And frankly even suggesting that a new left wing party would be populist is the kind of right wing gutter press language that has helped create the right wing establishment we now have to suffer.
Why invent imaginary monsters to be scared of, when we are getting ****ed over by real people with hateful mindsets.
So picking through the crumbs of optimism any chance of some backbenchers really kicking off at some point?
Is there a scenerio where Starmer goes too far for them as polls look grim?
There is still plenty of time for some sort of fall-out surely. It's often difficult to spot things coming and leaders can hang on in there can't they?
Anyone got a plausible Starmer-out scenario?
Whether the UK "needs" a Reform government isn't the issue here. The issue is that it looks evermore likely, thanks to Starmer, that they will be in the next government, whatever we might want.
And to talk of "Liberals, Labour and Green Party" forming an alliance to counter the Reform-Tory axis seems to be based on wishful thinking that such an alliance would be social democratic when the evidence is actually far from convincing.
Firstly the Labour Party is not a left-wing social democratic party, indeed the current leadership hates the left and has done everything it can possibly do to expel any with such leanings or in some way silence them.
Today the Labour Party is far far closer politically to the Conservative Party than it is to the Green Party, the evidence is staring straight at us, how can that possibly be the basis for a working and governing alliance?
And secondly the LibDems have proved that when push comes to shove they too are not a left-wing social democratic party. They very enthusiastically went into coalition with the Tories to govern and implement a right-wing austerity programme the consequences of which we are still paying the price.
Over the years on STW I have heard the endless accusations (some of it very accurate but not all) of Nigel Farage and his various political parties being anti-immigration racists, the Tories of been anti-immigration racists, red wall voters of being anti-immigration racists, and Brexit supporters of been anti-immigration racists, the consensus seems overwhelming.
Then a couple of days ago the leader of the Labour Party publicly declared that immigration had done "incalculable damage" to the UK, and that's after a load of dog-whistling bollocks, and yet the reaction from some on here is "yeah, well, whatever".
If my understanding is correct it's not Starmer's fault that he has become a racist, it's Nigel Farage's fault, or tabloid newspapers, or red wall voters, but definitely not Starmer's fault, so we should carry on supporting Labour.
My question is should we all become racists now? Only I am quite busy with other stuff.
The country 100% doesn't need 5yrs of Reform
If you hadn't noticed it looks like we already have it. Coming soon from Nigel Starmer, abolition of speed limits, banning of cycling on public roads, muslims to wear crescent badges on their sleeves, no taxes on fags and booze etc...
Then a couple of days ago the leader of the Labour Party publicly declared that immigration had done "incalculable damage" to the UK, and that's after a load of dog-whistling bollocks, and yet the reaction from some on here is "yeah, well, whatever".
Never underestimate the hoop-jumping that will be made to justify Starmer-logic.
This is has been a thing from day one. When Starmer says something that we find dubious we've had a string of 'long-game, 4D chess, master tactician, grown-up' responses when in fact we are just at the emperor's new clothes terriorty.
Just about every middling liberal commentator has now decided Starmer is a wrong-un (Toynbee still hanging on in there) - expect the 'yeah what-ever' group to follow that consensus. They won't learn though - it will be Yvette Cooper next please. She's a proper grown-up.
it's not Starmer's fault that he has become a racist
This kind of hyperbole does no-one any favours. You don't 'become' a racist. He's chosen xenophobic policies to pander to the right wing, but that's not the same thing as actually morphing your personal core values.
He has absolutely ****ed it up though, for sure.
Never underestimate the hoop-jumping that will be made to justify Starmer-logic.
Within 3 posts.
@molgrips how would you describe Enoch Powell? Echoing his rehetoric in a speech on immigration puts Starmer in the same camp as him, a dog whistling opportunist.
I've just sat with a colleague who is in tears over his speech and the proposed policies. I'm sure this will have been covered on previous pages but I'm too fed up with the government to trawl over it and look. How does cutting off care support workers help? We'll all end up paying more to look after the elderly, and maybe we should be doing, but cutting off a supply of workers before having the means to make the care system continue?
