New ‘cross-party’ group tainted with Islamophobia and united by disdain for ‘uninspiring’ Starmer
According to the Times, Tony Blair and others are forming ‘Britain Project’ – a new group that many think will turn into a ‘new new centrist party’ – and the group’s founders are said to be united in their disdain for and disaffection with Keir Starmer – whom Blair supporters in the party consider a ‘wooden plank’.
The ‘others’ include Phil Collins – who wrote Starmer’s speech for last year’s party conference – and Trevor Phillips, who had only just been readmitted to the Labour party after being suspended for Islamophobic comments, with no consultation of Labour’s national executive.
The drive toward a new party not only demonstrates the fundamental inadequacy of Keir Starmer even to the Labour right, but it reeks of anti-Muslim prejudice. Phillips claimed that Muslims are ‘not like us’ because ‘they see the world differently from the rest of us’ – and Starmer’s decision to use Collins as his speechwriter provoked outrage among Labour’s Muslims, who condemned it as ‘beyond divisive’ in the light of ‘rife’ Islamophobia in the party. Collins had written for the Times about ‘the Muslim question’ and dismissed the equally rife anti-Muslim bigotry in the Tory party:
the Muslim question will not greatly occupy the thoughts of the average Tory member. Very few of them will have a developed theory about how the madrassas are cultivating a religious cavalry to man the global caliphate. It’s just not a big deal to them. It is a small deal on which some of them hold stereotypically bigoted views.
And of course, many consider that Tony Blair should face international justice for his part in illegal wars that caused the deaths of many Muslims.
Writer Solomon Hughes summed up the assessment of many that this new venture represents a new party to provide a haven for right-wingers who find Starmer a dud even though he’s one of them:
But Starmer’s critics on the left, including more than 200,000 former members who have already left the party in disgust, will find considerable amusement and karma in the thought that the speechwriter Starmer took on to the outrage of Muslims and anti-racists is part of a group and potentially a new party thought to be ‘borne out of disaffection’ with the ‘wooden plank’ they always thought he was.
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