Keir Starmer’s leadership is seriously on the ropes
Keir Starmer’s leadership of the Labour Party appears to be seriously faltering. Because there’s dissent in his own ranks. He’s already reported to be thinking of a shadow cabinet shake-up. And the disquiet at the grassroots level is becoming louder and louder.
Mutiny incoming?
First up, the Observer ran a piece on Starmer’s leadership on Sunday 28 March. It reported on several anonymous Labour MPs who were unhappy with the situation. One said:
People do underestimate the mountain of shit Keir inherited. It is a monumental task. But there is a complaint of a lack of grip.
It seems popular socialist policies and a huge membership equate to a “mountain of shit” for some Labour MPs. Another commented:
There is deep frustration in the shadow cabinet over a lack of direction.
Bring back Blair?
The Observer noted that:
Shadow cabinet ministers are understood to be among those who have concerns that Starmer is losing crucial momentum at the end of his first year in office, with several MPs calling for more experience to be injected into his team to spell out “what Keir is for”.
Read on...
But the solution, it seems, is a joke. The Observer said that these MPs want Starmer “to bring in a “big figure” to provide greater direction to his leadership”. Given that Starmer’s brand of centrism hasn’t so far paid off in the polls, if this “big figure” has a New Labour-like character, it’ll probably make matters worse. So, what’s the leader of the Labour Party’s solution? Sack the UK’s first ever woman shadow chancellor.
Blame everyone else
As Joe wryly reported:
Starmer is set to sack the shadow chancellor of the exchequer Anneliese Dodds, the Times are reporting.
The Labour leader, who has been in the position for just short of a year, will shake up his front bench after local elections in May, in a bid to arrest the party’s continued slump in the polls.
The Times report that Dodds is respected, but will be moved on after failing to effectively communicate the party’s “vision”, which is supposedly a thing that exists.
Oh dear. As The Canary previously wrote, Starmer has repeatedly attempted to rebrand Labour. It seems his next big move is laying the blame for the current shitshow at someone else’s door.
Grassroots disquiet
Meanwhile, at the grassroots level, things are looking just as bad for Starmer.
The Morning Star reported that:
Suspended members across the country are now forming ghost CLPs to form a “national linked-up shadow Labour Party.”
The plan is to resist what is considered to be a purge of the left, according to Labour In Exile Network (LIEN).
LIEN member Terry Deans said the shadow party “will be real Labour, the real grassroots party working on a truly democratic basis.”
Daily carnage
Also, things are heating up in the Hartlepool by-election. The Northern Independence Party (NIP) is making moves:
Northern Independence Party will announce their candidate for Hartlepool at 8pm tonight.
We will be reporting it live as it happens.
— The SKWAWKBOX (@skwawkbox) March 28, 2021
The latest polling shows Labour only has a three point lead over the Tories there. And as if all this wasn’t bad enough, SKWAWKBOX reported that Labour is using old photos of Jeremy Corbyn rallies for campaign material. Except, of course, they’ve removed any reference to the former Labour leader.
Could things become any more dire? Give Starmer a few hours, and something equally bad will probably happen.
Featured image via the Telegraph – YouTube
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Not soon enough. Let’s see them blame JC for it all.
Starmer has done what he was installed to do and for which his wage will be a seat in the House of Lords. He not only killed Corbynism but destroyed the Labour Party as an effective opposition to neo-liberalism and the Tories, after Corbyn’s election win was stolen from him in December 2019 by 3,000 fake postal votes that led to an 80-seat “majority”.
We have no democracy and soon there will be no more pretence of it. We’ll have to raze the country to the ground to take it back. I don’t know how likely that is, or if the west will go full fascist before then and create Hitler’s Thousand Year Reich. He’s almost won WWII.
You sound like Donald Trump with your “stolen election” rubbish.
nlm was perhaps unwise to voice their suspicions in public without evidence THW but those suspicions are shared by with other people who prefer to keep their own council on the matter. Any thing that is run by a Conservative is likely to be corrupt as we have seen elsewhere, so why should the Conservative owned company who runs the postal voting set up be any different. Methinks you doth protest too much.
You sound like a Tory. Seig heil.
And you sound like myopia……
Well said.
Discussion a few days ago with a politically-minded continental;
Him: “UK is following a fash path on foreign policy as well, increasing military stuff and cutting actual help” https://arab.news/nqd5t
Replied: “Hum! Going to have to be a little harsh here, not your fault, not aimed at you.
1. Probbaly don’t trust that site. I’ve never sen it before, and let me explain why.
2. David “Rendition” Milibland was the UK Home Sec who signed off on many of the war of terror rendition orders, enabling kidnapping and TORTURE of countless thousands. He is a very close ally of Bliar, with all the sociopathy and greed that indicates. I haven’t seen in his name in years (He ran off to gorge on charity money when his younger and more decent bro won the Labour leadership instead of him – and he was one of the most virulent anti-Corbyn figures, natch. Not least because Corbyn could have charged HIM with war crimes).
