour Party MPs and Exiles, what is that about 10/15, if we count in the handful of one foot in each UK Labour Party and Neo-Labour Party TORIES we’ll have about 20/30 Non Neoliberal MPs.
It is still apparent that we are the Majority just looking at the ongoing assaults from various organisations and cults, who firmly believe that when they Robbed The PEOPLE of GE 2019, we would shut up and vanish, we’re not Shutting Up, we’re not Vanishing! Too much inequality, injustice, greedmongering, warmongering, unjustifiable hatred, corruption, manufactured consent etc, etc for The PEOPLE to be silenced!!
I was quite shocked how many Sheeple there were still going on about Corbyn and the Corbynistas, when I had a look at those tweets, they literally believe that there is some kind of “Corbynista” institute that tells The PEOPLE what to say, when to say it, who to say it to, etc! Ah Well! Let them believe it! I just fear that they will do something unthinkable to another Extraordinary Man!
PS. we’re fast coming to the tipping point, many divided people are now starting to cross their Bridges https://odysee.com/@AfterSkool:7/the-tipping-point-infinite-waters:b
skellyknelly – There were more than a few who ‘crossed the bridge’ at the 19GE, Labour lost 60 seats. Thankfully the polls are now indicating that they have now got buyers regret.
“Labour would make its biggest gains in the red wall seats that propelled Johnson to power in 2019. Starmer would be expected to take back all 50 seats in the north of England, the Midlands and Wales that voted Labour in 2015 and Conservative in 2019, according to the poll.”
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/starmer-opens-up-eight-point-lead-as-partygate-takes-toll-on-tories-lzftkmw57
There you go again Sheeple SteveH, stuck in the past, TWO Years past since then, do you think that those people would make the same mistake today if they still had a CHOICE: Democratic Socialist UK Labour Party vs Thatcher’s Neoliberal Conservative TORIES instead of their current Non-CHOICE: Thatcher’s Neoliberal Conservative TORIES vs Thatcher’s Neoliberal Neo-Labour Party Parasite TORIES!? 2017 and 2019 The PEOPLE had a CHOICE! They allowed Spin, Lies, Smear, etc to Confuse their Inner Judgement, they had no idea what was going to hit them if they were Sheeple, Now they DO!
PS. You are wasting your own time sending that Murdoch Sheeple Fluff about here, all it will get is ridicule! Whatever that said it is wasted and taken as lies, smear, conniving, etc, and not Fact nor Truth!
nellyskelly – …..and yet you still can’t put together a cogent argument. Which of Labour’s current policies do you regard as RW and neo-liberal?
Perhaps you would enlighten us as to which current Neo-Labour Party TORY Policies Perfectly Reflects their actions from the past two years and beyond!
You don’t seem to understand a simple phrase ‘It is Actions that matter not Words and Empty Promises’!
nellyskelly – so what you are saying is that you agree with Labour’s current policies but you are going to do everything you can to stop Labour getting into power because of your support of some f’wit factionalism
I did not say that at all.
nellyskelly – “I did not say that at all.”
Really, which of the Labour Party’s current policies do you disagree with because they are RW and neo-liberal?
Perhaps you could clarify the message you were attempting to convey.
I’ve replied to that.
…..and – “Of 40 key Red Wall seats identified and currently held by Tories, only three (Dudley North, Morley & Outwood and Middlesbrough South & East Cleveland) are projected to be held by the Conservatives.”
https://mailchi.mp/survation/new-survation-research-projects-111-conservative-seat-losses
It does not matter what those people have to say! They have no idea what is going to happen at the next GE, clue Rusty Nails!
nellyskelly – Of course you are correct, it is currently impossible to predict the precise outcome of the next GE but you should balance that thought against the fact that they were remarkably accurate about the outcome of the 19GE.
One only has to look at your responses to see that it is self evident that the latest poll results have got you rattled
WTF ‘rusty nails’ have to do with anything is anybody’s guess.
My dear neither you nor the Pollsters, Blue Keef or his X-Lateral Commission phase me in the slightest, if anyone is acting irrational and rattled it is you and yours!
Of course the Billionaire Pollsters, MSM and X-Lateral Commission all knew exactly how many seats were going to be lost, if they had funny turn they would have told you which seats also, but then that was not all too hard either, almost all bar ~3 were Far Right Neo-Labour Party Hardcore Zionists, and in a twist of Irony the seats they thought would be a given, the “Funny Tingers” were almost all taken by “Corbynite” Democratic Socialists!
I wonder if The Pollsters would be quite so accurate if we plugged the 22:00 to ~22:30 loophole and split up the TORY GE Party a little bit.
nellyskelly – …..and yet it took you more than 130 words to explain why you aren’t phased. 🤔
You’re weird! Is Mother okay in the Attic? Does she need more tea? *Norrmen!!!*
nellyskelly – I see that you’ve run out of steam again. Take a break and have another go when you’ve had a rest.
Awww!
…….obviously if Blue Keef’s X-lateral Commission feels threatened they will just do what they did in 2019, between 22:00 to ~22:30!
nellyskelly – Are you a Trumpian?
I am as much Trumpian as you are Sane, so No I am not Trumpian.
nellyskelly – Are you sure, you are using the same excuses for losing and like him you can’t provide any credible evidence to support your ‘assertions’.
Yup, clearly as I said no.
nellyskelly – Could you clarify what you mean.
Indeed, that mob regularly do the unspeakable things to the innocent.
Thankfully the polls are now indicating that they have now got buyers regret
No … They’re just not. you disingenuous, gaslighting wee shitehawk.
Buyers regret indeed. So much so that the last polls that were put out showed keef was still disliked and distrusted (wonder why?)… By those who can actually be arsed to find out who he is.
That’s against THE most corrupt, lawbreaking government in history; a government sleazier than your friend mandelson.
And those who are arsed enough to be familiar with the greasy cuboid head haven got a fucking clue what he’s about. Nor have the mass media, as it’s reported almost everywhere and every day.
Even you’re loath to give an example of a single house vote won against them, or to explain a difference between conservatism and smarmerism off your own bat.
But, despite that, and being the bogroll that you are; there’s no buyer’s regret about voting for the just-as-tory from you.
So take your buyer’s regret and cram it along with the rest of the shite you spout.
…..and yet it took you more than 130 words to explain why you aren’t phased. 🤔
And yet you’ve had about as many posts on this thread (as you do most threads), and just about everyone remains convinced you’re a monumental gobshite.
Each time I visit Skwawkbox I’m confronted by a Starmerite Troll hogging the BTL comments – I trust 2022 can offer more than a Keith propagandist strutting his pathetic stuff on this Blog. Maybe the propagandist can take his crap to HuffingtonPost or LabourList and allow decent folk to mourn the loss of a democratic socialist Party now infested with Liberals, Tories and Zionists.
Life must get pretty boring in Jamaica.
https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/palestinians-pay-tribute-desmond-tutu
“Over decades of his struggle against apartheid and all forms of injustice, Arch, as he liked to be called, has taught millions around the world, including Palestinians, the meaning of fighting with ethical principles, effectiveness and utter conviction to achieve ‘the full menu of rights.’”
Would have been good if Archbishop Tutu had lived long enough to teach Starmer too.