Also, the housing target? Skilled workers in construction, and other less glamorous industries, are had to find thanks to the B word. How does making a plumber, spark, brickie from abroad require a degree work? Construction is already struggling outside of Scotland due to the Building Safety Act being poorly administered, once projects stumble through that there will be no one to build them.
To make changes to immigration policy requires internal policies in place to make pay and conditions worthwhile for your general populace to do the work, and training people. I see no evidence that either of these are being prioritised ahead of dangerous rehetoric that will make all our lives less secure.
Labour can **** right off, as a previous wait and see type, they've thoroughly pissed on their chips. They are a nasty bunch of career politicos that frankly do nothing for the country. Coming after the weakest members of society is just low. Welcome to the 51st state....
How does cutting off care support workers help? We'll all end up paying more to look after the elderly, and maybe we should be doing, but cutting off a supply of workers before having the means to make the care system continue?
Well they can stay in hospital and be cared for by nurses. Oh. Hang on a moment. There are 30,000 nursing vacancies but nurse recruitment is frozen across the country due to hospital budget crises. Let me think ...
Then a couple of days ago the leader of the Labour Party publicly declared that immigration had done "incalculable damage" to the UK, and that's after a load of dog-whistling bollocks, and yet the reaction from some on here is "yeah, well, whatever".
Not from me. I think he's a **** for what he said. It matters not one jot whether he personally believes it.
Nigel Starmer
Leave former Harlequins and England players, and doyens of Rugby Special out of it.
So then...
Labour can **** right off
Liberals can **** right off
Tories can **** right off
Reform can **** right off
...that leaves - err The Green Party.
Is it any wonder we have to vote for the least-worst option that could form a government!? Which in my case is still Labour.
Labour can **** right off, as a previous wait and see type, they've thoroughly pissed on their chips. They are a nasty bunch of career politicos that frankly do nothing for the country.
100%.
You don't 'become' a racist.
Well according to a fair few on here "traditional Labour" voters became racists quite recently, unless you consider that the Labour Party has always traditionally been a racist party?
And using that same logic Enoch Powell was never a racist then because until his Rivers of Blood speech he never had any real form on race, which is one of the reasons why many found his speech particularly shocking.
Indeed Enoch Powell was considered by many to represent the more humanitarian face of conservatism. There is a reason why Ted Heath, who was basically a postwar-consensus social democrat, had Enoch Powell in his Shadow Cabinet, until the Rivers of Blood speech. Enoch Powell welcomed with open arms thousands of immigrant doctors and nurses into the UK between 1960-63 when he was Secretary of State for Health.
Enoch Powell became a racist because it suited his personal agenda at the time. His political career had peaked and he had failed in his ambitions to become Prime Minister or the last Viceroy of India, the bruised ego of a narcissist needed to bask in the limelight.
In that respect it worked, opinion polls showed that 74% of the public agreed with the main thrust of his Rivers of Blood speech and London dockers and Smithfield porters, all Labour supporters to the man, demonstrated in support of Enoch Powell. However it simply accelerated his political demise and he spent his final years a lonely man sulking on the Ulster Unionist benches.
Anyone who uses racist rhetoric to instill fear into voters with talk of strangers in their own land, or an island of strangers, or the incalculable damage of immigration, in a desperate attempt to shore up their failing political career, be it Enoch Powell, Nigel Farage, or Keir Starmer, is a racist.
To claim that they are merely doing it for pragmatic reasons and therefore not racists, as appears to be suggested, is bollocks.
I have no issues with effective immigration controls, I have no issues with a zero net migration target. I do though have a serious issue with racist rhetoric and language which is designed to instill fear, division, and hatred, and not least under the present conditions of growing international hatred against immigrants and those seeking asylum.
Starmer should be deeply ashamed of his speech but of course he won't be because like Enoch Powell he will bask in all the attention it has given him. The stronger the reaction from liberals and lefties the more Starmer will relish it....he is extraordinarily proud of pissing them off
Is it any wonder we have to vote for the least-worst option that could form a government!? Which in my case is still Labour.
And that will always be the case, until we start voting for what we believe in. The only way to send a message about the direction we want the country to travel is to vote for the party closest to our political instincts, voting green is the only currently realistic vote for me.
Voting for this labour will continue the drift ever rightwards, and the cruel stranglehold that the right wing establishment have over our lives, we have to break the cycle and ignore the pretend centrists fear mongering.
