The Tory party musical continues to play on. Fewer people are in the audience now, but what a run it’s been. It has featured hyper-excited journalists, furious MPs, a larger-than-life cheating charmer, his lean, mean adversary, a grubby honours list, the fragrant Nadine Dorries, parliamentary disorder and much, much more.
These political highs and lows have been great for Keir Starmer. Full media attention has been on the enemy.
But it’s time for the floodlights to shine on Labour, now severely controlled by Starmer and his apparatchiks. I know decent people who want the desperado Tories driven out, but can’t see themselves voting for this Labour Party.
An i reader, who wishes to remain anonymous, told me this at an underground station: “I’ve been in the Labour Party for 25 years. Never before were such black arts being used against us, the faithful foot soldiers. I have left.” This McCarthyite political bullying currently going on apace.
Furthermore, all of the Labour leader’s pledges have been dumped. Members are being expelled for spurious reasons by the intolerant National Executive Committee (NEC); the left is demonised; members are reportedly being ejected for supporting Palestine; antisemitism, unarguably a virus that has returned to these isles, is being weaponised.
You now have to be totally loyal to the born-again anti-left Starmer. The paranoid authoritarianism is reprehensible.
Just over a week ago, Jamie Driscoll, the popular, elected mayor of the North of Tyne area, was informed he could not stand in the new north-east region’s mayoral contest. He was given no official explanation. The media was briefed that Driscoll was not suitable because, this March, he appeared at an arts event with the filmmaker Ken Loach.
Incidentally, in 2016, Starmer appeared with Loach on Question Time. Back then, he was non-judgemental and open. Loach is one of the most admired directors in the world; his films focus on ordinary lives. He has the support of British Jews who have joined Labour Against the Witchhunt, now a proscribed organisation. I will get into that in greater detail later.
Starmer’s previous persona promised much to the electorate. Under him, Labour would nationalise essential industries, end tuition fees, make the rich pay more taxes. He was going to unite the party. Remember all that? Where has that Keir Starmer gone? Did aliens abduct him?
As for the party machine operators, Guardian journalist John Harris puts it well: “A certain kind of Labour high-up has always thrived on a loathing and mistrust of their internal enemies, and a drive to seize control of the party machine.
“What this entails is always the same: manic apparatchiks – men, usually – stalking around party offices, desperately trying to fix the selections of parliamentary candidates, and dispensing off-the-record briefings about whichever figures are deemed ready for liquidation.”
Starmer also sidelined Martin Forde KC, who was brought in to write a report on racism and sexism in the party. An increasing number of Bame voters have no faith in him.
Now to a part that makes me anxious. It will inevitably be used by detractors to denounce me as an antisemite. Jeremy Corbyn (previously described as a “friend” by Starmer) has been monstered and neutered by Starmer and his gang.
Corbyn’s supporters can display atrocious left wing antisemitism and he himself can be tone deaf. But, as the erstwhile journalist and Labour MP, Chris Mullin writes in his latest published diaries: “[Corbyn] would have been a hopeless prime minister, but he is a thoroughly decent human being… increasingly, it seems, that many conflate criticism of Israel with antisemitism. Lately it’s become yet another stick to beat Corbyn with. As It happens, I agree with Jeremy.” Many of the now unwanted members support Palestinian rights and rightly condemn Israel’s violent oppression of civilians, including children.
Insiders brief against MPs and shadow cabinet members all the time. Labour mayors too. Last month, Andy Burnham, the highly effective and popular mayor of Manchester, spoke up about the busy, toxic briefers to Matt Chorley on Times Radio: “Whenever I go out there with something positive, the negative Westminster briefing machine somehow flicks into gear.”
Sadiq Khan is seen as a “problem” because he thinks the UK should apply to rejoin the European single market.
I want Labour to win the next election. But I cannot turn a blind eye to the noxious and damaging culture being fostered by the Labour leadership. We, on the left, have to be better than this.