3. The UK under the Tories “expanded” the foreign aid budget. They then used that money to fund various terorist groups and neolibs, and to promote UK corporates, and underwrite arms sales. All great “Aid” work, as I’m sure you’ll agree. They THEN used the extra “Aid” spending as a reason why UK poor were going hungry within the UK, through the Tory press. So “Cutting foreign aid” became very popular in the country (Helped lead the Brexshit vote). A coup for the Tories on all fronts, because we don’t have a media pointing anything out.
4. These “cuts” are supposedly to “Syrian refugees”. In fact they will have been being largely used to fund the training camps of the Syrian “opposition” terrorists. The UK can see the writing on the wall – the Syrian regime change has failed, almost solely because of Iran and Putin. So they are cutting their losses. It rather goes without saying that Milibland is like McCain – neck deep in deep state terrorism funding, and slicing a bit off for himself along the way.
Now you can see why he’s upset by this, and why I warn about this site with an article like that.
That is not to say the UK COULDN’T and SHOULDN’T spend more on Aid – we sure as hell should. But UK “Aid” rarely goes to the poor people that needs it (Like most “Charity”), and I for one am not going to cry that the crazies are not getting further arms and training to continue the fight in Syria. It’s time and well past for that to end.”
Now, why did I repost that?
I reckon Steve Topple can figure that out. 😉
Looks like the British Establishment think they can sell the New New Labour Govt. Are we going to let them?
Anonymous Labour MP:
“People do underestimate the mountain of shit Keir inherited. It is a monumental task. But there is a complaint of a lack of grip.”
The mountain of sh*t is actually there at present, which is why I can’t vote Labour. Regardless of the remainder of their comment, the MP who claimed the above is part of it.
It seems to me, looking from Scotland, that the Labour Party under Mr Starmer is heading for the same fate as the Labour Party in Scotland since 2007, when the SNP became the largest Party at Holyrood. Since then, it has continually declined and has been overtaken by the Conservatives, who, remember, in 1992, lost all their MPs in Scotland and revived only as a result of the PR system for the Scottish Parliament. In the last European elections in Scotland they came FIFTH in terms of popular vote. Their association with the Tories and LibDems in 2014 and their jubilation, which included physically embracing Tories at the result of the 2014 referendum disgusted many traditional voters, and, in 2016 they were reduced to a single MP, the union-jack besuited, Mr Ian Murray, who was elected in a fairly affluent area of Edinburgh, and this election was due, in significant measure, to ‘natural’ Tory and LibDem voters voting tactically against the SNP. Mr Murray has held his seat by moving significantly rightwards. He is said to be influential with Mr Starmer.
Jeremy Corbyn, who, despite his unsuitability to be a leader, set out a narrative which many people viewed as being sincerely believed and was expressing, albeit in general terms, something they could believe in. This was responsible for the huge recruitment to the Labour Party in ENGLAND. Unfortunately, the cliques who controlled the Labour Party acted aggressively against Mr Corbyn and connived with the media in subjecting him to vilification exceeding anything any politician has received during my lifetime (>70 years).
Since he feels that he must distance Labour from ideas associated with Mr Corbyn, Mr Starmer has been unable to present ANY narrative, and has failed completely to counter the ‘levelling up’ rhetoric of Johnson, and has been seeking to outflank the Tories from the RIGHT! The patriotism trope is actually worrying and, given the revelations in the Observer about the ‘British Jobs for British Workers, pledge to the flag’ stance of the Quisling Gordon Brown, who, we hear, has been having meetings with Gove and Johnson on how to deny growing support for independence in Scotland. Brown is still a figure of power within the dwindling clique at the heart of Labour.
The fact that a Northern Independence Party is emerging is indicative of the loss of faith in Labour in areas which, for the best part of a century were Labour strongholds.
What fun if The Northern Independence Party joined up with the SNP and both became independent of Whitehall together. The Welsh would join and we would have the ideal situation, Whitehall and The City of London (financial) isolated in their corruption as they should be.
I am so heartened by The Canarys report on Starmers failings that I will go so far as to increase my contribution to Kerry-Annes funds.
Ain’t that the truth! Canary is being a lifeline with UK reporting, not that I agree with every line, but there is at least an attempt towards Quality journalism – most conspicuous in the corporate media by its almost total absence.
While the grundiag tells me I’ve read “300+ of their articles in x time”, what they DON’T know is how many of those articles made me raging angry at the viewspaper, and that they were shared TO demonstrate the sheer vapid, insipid, insidious and downright neoliberal and neoconservative the rag is.
With the occasional genuinely good article.
And, needless to point out, at least the Canary trusts its readers enough to allow them a space to comment. While it could be better – being able to see our own old posts would be a small step 😉 – it’s head and shoulders above the zionist-defending censorship central corporate meedja!!
Pennies are precious, but the Canary is becoming as worthwhile to help as Counterpunch and MediaLens.
The melody, harmony of the Canary’s song deep in the dark pit telling us of the poison gases is priceless.
Yawn, says a tory boy driving ‘Victorianism..