Well according to a fair few on here "traditional Labour" voters became racists quite recently
No, they started supporting racist (actually xenophobic but it doesn't sound as good, does it?) policies, but they've always had latent xenophobia, it's just been legimitised, which is the problem with right wing populism isn't it?
Incidentally, do we think Starmer had the good grace to drop the likes of Sadiq Khan a WhatsApp to let him know he'd be delivering a speech where he would say immigration had done incalculable damage to the UK?
Something along the lines of:
"Hey mate, just to let you know, I'll be doing a speech comparable to Enoch Powell's Rivers of Blood speech tomorrow. Obvs I'll be doing it with my fingers crossed behind my back (honestly, you CAN trust me), but you might want to avoid your email for a few days... OK mate? How are the wife and kids, BTW?"
For ****'s sake.
No, they started supporting racist (actually xenophobic but it doesn't sound as good, does it?) policies, but they've always had latent xenophobia, it's just been legimitised, which is the problem with right wing populism isn't it?
It is.
But then it becomes a whole different level of problem when it is further legitimised by the Labour Party.
Well according to a fair few on here "traditional Labour" voters became racists quite recently, unless you consider that the Labour Party has always traditionally been a racist party?
You could probably argue that the 'traditional Labour voter' of the post war era - the northern working men of the Miners Welfares and Social Clubs - were always racist and Labour are reverting to type. With the non-racist era being a blip.
How long did this blip last?
Was the Labour government which made racism illegal in the UK inside this blip?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lancashire_Cotton_Famine
On 31 December 1862, a meeting of cotton workers at the Free Trade Hall in Manchester, despite their increasing hardship, resolved to support the Union in its fight against slavery. An extract from the letter they wrote in the name of the Working People of Manchester to His Excellency Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States of America says:
... the vast progress which you have made in the short space of twenty months fills us with hope that every stain on your freedom will shortly be removed, and that the erasure of that foul blot on civilisation and Christianity – chattel slavery – during your presidency, will cause the name of Abraham Lincoln to be honoured and revered by posterity. We are certain that such a glorious consomethingion will cement Great Britain and the United States in close and enduring regards.
— Public Meeting, Free Trade Hall, Manchester, 31 December 1862.
IMO racism is very much a learnt behaviour, and our leaders are teaching racism to the nation.
Starmers labour is an absolute rejection of traditional labour principles, the educated politicians are currently the creators of the rise in racism. I am sick and tired of the labelling of the working classes as racist by the bigoted middle and upper classes making excuses for their own embrace of racist policies.
If you want to reject racism tell the people who are running the show, don't blame me, my family and the community I come from for the abject failure of political leadership. I am really starting to get angry about the passing of the blame by class snobs, they got what they wanted in a Starmer government, they drove true fighters against racism out of the party to remake it in their image, so it is about time they owned their actions and took some responsibility for what they have created.
The country 100% doesn't need 5yrs of Reform - the damage they could do would be irreversible for decades.
Pretty sure we're going to be dealing with the Brexit fallout for while yet, even before Reform get their grubby mitts anywhere near power
Pretty sure we're going to be dealing with the Brexit fallout for while yet, even before Reform get their grubby mitts anywhere near power
Seeing as Vote Leave and Reform are pretty much one and the same, I don't think there's any need to distinguish between Brexit damage and that done by any future Reform government - should there be one.
We are going to be dealing with the effects of ongoing austerity for a long time.
We are going to be dealing with the dismantling of state services for long time
We are going to be dealing with unaffordable housing for a long time.
We are going to be dealing with suppressed wages and inflated assets for a long time
We are going to soon be dealing with the impacts of automation replacing jobs.
Basically there are many many things that are strangling the nation, and the shit is rolling downhill and effecting the poorest and most vulnerable most. People Starmer has not just turned his back on, but he is punching down on.
Brexit is a few percent of the problem, austerity has had a far bigger impact, we need to get our shit together first, otherwise re-joining the EU will have **** all impact on most peoples lives (other than probably further inflating assets and making them even more unaffordable for the majority and it being much easier for the wealthy to buy their retirement villa in Provence).
