Starmer’s Labour ‘offers no answers and no hope’
by Not our words but those of former senior Labour strategist Andrew Fisher.
Writing in the ‘i’ newspaper, just after Sir Keir Starmer’s first speech of 2024, he said:
“…The key questions are these: Does his policy programme have substance? And does it inspire confidence? Starmer gave no new answers in his speech and no reasons for hope…”
But there was more he highlighted that casts doubt on Keir Starmer’s integrity.
He drew attention to comments in a book by Jon Cruddas, the Labour MP for Dagenham and Rainham and previously an adviser to Tony Blair. He wrote:
“It is difficult to identify the purpose of a future Starmer government – what he seeks to accomplish beyond achieving office.”
He also said that Keir Starmer’s approach to the economy doesn’t appear to show any “understanding of inequality, material justice and welfare distribution”.
However, more damning in Andrew Fisher’s article was comments he highlighted by the veteran political journalist Michael Crick.
In an online article Crick details the dubious and extraordinary lengths Labour, under Keir Starmer, has gone to in order to exclude members from being considered as parliamentary candidates.
He questioned how Starmer’s favoured candidates appeared to have membership lists before they were allowed to – a breach of data protection laws – and highlighted an example where an unfavoured candidate was blocked from standing because she liked a tweet by Nicola Sturgeon saying she had recovered from Covid.
He summed it all up by writing:
“There’s a more worrying issue, too. What does this tell us about how a Starmer government will handle its critics? Labour’s selection processes appear to be deeply unjust, open to abuse, and verge on the corrupt.”
An example of how a Keir Starmer government would operate was put forward by Andrew Fisher in his article.
He drew attention to Keir Starmer’s comments that he would “restore standards in public life with a total crackdown on cronyism”.
Yet, as Gabriel Pogrund of the Sunday Times revealed, in 2020 Keir Starmer’s Labour has been offering wealthy donors “invite-only strategy updates” with those who “give at the highest level” offered a “journey” which includes a welcome party hosted by Angela Rayner at conference.
It’s all reminiscent of how Keir Starmer treated his own party’s members. In the 2020 leadership contest he made 10 promises to get elected as Labour leader; but after constantly abandoning one after another they’ve now disappeared from Labour’s website.
If he can do that to his own members, how will he treat ordinary voters if he becomes Prime Minister?
Also, let’s not forget that when Jeremy Corbyn resigned as Labour leader. At the time Keir Starmer, who had served in Corbyn’s cabinet, paid tribute to him and called him “a friend as well as a colleague”.
Yet since then he has had Jeremy Corbyn expelled from the Labour party and constantly distances himself from ‘his friend and colleague’.
If this is how he treats his friends can you imagine how he will treat people he doesn’t know – like you, the voters of Scotland.
Keir Starmer’s Labour is taking your votes for granted. He thinks you won’t notice how he has cast aside friends and policies alike, and that people would vote Labour anyway because they want rid of the Tories.
But Scotland has another choice. It can escape this vicious circle of Westminster governments thinking they can take Scotland for granted.
Only by voting for the SNP and independence can Scotland escape the Westminster circus of politicians who offer no answers and no hope.