Hypocrite Keir Starmer just betrayed Jeremy Corbyn again
Keir Starmer’s hypocrisy knows no bounds, as demonstrated by an interview he gave recently. The Labour leader not only carried out a Tory-style break-neck U-turn but also exposed yet more betrayal of former leader Jeremy Corbyn. Moreover, Starmer continues to sell out left-wing Labour members down the river. This is because he just backtracked on a 2019 policy pledge that helped sink Labour at the last general election. It’s about Brexit – and it shows Starmer for the rank opportunist he is.
The second Brexit vote and Labour
In Labour’s 2019 manifesto, it committed to a second referendum on Brexit. The party stated that, firstly, it would scrap then-PM Boris Johnson’s deal. Next, Labour would negotiate another one with the EU. Finally, the party would:
put it to a legally binding referendum alongside the option of remaining in the EU. This will take place within the first six months of a Labour government.
However, this policy was flawed. As associate law professor at the London School of Economics (LSE) Michael Wilkinson wrote:
This was a historic mistake which led to defeat in the General Election… Labour should have respected the vote to Leave and offered a platform for change based on a future outside of the European Union.
But it didn’t, and we know why. As Wilkinson wrote, Corbyn capitulated to remainers in his own party and pressure groups in an attempt to please everyone. This was disastrous, losing Labour’s so-called ‘Red Wall’ seats to the Tories, and losing voters elsewhere. Of course, one of the people behind the campaign to force Corbyn into a second referendum pledge was Starmer.
Starmer the remainer
The evidence is there that Starmer was central to the second vote policy. As the Guardian wrote:
Read on...
Starmer felt so strongly about the Brexit referendum result in June 2016 that he quit as a junior shadow minister under Jeremy Corbyn. A few months later he returned to the Labour frontbench as shadow Brexit secretary and spent the next four years campaigning to mitigate the result, which he described as “catastrophic”, while at the same time retaining voters in “red wall” constituencies. But he was a remainer. He campaigned against a no-deal Brexit and for a second referendum to give the people a “confirmatory vote” on any deal with Brussels.
Starmer was also one of the early proponents of a second referendum. He defied Corbyn’s position of ‘no second vote’ in 2018, going on the record as saying:
We respect the result of the first referendum. But we’re not ruling out a second referendum.
Then, as iNews wrote:
Don’t forget that in 2018 he won his first roar from a Labour conference, when he thundered “nobody is ruling out Remain as an option!”
Central to the defeat
iNews‘s Paul Waugh noted that it wasn’t just Starmer calling for a second referendum:
Starmer was his party’s shadow Brexit secretary. And it’s worth recalling that in the long “Brexit wars” from 2016 to 2019, he was not a mere observer but a very active participant. During private talks between Theresa May’s government and Corbyn’s team to try and find a compromise Brexit deal that could get through the hung parliament, her former chief of staff Gavin Barwell claimed in his memoir: “Starmer was not prepared to settle for anything that didn’t include a confirmatory vote.”
So, the now-Labour leader played a fairly sizeable part in the undoing of the former one. However, Starmer is also a stinking hypocrite.
A hypocrite and a snake
On Monday 24 October, LBC was interviewing Starmer. In short, after a caller asked him if Labour would “reverse Brexit”, Starmer said:
It’s a straight no from me! We’re not going back into the EU. We do think that we should make Brexit work.
This is shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted. Opinion polls now say the majority of people want to rejoin the EU, and the economic impact of Brexit under the Tories has become clear. Starmer saying we won’t rejoin now is a clear indication of his courting of Tory voters – but this is too little, too late. If he had pushed this position in 2019, Labour may have forced a hung parliament, and the past three years would have been a very different story.
But Starmer didn’t. Given the lies he told during his leadership campaign around his ‘ten pledges’, it is likely that he knew the second vote position would kill Corbyn’s Labour. This would clear the way for his leadership bid – in which he could proclaim a wish to continue a “radical socialist tradition” while keeping his fingers crossed behind his back.
Starmer’s position on Brexit has all been about his career. He cannot be trusted to run Labour, let alone potentially lead a UK government. Due to his Brexit position, he condemned the rest of us to the hellscape that has been the past three years – he should be nowhere near power.
Featured image via TeroVesalainen – Wikimedia, PoliticsJOE – YouTube and Channel 4 News – YouTube
We know everyone is suffering under the Tories - but the Canary is a vital weapon in our fight back, and we need your support
The Canary Workers’ Co-op knows life is hard. The Tories are waging a class war against us we’re all having to fight. But like trade unions and community organising, truly independent working-class media is a vital weapon in our armoury.
The Canary doesn’t have the budget of the corporate media. In fact, our income is over 1,000 times less than the Guardian’s. What we do have is a radical agenda that disrupts power and amplifies marginalised communities. But we can only do this with our readers’ support.
So please, help us continue to spread messages of resistance and hope. Even the smallest donation would mean the world to us.