There is no point voting for Starmers labour unless you support life getting worse, because that is what he guarantees now. Time to vote vote green (or another left wing party if it emerges) and hope a groundswell of support might actually change something.
Incidentally, do we think Starmer had the good grace to drop the likes of Sadiq Khan a WhatsApp to let him know he'd be delivering a speech where he would say immigration had done incalculable damage to the UK?
Khan on radio the other day - didn't like Starmer's words.
But also Khan tying himself in knots over Thames Water. (Can't have tax-payers subsidising it he said - but we are paying these insane bills). Well as a bill payer you are already directly subsidising it. And paying bonuses.
As a tax-payer you would not pay for it all. You would pay tax for sure - but none of your tax pays the public purse.
Khan still has the whole Neoliberal thing running through his brain.
We need a wholesale dismantling of current understanding of G'vt finances - it's causing absolute chaos in terms of good outcomes.
There is no point voting for Starmers labour unless you support life getting worse, because that is what he guarantees now. Time to vote vote green (or another left wing party if it emerges) and hope a groundswell of support might actually change something.
Absolutely.
Better the devil you know - got us to this point.
It's time to reject what is bad for us, and make the parties realise they can't expect our votes based on a terrible political direction and vague word-salad bullshit.
See, the whole freebie-gate thing actually gave them away - it was an early signal of their respect for the electorate and the general feeling of disdain for real change. It was more important than was initially thought.
There is no point voting for Starmers labour unless you support life getting worse, because that is what he guarantees now. Time to vote vote green (or another left wing party if it emerges) and hope a groundswell of support might actually change something.
I agree with the principle, but "hope" is doing a lot of lifting in that sentence. Big risk of the vote splitting and the right getting in.
There is no point voting for Starmers labour unless you support life getting worse, because that is what he guarantees now.
Well there is, because there's the possibility of it getting even worse still under someone else. I know it's not how the system is meant to work, but it's how it does work. It's shit, but still.
Time to vote vote green
I did, first time I had a vote to cast in a UK election and the green candidate got it. The constituency was the one on my last P45 and a conservative stronghold. I read the manifestos and voted for the one closest to my beliefs.
We need to be careful here. I didn’t vote Labour under Miliband mostly because of the immigration dog whistle on his tablet of stone. The result of Labour losing that election wasn’t a better environment here for those that had immigrated here, or those that were looking to.
The result of Labour winning the election wasn’t a better environment here for those that had immigrated here, or those that were looking to.
FTFY
Starmer has made it worse again, he has taken the racist dog whistle of the tories and is taking it further.
Someone suggested earlier that Labour should form an alliance with the Green Party, despite the fact that Labour are now politically much closer to the Tories than they are to the Greens.
It turns out that environmental issues are no exception
There is no point voting for Starmers labour unless you support life getting worse, because that is what he guarantees now.
Well there is, because there's the possibility of it getting even worse still under someone else. I know it's not how the system is meant to work, but it's how it does work. It's shit, but still.
That's my dilema really, and why I voted Labour last GE... I've got no love at all for labour, in current, or past incarnations.
It wasn't a vote for labour, it was a vote against the conservatives and reform, as labour were the least worst option in my constituency, if I wanted to vote for anyone who stood half a chance of winning, anyway.
I think I'm just going to go back to voting lib-dem again.
Well I don't know about you lot but I got a bit of energy £ support under the shite Tories.
Not seeing much like under this lot. Reality is it could much worse under Labour too.
These days to assume Labour is always better than Tory is not a given I'm afraid.
Something I wouldn't have said before the election.
(Don't get me wrong I'm never gonna vote Tory.l
Well I don't know about you lot but I got a bit of energy £ support under the shite Tories.
Yep, the 28 billion for GBenergy was the start of a solution for energy prices, then nearly immediately going back on that and just allowing guaranteed profits for private investment means we are going to be paying far far more than that 28 billion for ever. Private financing for government services is national debt in a separate accounting column, and it is higher interest debt that never goes away.
The Starmer fanbois always try the straw man argument of "its unrealistic to have anything fixed in x months or years". No shit sherlock, nobody expected it to be fixed by now, what we did expect was a coherent plan to start fixing the problems, and not some bullshit imagined fever dream of secret background planning that no one can tell us about but is real honest, and then the repeated dead cat of migration being being slammed on the table.
