Corbyn makes Starmer squirm at PMQs

Today, during Prime Minister’s Questions (PMQs), Your Party’s Jeremy Corbyn asked a question directing Starmer’s attention to the Filton 24 hunger strikers. However, the Labour leader side-stepped the question, giving a typically infuriating non-answer.

Corbyn draws attention to critical conditions of hunger strikers

With their hunger strike now in its second month, conditions are becoming critical for the Filton 24 activists in prison. The Canary’s Nicola Jeffery was live outside HMP Bronzefield last night alongside Zarah Sultana MP, reporting on the rapidly deteriorating health of striker Qesser Zuhrah.

At 11:15am, police informed the Canary that HMP Bronzefield had asked for an ambulance to take Qesser to hospital. However, at 12pm, we found out that both HMP Bronzefield and the police lied when they told us an ambulance had been called. No ambulance was coming, because none had been called. Eventually, when an ambulance was called and Qesser was taken to hospital, cops turned to assaulting protesters.

Thus far, both UK politicians and the mainstream media have gone to great lengths to ignore or downplay the hunger strike. Justice secretary David Lammy even went so far as to claim that he didn’t know about the strikes at all.

PMQs brush-off

However, Jeremy Corbyn used today’s PMQs to force Starmer to address the situation. The Your Party co-leader asked:

Yesterday the minister of state for justice declined a meeting with the representatives of a number of hunger strikers in prison at the present time. These are all remand prisoners – they’re not convicted of anything.

Since then, a further prisoner […] has been taken to hospital, as have others. Many people are very concerned about the regular breaches of conditions and prison rules in respect to these hunger strikers.

Will [Starmer] make arrangements for the minister of justice to meet with the representatives of the hunger strikers to discuss these breaches of the conditions that they’re experiencing at the present time?

However, Starmer could barely even be bothered to muster an answer:

Well as [Corbyn] will appreciate, there are rules and procedures in place in relation to hunger strikes, and we’re following those rules and procedures.

Even for the notably spineless Starmer, this is a pathetic non-answer. Corbyn specifically raised the issue of rules-breaches in relation to the hunger strikers. To answer ‘there are rules and we’re following them’ is not an answer, it is a cowardly attempt to deny the truth.

‘Absence of appropriate safe medical management’

As a reminder, over 100 medical professionals have signed a letter highlighting the suspected mishandling of the hunger strikers:

As well as the absence of appropriate safe medical management, to our knowledge these individuals have not yet received the necessary daily clinical monitoring required for patients refusing food and are at risk of sudden electrolyte disturbance, hypoglycaemia and cardiac arrest. In addition, some are already showing signs of this.

This is most certainly not “following those rules and procedures”.

Likewise, the Filton 24 have already been imprisoned on remand since August 2024 in some cases. They are unlikely to see trial until two years after they were first locked up. They have been refused bail. The statutory limit on being held without trial is six months.

Starmer is attempting to bury his head in the sand and ignore the hunger strike. His government wants to shut down anyone who highlights this injustice. We saw that play out today in parliament. We must not let him divert the narrative, we must not look away, and we must not forget the Filton 24.

Featured image via YouTube screenshot/Guardian News