Keir Starmer backing potential human rights violations? All in a day’s work.

Keir Starmer


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Keir Starmer’s descent into Tory-lite politics has officially ended – the Labour leader has now gone full-on right-wing over refugees.

Starmer: tag ’em

As the Independent reported, the government is rolling out an expanded programme of electronically tagging refugees and asylum seekers – much like the state does to some people it formerly incarcerated. Asked on Sky News on Monday 5 December whether he supported the policy, Starmer said:

I think there’s a case for tagging in particular cases.

The Labour leader then droned on with the usual soundbites about busting criminal gangs and processing people’s claims quicker. However, none of this distracted from his support for tagging refugees. Little wonder he supports it, really, as the Independent noted:

The policy of using electronic tags to track asylum seekers was first introduced in the UK by the last Labour government, whose 2004 Asylum and Immigration Bill included provisions to allow the tags to be used on people released from immigration detention.

So the Tories are now simply expanding on a Labour policy. Plus, Starmer has form on racist rhetoric of late.

A history of racism

As the Canary previously reported, Starmer said in a speech on 22 November that:

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our common goal must be to help the British economy off its immigration dependency. To start investing more in training up workers who are already here.

Starmer may as well have said ‘those bloody foreigners coming over here and taking our jobs’, because his inference was fairly clear. That, of course, came after he had previously said similar – but specifically about NHS workers.

When Nigel Farage is praising you, that really should be a red flag. People on social media noted it as such. Scottish National Party (SNP) MP Anum Qaisar slammed the Labour leader:

Someone else also reminded us that Starmer allegedly used to be a human rights lawyer:

And as another Twitter user pointed out, maybe it’s not refugees the government should be tagging:

Fomenting prejudice

Meanwhile, advocacy director at the Joint Committee for the Welfare of Immigrants Zehrah Hasan told the Independent:

Like all of us, people seeking safety here deserve to be treated with respect and dignity. As a former human rights lawyer Keir Starmer should recognise this, so it’s disappointing to see him backing the cruel and draconian use of tagging for people seeking refuge. We know that these tags violate people’s basic right to privacy and have devastating effects on people’s mental health. There is also no evidence base for these intrusive measures as almost no one vanishes from the asylum system.

Are Starmer’s words disappointing? If you were being polite and generous, then yes. However, his rhetoric is not surprising. The Labour leader has trashed the party, and he now assists the Tories in further fomenting already entrenched racism and prejudice in the UK. He, and his supporters, should be ashamed.

Featured image via Sky News – YouTube

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  • Show Comments

    1. Ann Widdecombe famously said of Michael Howard that he had, “something of the night about him.” Damaging at the time, her grim assessment was facile, though lent traction by certain physical attributes – appearance and voice modulation – and inspired by political enmity at a time when each was a minister (she his subordinate) at the Home Office. One could imagine without difficulty Howard’s being cast as a diabolical villain in some lurid, “B” cinematic psycho-drama.
      Starmer, by contrast with Widdecombe’s “cardboard” Old Nick and despite being able to get lost in a crowd of three, has displayed a staggering capacity for disloyalty, self-serving duplicity and the abandonment of principles (legal, juridical and political) in favour of personal ambition over the decade or more since he sold his soul. These qualities do not augur well for his future behaviour as a national leader or a credible influence in the community of nations. Seldom do politicians who care for little but the climb whilst clawing their way up the greasy pole to power suddenly rediscover youthful integrity and idealism, once they’ve scaled its ever-slippery summit!
      There is something profoundly “of the night” about the present Leader of the Opposition and the prospect of his heading a government as the guardian of all our liberties alarms me as much, albeit for different reasons, as does a continuation of the miserable status quo.

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