The i Paper front page today said that the restriction on non-EU immigration was requested by the EU as a prerequisite for the youth mobility scheme. A quick search didn't turn up anything on it though. May just be apologising for him.
On the subject of water companies...
There was a representative from one or other of the companies being interviewed on the radio earlier. A massively easy ride with a pretence of a difficult question or two. I was shouting at the radio:
"Ask the bastard what the value of dividends and exec bonuses they've paid out over the last three years is".
But, nah, wouldn't want to offend anyone, would we?
Any party should ultimately be into a loser blaming everything on immigration. If they don’t sort it out (which they can’t really as they know it is needed) they get blamed and if they did sort it out people would realise their lives are no better so they would get blamed.
That is why they need to make so many token gestures with a side effect of stirring up division. Not so much an island of strangers but many islands of like people as a result of divisive rhetoric.
https://twitter.com/Keir_Starmer/status/1922663370018156919?t=nv_CWRV7Ap3FJfyol5nY2w&s=19
Personally apparently.
https://twitter.com/Keir_Starmer/status/1922564643433627824?t=tpeWfYY5YpKsxvNX9uUhsw&s=19
When you lose in the polls - double down on the weak.
https://twitter.com/Keir_Starmer/status/1922310240973791552?t=B7cJu_BLiFrhrClhKot5DQ&s=19
His timeline is full of it.
Panic mode.
Given Starmers views on Palestine and denial of the blatant genocide going on there, and after 12 months the now clear evidence of the lack of any coherent strategic planning of Starmers labour project, I am more convinced that Starmer is a racist himself, rather than just making excuses for racism for political expediency.
I also expect him to turn on the lgbt community in the same way he has immigrants, he has been at best somewhat "wooly" in the language he has used around the issue so his lack of conviction to defend the vulnerable will once again be laid bare.
His main attribute seems to be as a confused authoritarianism who kisses the ass of the powerful and punches down to the weak.
He is to Trump what Thatcher was to Reagan.
He is still largely getting away with it because we want to believe in "Labour" and what it should mean and do in society, but under him and McSweeney we just have to accept this is no longer the labour we expect it to be and hope for.
I'm not sure he'll turn on the LGBT people because there's no votes in it, no money in it, and lots of his colleagues are so inclined (as well as providing freebie suits, glasses and sartorial advice). He's more likely to go for even more repressive measures to deal with any fightback against austerity. Whilst having no sympathy for them, the sentences handed out to the racist hotel protesters were comparatively harsh and the same will be used against people resisting the cuts.
He's already stated his admiration for Thatcher. How far is it between 'a country of strangers' and 'the enemy within'?
And I won’t stop there.
3:40 pm · 14 May 2025
That was yesterday afternoon. So rather than backing off he's doubling down with the rhetoric.
It is obvious that Starmer is enjoying the attention and disgust which his racist speech of a couple of days ago has generated as much as Nigel Farage clearly would.
And btw if we are to suddenly place the bar very high when debating whether someone is a racist or not (which generally is not the STW way) then perhaps we should reconsider whether Nigel Farage is actually a racist?
After all both Nigel Farage's wife and his current mistress are immigrants so it is obvious that he doesn't have a problem with immigrants per se, he just thinks that there are too many in the UK. And I think it is fair to say that Nigel Farage uses language perceived to be racist because it gives him easy votes and the attention he craves, just like the current leader of the "Labour" Party new found enthusiasm for the same tactic.
However imo it really isn't that complicated. If you use language and rhetoric which is designed specifically to bring comfort to racists, especially during an era of growing racial tensions, then you are a racist, irrespective of whether your name is Enoch Powell, Nigel Farage, or Sir Keir Starmer.
·
Is it possible this right wing stuff is playing well with some demographic in their research, and us progressive types just aren't seeing it in our socials? One would assume they're not just guessing about this.
As for racism - I think this word is massively over-used. It's really xenophobia, because there is just as much animosity in this rhetoric towards for example white Poles as there is to brown Bangladeshis. That's not to say racism isn't present in society, of course, and genuine racists will have no problem applying it to those who they want to hate. But is there really anyone on the medium right who doesn't want Indian immigrants but is happy for Romanians to move here?
