Jeremy Corbyn just ruined Keir Starmer’s first anniversary as Labour leader

Keir Starmer with Jeremy Corbyn


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This week was Keir Starmer’s first anniversary of being Labour leader. So, enter Jeremy Corbyn to show us what a mess Starmer’s made of it.

Baloo Starmer

Starmer’s time as leader has been both contentious and unsurprising. From a series of rebrandings to writing in right-wing papers and ‘out-Torying the Tories‘, Starmer has been dire. Rachael Swindon noted in a recent article that:

Nearly every day for a year I have asked on Twitter – “I wonder how the Labour Party will disappoint us today?” – and nearly every day the Labour Party will answer the question for me, exceeding my expectations of their awfulness, time after time.

On Good Friday, Starmer managed to clusterfuck again. Because he visited a homophobic church. But it was perhaps Joe‘s mock-up of Starmer in the Disney song I Wanna Be Like You which best summed up his time in charge:

So, all in all, Starmer is proving a disaster. Now enter Corbyn to remind everyone how leadership should be done.

Corbyn bringing the fire

Corbyn was speaking at a London #KillTheBill demonstration on Saturday 3 April. He said that the Police Bill protests:

should also be taken in the context of a series of piece of legislation that this government is trying to push through that place over there [parliament]. The Spy Cops Bill; the Overseas Operations Bill; all these bills designed to empower the secretary of state to legislate beyond the powers of parliament; to restrict protest; to organise counter surveillance operations and so many other things.

People have criticised Starmer for his leadership (or lack thereof) on all those bills. Whereas Corbyn? He was forthright and standing with the people:

Corbyn also sent solidarity to the Gypsy, Roma, and Traveller (GRT) community – a pointed remark given Labour’s recent racist anti-GRT leaflets:

The former Labour leader wrapped-up his speech by saying:

I want to live in a world of peace and justice. I want to live in a world of human rights and democracy.

People on social media were impressed:

Sadly, Corbyn’s voice is now a minority in parliament. And his message is far removed from Starmer’s.

Could it get any worse?

As Swindon summed up:

I can already tell you how the Labour Party will disappoint us today, and I mean *this* Labour Party.

Simply by existing.

Could the next year of Starmer’s leadership be worse than this one? Yeah. Don’t answer that.

Featured image via the Telegraph – YouTube and VICE News – YouTube 

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  • Show Comments

      1. I think you need to get your facts straight. The biggest contributor to the last Labour defeat was the disastrous Brexit policy, engineered by… Keir Starmer.
        The second biggest contributor was probably the right wing of the Labour Party who spent the whole of Jeremy Corbyn’s term as leader briefing against him and in some cases actively working against him. He came within a few thousand votes of what would have been an astounding victory in 2017, and without the activities of the fifth column would probably have pulled it off.

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        1. Add to that the lies and anti-left propoganda spouted by and gobbled up by the brain muted Sun readers who treat Murdochs press as gospel and still haven’t figured out that their sole reason for buying his arse wipe material hasn’t been on page three for a few years now.

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    6. In 2017 Labour got 40% of the vote. In 2005, 35%. In 2010, 29%. In 2015 30%. So who’s the vote loser? Corbyn’s percentage in 2017 was the 4th highest since 1966. Higher than 1974 (twice), 1979, 1983, 1987, 1992, 2005, 2010, 2015. Higher than Kinnock, than Blair in 2005, than Brown, than Miliband. And yet, Corbyn has the whip withdrawn. Even in 2019 Corbyn did better in vote share than Brown and Miliband. Yet he’s the devil. He’s the bugbear. He’s the problem. The left is the problem. Thus, Labour is now in the control of one man: David Evans. The dark bureaucracy at the heart of Labour has expelled and suspended thousands in breach of its own rules. People have been left in limbo. No investigation. No reference to the NEC. Labour is two institutions: the political and the bureaucratic. Like all bureaucracies, Labour’s is reactionary, self-serving, anti-democratic, opaque and unaccountable. Labour is now a totalitarian bureaucracy. Members are told their most urgent concerns are “not competent for discussion” that the candidates they choose are “not competent” for office. Labour is a machine to win power for its own sake. It has no commitment to justice. It treats its own members despicably. This should remind us of what we should never forget: anarchism is the only respectable political philosophy because it is the only one which wishes to erode rather than consolidate power. The self-governing society is the answer. People must take control of their own lives. Labour is a sick, Statist body determined to defend capitalism at all costs. It betrays those who vote for it over and again. Direct, peaceable action to take control of our own lives is what is needed. Let the Deliveroo workers win. They will if we all support them. Let Deliveroo disappear. Who needs it? We can do for ourselves what it does and spread the wealth around.

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    7. I seldom disagree with the basic thrust of a Canary article, but I do think the team should consider dropping the form of these headlines that utilise the word ‘just’. It sounds half American, half tittle-tattle mercheant, to me. It’s like the equivalent of The Guardian’s use of ‘Meet the… x’ or it’s presmptuous use of ‘we’ when really only talking about the people of Belsize Park. It can irritate to the point where it must play a part in alienating potential allies.

      It’s like songs with the word ‘blues’ in, this homogenisation. Just come up with a headline with its content dictating the form anew. Then none of us are here hearing, “Did you see what what x just did? He…’

      A relatively minor point, I know, in an ever-increasingly messy and firghtening world, but I do think this is worth attending to.

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