Diane Abbott demolishes media fear-mongering about ditching Starmer

Diane Abbott just responded perfectly to media fear-mongering about a possible contest to replace Keir Starmer as prime minister.

Diane Abbott: The markets are no reason to keep Starmer

Speaking to Sky‘s Cathy Newman about replacing Starmer, Abbott said:

I want there to be a proper, properly organised selection process and we’ll see who emerges.

Newman then injected a hint of fear, claiming:

And that will take weeks and weeks. And meanwhile the bond markets will go into a hissy fit.

But Abbott replied that:

British politics and British parliament can’t be run at the behest of the bond markets.

Newman, however, wasn’t going to leave it there. And she added:

We’re all going to be pretty poor if we don’t pay heed to the markets, though, aren’t we?

Abbott answered with the mic drop:

If the British government is gonna be completely dominated by the bond market, MPs might as well go home.

She also suggested that there are different ways to deal with economic change. Rather than continuing with welfare cuts, for example, she argued that Labour could always stabilise finances by putting less money into the pockets of the arms industry.

The corporate media always backed Starmer. We need to dump both of them!

The exchange on Sky certainly looked like an attempt by a corporate media outlet to take some heat off Starmer when he’s at his weakest point. And that’s hardly surprising. Because elite propagandists in the media got firmly behind Starmer early on. Then, despite his obvious awfulness, many of them endorsed him in the 2024 election.

Starmer’s predecessor Jeremy Corbyn had been a threat to establishment interests. That’s why the corporate media waged a brutal propaganda war against Corbyn and his supporters. And it’s why Starmer – the fraud representing the millionaire-funded campaign to replace Corbyn – brought elite propagandists a sigh of relief.

Much like Newman, Starmer loyalists are now trying to convince us all to avoid ‘playing games’ by pushing for Starmer’s removal. But that is the height of hypocrisy considering all of their efforts to sabotage Labour’s electoral chances under Corbyn.

Oh…*now* 'it's not a game'? 💅 https://t.co/VEpVmJakP5 pic.twitter.com/TIVJASTnnT

— Mrs Gee 💚🇵🇸🎒 (@earthygirl011) May 12, 2026

Right-wingers in the media and Labour led a long campaign to defeat Corbyn. First, there was the 2016 chicken coup, trying to blame Corbyn for Brexit. Then, there was the sabotage (via strategic diversion of funds, for example) of the 2017 election to stop Corbyn’s Labour winning.

All throughout, meanwhile, was endless bullying from the media.

Today, Starmer is the least popular prime minister ever, and almost no one thinks he’s been doing a good job:

While the Labour Party is divided over his future, just 11% of Britons believe Keir Starmer has been a great or even good prime minister so far

Great/good PM: 11%
Average PM: 25%
Poor/terrible PM: 58%

2024 Labour voters
Great/good PM: 22%
Average PM: 36%
Poor/terrible PM: 36% pic.twitter.com/E1QW2XrIqg

— YouGov (@YouGov) May 12, 2026

And as Abbott told Newman, he’s now coming out of:

the most disastrous local authority election result in living memory

Nonetheless, some in the media still want you to think it’s best to just let Starmer continue.

As Abbott rightly said on Sky, though, we need to ignore media fear-mongering about replacing Starmer.

If the profits of obscenely wealthy individuals are the only thing that matters, they could just openly set up a corporate dictatorship already. But that’s not yet (fully) the case. So when people like Starmer don’t serve their constituents or country, we absolutely should hold them to account. And they absolutely should lose their jobs.

Featured image via the Canary