You Can't Trust Labour

I would never have believed at any point in my life where I would have said 'you can't trust Labour'. It's anathema; not just unlikely but unfathomable. Me, a lifelong socialist and lefty, looking at the Labour Party and thinking, 'Thank fuck I live in Scotland and have an alternative party to vote for.'

Obi Wan Keir Starmer lied his way to the top job - very much the way Boris Johnson lied to everybody to try and keep his job - and over the last three years every single one of his promises have been ditched in favour of what appears to be slightly watered down versions of what we've been getting for the last 13 years. This might appeal to a small section of floating voters or Tory voters not happy with how their party has swung so far right they make fascists seem like nice guys, but it doesn't appeal to a hardcore group of Labour supporters who feel Starmer has sold out far more than Tony Blair ever did.

So what have they done now that has driven me to writing this?

Well, not a lot in the last week or so; nothing has happened specifically to make me so anti-Labour, but a lot of things have happened in the last 12 months that has left a bitter taste in my mouth. Take North of Tyne mayor Jamie Driscoll as the perfect example of everything that is wrong about Labour at the moment. Driscoll is enormously popular in his area even amongst Tory voters. Yes, he's a bit of a Corbyn supporter and is most definitely left wing, but his success rate in the area is second to none, hence why he is extremely popular and, get this, for a politician he's also a really nice guy (just listen to him on You Tube or anywhere else you can find him). He was invited by his local arts centre to interview enormously successful, Oscar nominated film director Ken Loach - famous also for being an ardent campaigner for Labour and extremely anti-Tory. This is the man who made the shockingly brilliant and horrible film I, Daniel Blake and is passionate about having a fairer society...

Ken Loach is a friend of Jeremy Corbyn. He also publicly said that he felt the antisemitism row that the press foisted on Labour during Corbyn's reign was largely made up and was blown out of proportion by certain factions of the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP) who were prepared to lose elections to rid the party of Corbyn. This has made Loach toxic to the new Labour and he was summarily expelled from the party he'd been a member of for over 50 years. Jamie Driscoll was invited to interview and talk to Loach about his film career and subsequently Driscoll was deselected by Labour and will not fight for re-election with their support - he's effectively been kicked out of the party.

The reasons given were simple: he was on stage with Loach, he should have challenged the director - now in his 80s - about his pro-Corbyn and new Labour stance instead of, you know, talking to him about his films, which is why he, Driscoll and everyone else was there. This was an arts event not something that warranted being hijacked by politics. Driscoll's defence was simple, he was invited to talk about films not politics and the audience were there to see a film director not to see him attacked for supporting a friend. This was dismissed by Labour's chiefs without the right to appeal.

Or how about Neal Lawson, 44 years a member of the party who was expelled by the party for tweeting 'Grown up politics' to LibDem Layla Moran when she said her party would stand aside at a by-election to allow a Green candidate a better chance of unseating the Tory party. His 'grown up politics' remark wasn't even really in support of anything apart from treating politics how it should be rather than how it is.

Lawson who runs the cross-party progressive campaign organisation Compass, said that Labour had been "captured by a clique … behaving like playground bullies". In an attack on the Labour leadership, Lawson claimed that Starmer had chosen "the Rupert Murdoch path to power over the progressive majority route". In their defence, the top dogs on the Shadow cabinet all came out and essentially accused Lawson of supporting another party - blatantly not true - and therefore he needs to be kicked out. This is trial by affiliation; Lawson was something of a Corbyn fan, however he was a fan of the proposed policies rather than the bearded allotmenteer. 

This and stuff like this has been going on for months now as the right wing of the Labour Party purges everyone who is left of centre, and with prejudice. That's bad enough, but start to look at Obi Wan Keir's top dogs - Rachel Reeves, the Shadow Chancellor, she advocates austerity as a way of balancing books; she's actually voted in favour of a number of Tory proposals. Or Wes Streeting, who positions himself as a working class kid from a council estate, but he's a career politician who, like his hero Tony Blair, would represent any party if he thought he had a sniff of power. Streeting is the ONLY politician currently in parliament at the moment who has publicly stated that parts of the NHS need to be sold off to private companies. Not even Jacob Fucking Rees Mogg has ever said that out loud.

The list of broken promises before they get into power is horrendously long and includes backtracking on the nationalisation of certain industries, the creation of a country-owned energy company or the refusal to abolish some of the Tories' more abhorrent and distasteful bills such as the right to protest and the so-called illegal immigrants bill. This is a Labour Party that is targeting racists, bigots and intolerant arseholes for votes while throwing genuine Labour supporters under the bus claiming there's money for the NHS now we've left Europe.

Oh and speaking of Europe. In a recent Gallop poll it was estimated that over two thirds of the people who voted Leave in the EU referendum would vote to remain if it was held now. Even some anti-Euro Tory MPs are admitting Brexit hasn't worked and we're suffering because of it, yet Starmer still talks about making Brexit work. The majority of Labour voters in 2016 voted to remain, in 2023 the majority of Labour voters would like us to re-establish closer links to Europe, maybe even rejoin eventually, but Labour are following this populist bullshit of making something work that clearly doesn't work and ignoring the fact the only way it can work is through closer ties and that means being in the single customs market or accepting certain rules and regulations on health and safety and Obi Wan Keir isn't even considering going through that door.

What is the difference now between the Tories and Labour? Well, the Tories aren't Tories any longer, that boat sailed after David Cameron fucked the country up and then ran away; what we now have is a neo-fascist libertarian government with populist policies that appeal to racists, bigots and the ignorant, while Labour has morphed into a form of moderate one nation Tories. Almost every left wing idea has been purged or been thrown under the aforementioned bus in favour of populist lite policies and rhetoric that sits uncomfortably with people who regard themselves as a bit socialist. 

But... if we don't get behind Labour the Tories will win again... I doubt it. The Tories are so unpopular now a dead cat could stand against 50% of their sitting MPs and win. The majority of people are fed up with them and their one-sided policies. However, while social media tends to be dictated to by 'bubbles' of likeminded individuals and there are huge swathes of ex-Labour voters who are looking for viable alternatives or are mobilising people to vote tactically at the next GE. Labour will win the election but they might have to do some deals or, more likely, a large number of seats won't be won because they will go to the Liberals, the Green or Independents. Just look at a recent council by-election in Newham, east London. The sitting Labour councillor was deselected and stood as an independent and won 43% of the vote, shaving 25% off the Labour share and forcing Newham council to re-evaluate as it has becomes perilously close to being a No Overall Control council. This could be reflected at a GE, especially in Labour areas with close ties to unions and the left wing of the party.

The problem is the press, who for years have warned us about the dangers of Labour, are now warming towards them because they're offering NOTHING different and they see themselves being unharmed by a Labour government, much like they did when Tony Blair came along and while the press don't have the sway they once did, there are many people out there who will read blogs like this or see independent headlines bemoaning the actions of the party and they'll dismiss them the same way they dismissed all the allegations against Boris Johnson, because it's what they want to believe rather than what the facts tell them. 

If I was still in England I'd be looking at what the alternatives for the seat I reside in are and whether they stand a chance of winning, especially if there was an alternative to Labour or Conservative that stand a chance and if that was the case I'd be urging people to vote tactically, primarily to get rid of the Tories (because they need a decade in opposition), but also to ensure Labour doesn't get an overall majority. This country needs a progressive centre left alliance, with the Greens, SNP and possibly the LidDems ensuring Starmer and his pink Tories don't allow the injustices and unfairness we've suffered for so long to continue.