Just more disappointing mental gymnastics to make excuses for racism.
With this particular 'pragmatic' version of racism I think the danger is - he's making it comfortable for people to join in with.
It's a slippery slope and what starts out as appearing rational just eventually ends up in the gutter.
It's heading in that direction. It's being normalised and that is ultimately flat out more dangerous than 'This is England' type meetings because the mainstream are not being appalled any longer.
Is it possible this right wing stuff is playing well with some demographic in their research
Certainly but what's wrong with getting on with fixing the real economic issues rather putting this GBnews stuff front and centre only a year in?
Starmer and Reeves claimed their number one 'mission-led' program was growth.
Fix the doorstep issues and most of this will take a back seat.
(But equally why pander to it? Change narratives. Challenge arguments.)
Besides shall we see where the next polls are heading?
Is it possible this right wing stuff is playing well with some demographic.....
What do you mean is it possible? Of course this "right wing stuff", as you call the latest racist dog-whistling from Starmer, plays well with certain demographics, why on earth do you think Nigel Farage and the Tories use it so much?
And now desperate Starmer?
So what is your point....... racism from a Labour Party leader is okay because it plays well with some demographics?
I have heard a lot of excuses for racism but the one that it's okay because some people like it is new to me.
And btw if we are to suddenly place the bar very high when debating whether someone is a racist or not (which generally is not the STW way) then perhaps we should reconsider whether Nigel Farage is actually a racist?
Wasn't he seen at National Front marches many years ago. I would say that is not a good start if putting forward a case that someone may not be racist.
With this particular 'pragmatic' version of racism I think the danger is - he's making it comfortable for people to join in with.
Yes that is the clear danger in doing it as he would full well know but doesn't seem to care.
Well in the Kafka-esque political climate du jour, I've just had an odd experience.
Andrew Neil has just been interviewed on R4 being extremely critical of a policy of a Labour government...
And I'm 100% in agreement with him.
I think I need to lie down.
🤪
They're going to be lapping up this 0.7% of growth - it's almost as if running marginally bigger deficits and cutting interest rates might just have encouraged that.
Imagine what could be done if we moved big time?
But can I remind you that the Tories also saw 2024 Q1 /Q2 growth of 0.6% and 0.5% respectively.
So well within what might be expected with this sort of economy. Nothing really to get excited about.
Deficit goes up so does growth when then the private sector is struggling.
They're going to be lapping up this 0.7% of growth - it's almost as if running marginally bigger deficits and cutting interest rates might just have encouraged that.
Imagine what could be done if we moved big time?
But can I remind you that the Tories also saw 2024 Q1 /Q2 growth of 0.6% and 0.5% respectively.
So well within what might be expected with this sort of economy. Nothing really to get excited about.
Deficit goes up so does growth when the the private sector is struggling.
Reduce deficit when p.s is booming.
Simple balance sheet maths.
Is it possible this right wing stuff is playing well with some demographic in their research, and us progressive types just aren't seeing it in our socials? One would assume they're not just guessing about this.
I don't give a shit. Wrong is wrong, whatever the supposed tactical thinking behind it. I'm not going to condone something just because the perpetrator thinks it is somehow clever.
Four years and a huge parliamentary majority. Yet that bonehead seems determined to try to appeal to lost cause Reform voters - whilst losing 2x or 3x that amount out of the other side.
His arrogant assumption is that moderates have no place to go. That may be true, but maybe they'll just stay at home rather than voting in future.
Wasn't he seen at National Front marches many years ago.
No. He wasn't. There were faked [EDIT: or rather wrongly attributed] photographs. He's a dangerous racist with a strange fasciation with Putin, but let's not get involved with the spreading of lies because it suits our own agenda... leave that to the politicians.
His arrogant assumption is that moderates have no place to go. That may be true, but maybe they'll just stay at home rather than voting in future.
I would think LibDem would be the place for moderates now and imagine quite a few who voted Labour now wish they had voted LibDem. I may be judging him wrong but I don't think Ed Davey is anywhere near the arsehole that Starmer is.
I don't give a shit. Wrong is wrong, whatever the supposed tactical thinking behind it. I'm not going to condone something just because the perpetrator thinks it is somehow clever.