-
Show Comments
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to leave a comment.Join the conversationPlease read our comment moderation policy here.
This is rediculous Steve! It was exactly the BLiar, Mande, Campbell FBPE/Remoaner Bandwaggon that gaslit and freaked out the Brexiteers giving the VoteTORYtoStopCorbyn gang a legitimate target for blame for their GE19 success!
It was the goddamned noise FBPE/Remoaners made, over something they already had and we could all’ve had, the Confirmatory Vote, because of that racket nobody could hear what Corbyn was saying and what GE19 was all about!
And if you look around you for a bit I am sure you too will see it was not fkn Brexit! Have you not noticed the state of the EU, supporting the EU is no different to supporting Sunak, Biden, BlueKeef, Trudeau et al ALL Thatcher/Reagan’s flavour of Globalist Neoliberalism!
We are no better of in than, we are out of the EU, now FFS! THERE ARE A LOT MORE IMPORTANT THINGS THAN WHINING ABOUT WHAT WE CANNOT CHANGE!
Do you somehow think that even if we did rejoin the disabled, poor, elderly, homeless are somehow going to be safer!?
WELL! WE’RE FKN NOT Steve! We are fkn NOT!
NOT with The EU!
NOT without The EU!
NOT with BlueKeef and his Starmerstruppen the anti-“UNDESERVING POOR” henchmen The NEO-Labour Party TORIES!
NOT with Sunak and the Conservative Party TORIES!
We are FKED! Whichever way we turn, there is only only realistic solution a National VoteGreenPartyOrDie Campaign (As shit as the Greens are, they are the softest blow to the “UNDESERNG POOR”!)
PLEASE FFS! FBPE/Remoan, and anyone else who did not follow and support Corbyn 100% of his campaigns and run ups to GE, as far as I am concerned caused GE19! Just let it go, the EU is as Dead as the UK Labour Party (RIP 13 Dec’19)!
PS. The not so Great EU for the not so Great Britain?
https://archive.org/details/vid-20221023-124143
Europe aside for a minute, I think there’s an up side (for want of a better way of putting it) to Starmer criticising Jeremy. Every time he does so, he is giving the tories ammo that can be used against Nu Labour, eg. in the form of what we saw in Parliament the other day: namely, Sunak criticising Starmer for his past support for Jeremy. Such criticism, although at Jeremy’s expense (sadly, unfairly, regrettably) merely becomes a potential attack against Starmer as current leader. Every time Starmer betrays Corbyn, his own past associations with Jeremy become a potential criticism at PMQs re. his own past judgement ? I think Starmer could be damaging himself much more than Corbs, helping dig his own grave possibly, as many Tories such as Sunak simply see Labour as their enemies whoever is leading them. That said, happy to see Tories and Starmer’s Nu Labour lose the next GE in equal measure, such is my lack of respect for what Labour has become.
100% NeworpK! I think that we need a plan not only to see NEO-Labour TORIES fall flat on their face, for the relentless Sabotage and final twist of their daggers the VoteTORYtoStopCorbyn Campaign, but so that we The PEOPLE have a united campaign to vote with. Even if we have to break each of the 650 seats down with who has that seat now and who the commended and recomended candidate for that seat would be.
I would suggest all the Socialists, Independent Socialist MPs, socialist candidates etc as a first choice and where there are none vote for The Green Party as a softer blow, many “Labour” councelors have joined them are reportedly happy enough with the Party.
It’s not ideal, but it is better than seeing Thatcher/Reagan’s flavour of Globalist Neoliberal One Party State take us for another 43 Years of HELL ride on their Eternal Merry-Go-Round!
I am worried that the leaders of the Left, who are really still Jeremy, Chris, et al have not done anything to ensure a unified and targeted vote at the GE to get as many of both TORY Parties voted out and as many Socialists in to the House of Commons! If we don’t The PEOPLE will have no voice in that place, no voice at all! Sometimes I despair at the lack of working class among Socialist Leadership, how can they possibly know the desperation of BlueKeef and his Starmerstruppen’s “UNDESERVING POOR” the discarded ones, chucked out on their ear, facing two Gigantic Monstrosities, The NEO-Labour Party TORIES and the Conservative Party TORIES! Either one will finish off devouring us.
Starmer put Jeremy in an impossible position.
He effectively said, “Unless you repudiate the referendum result, I will revive the SDP! AND I have the full support of Rupert Murdoch!”
There is no depth to which Starmer will not sink to secure his standing invite to the Tories’ orgies in Chelsea Knightsbridge Mayfair and all those Georgian country houses that we have all known about since Profumo.
On the subject of Keir Starmer, I’d like to recommend a book by Oliver Eagleton,
‘THE STARMER PROJECT
A Journey To The Right’.
I’d say this book offers profound insight and is frankly a bit disturbing.
Eagleton also did some interviews on YouTube about the book, including on Novara Media, well worth watching.