Starmer is a charlatan – Labour should dump him for Rayner

The Herald Scotland

18 hours ago

Tony Blair was obsessed with his place in the history books; Gordon Brown with duty. Even David Cameron represented something: class privilege and entitlement. John Major was the 1950s made flesh.
But what does Keir Starmer stand for? Britain is in the unfortunate position of having a leader with seemingly no beliefs whatsoever.
He doesn't appear to be in politics for sheer venal greed and narcissism, but nor is he in politics for any higher purpose. He clearly has no principles, as he abandons every position he's ever held.
Starmer has just committed Britain to spending 5% of GDP on defence in the face of Russian threats. But what values is he protecting? To protect a nation, you must invest it with some purpose, some beliefs, to justify the cost in blood and gold.
I know what I – and most folk – would deem the values we seek to protect: fairness, freedom, decency, the right to dissent, standing up for the underdog. Aren't these the so-called 'British values' we were taught once underpinned this country? Read more from Neil Mackay:
Does Starmer defend fairness? No. He was about to degrade Britain's disabled people until his own rebel MPs pulled him back from the brink. He proposed cruelty, not decency.
Does Starmer protect freedom? No. He has decided to proscribe a protest group as a terrorist organisation. Palestine Action sprayed red paint on military aircraft after breaking into an RAF base.
Should the activists be prosecuted? Yes. They may have been standing up for their beliefs, but they broke in and committed criminal damage. So yes, prosecute them. But to label them terrorists is dangerously authoritarian.
You may not like what Palestine Action did, but what happens if the next protest group to go too far is fighting for something you believe in? Should your views be bracketed with terrorism?
Indeed, proscribing Palestine Action forces us to look back into Starmer's past as we ask: 'what – if anything – does this man hold dear?'
As a human rights lawyer, Starmer defended a protester arrested after cutting an RAF base fence while carrying a flammable substance. He argued the behaviour was legal as the protester was acting to prevent a wider crime: the Iraq War.
Starmer also represented Lindis Percy, arrested over 500 times for breaking into and protesting outside air force bases.
Lawyers defend clients whose actions they don't support – we know that. You cannot equate a lawyer's defence work with their own beliefs.
However, it isn't quite so simple with Starmer. In 2020, when running for Labour's leadership, he featured Percy in a campaign video. She said: 'Keir defended me, and many others, to bring public scrutiny and awareness of the presence of US visiting forces so that we can live in a more peaceful and less secretive society.'
So as a human rights lawyer, did he actually believe in the right to protest, or was he just doing whatever the job required? Was he merely, as now, holding office for the banal sake of holding office?
Did he believe in the right to protest when he became leader, and then dump this belief – as he has dumped so many beliefs – when it was convenient?
Would human rights lawyer Starmer believe in Palestine Action's right to protest? (Image: Palestine Action) Indeed, the word 'belief' seems inappropriate. Nobody simply abandons beliefs. You can, though, abandon a 'pose'.
Indeed, the word 'belief' seems inappropriate. Nobody simply abandons beliefs. You can, though, abandon a 'pose'.
Is Starmer simply governing as he imagines the right-wing press wishes him to govern? Is he a creature of the Daily Mail, forever trying to run ahead of headlines he fears?
He's an arrogant man. That's clear. Labour rebels were simply 'noises off', he said. Until they weren't, of course, when he realised he faced defeat over his brutish disability cuts.
It all fits with his abandonment of every principle Labour stands for: he hurts the poor and cossets the wealthy; he sucks up to power and tramples the weak.
Until the rebels got him in a stranglehold, Starmer's welfare bill would have pushed 250,000 disabled people into poverty, along with 50,000 children.
Even with the u-turn, he's created a two-tier system where those who become disabled in the future will be worse off than those disabled today. He plays a monstrous game with the lives of others. Sign up to Unspun and read Neil Mackay every Friday.
In one month, Starmer u-turned three times: on the winter fuel payment, on holding an inquiry into grooming gangs, and now on disability benefits.
Between taking over as Labour leader and becoming Prime Minister, Starmer u-turned 27 times, including on the combustible issue of trans rights.
In 2022, he claimed to believe that 'transwomen are women'. Come April this year, that was no longer his belief.
Starmer is a charlatan, a man without character, a cipher. He's either so weak or so amoral that he is unfit to hold office.
There's still a long way to go before the next UK election. Labour has the time to dump this empty vessel, this dangerous shape-shifter, and choose a better leader who just might save them from ruin at the ballot box. Perhaps, Angela Rayner?