Sure, if your main aim is to work out who are the baddies and who you can hate. I'm just trying to work out what's going on.
One would assume they're not just guessing about this.
Well thats a relief. They are pandering to the racists because their focus group tells them too. Leaving aside the moral and ethical viewpoint on this it just reinforces how dangerous your " I know it's not how the system is meant to work, but it's how it does work." approach is.
Since so long as people buy into this approach then the calculation of "if we do racist dogwhistles will we gain or lose votes" will be tilted, possibly, in favour of gain.
It's really xenophobia, because there is just as much animosity in this rhetoric towards for example white Poles as there is to brown Bangladeshis.
Aside from the normal definitions , including the equalities act, use "group of persons defined by reference to race, colour, nationality (including citizenship) or ethnic or national origins."
No. He wasn't. There were faked [EDIT: or rather wrongly attributed] photographs. He's a dangerous racist with a strange fasciation with Putin, but let's not get involved with the spreading of lies because it suits our own agenda... leave that to the politicians.
No but he did march through a Sussex village singing Hitler youth songs.
Sure, if your main aim is to work out who are the baddies and who you can hate. I'm just trying to work out what's going on.
Let us know when you find out, yeah?
👍
but let's not get involved with the spreading of lies because it suits our own agenda... leave that to the politicians.
I am more of a fight fire with fire man.
And btw if we are to suddenly place the bar very high when debating whether someone is a racist or not (which generally is not the STW way) then perhaps we should reconsider whether Nigel Farage is actually a racist?
Wasn't he seen at National Front marches many years ago. I would say that is not a good start if putting forward a case that someone may not be racist.
That entire claim is based on one single photograph of someone who looks vaguely like Nigel Farage might have done when he was a teenager
I wouldn't dispute that Nigel Farage is a racist btw, because he exploits racism and fear of foreigners for political purposes. In the same way that Keir Starmer now does.
Starmer is a racist. The suggestion that Nigel Farage forced him to make a racist speech and he is therefore not responsible is absurd.
Starmer is a racist. The suggestion that Nigel Farage forced him to make a racist speech and he is therefore not responsible is absurd.
Agree, he knew what he was doing with the speech and that tells us all we need to know. The rest of the party must be going mad as they hate racist's, or they used to at least.
Jeremy vine talk show on R2 live now about labour veering to the right if anyones interested...I quite like his shows..
The rest of the party must be going mad as they hate racist's, or they used to at least.
You'd be surprised at just how much shite rank and file labour people will tolerate for a whiff of power. I know labour councillors/ex-councillors who identify themselves as leftwing and claim not to like Starmer but will parrot the 'it's better to be inside changing things from within' line. They delude themselves that they are actually changing stuff when really all they're doing is giving the leadership carte-blanche to do crap like this.
it just reinforces how dangerous your " I know it's not how the system is meant to work, but it's how it does work." approach is
Okay, let's just clear something up, ok? I'm going to type it in bold just to try and drive it home.
Pointing something out is not the same as condoning it.
Ok? It's not MY ****ing approach. I do not approve of what Starmer is doing.
But I also do not really approve of what you are doing, which seems to be shouting and booing loudly at the bad guys. That might be cathartic for you, but it doesn't actually help anything and is how you end up with mob mentality. A mob of about six or eight people is what we have here on this thread. It's not exactly fine political analysis.
They delude themselves that they are actually changing stuff when really all they're doing is giving the leadership carte-blanche to do crap like this
Their choices are to be a small part of something, or not a part of anything. It's certainly a difficult position to be in, although I fully expect you to ignore the complexities of the issue.
Pointing something out is not the same as condoning it.
It doesn't surprise me that some contributors need that stating. This is often the "room for an argument".
Our local Labour councillors have made clear their opposition to the policies and language unfolding from the Labour top team this week. They've definitely not been quiet. It's very easy to condemn people prepared to stand for office, and work for their community, under the flag of a political party.
Their choices are to be a small part of something, or not a part of anything.
Aye because being in a political party is the only way to effect positive change. 🙄
And besides, being a small part of something that resembles the National Front is nothing to shout about.
Our local Labour councillors have made clear their opposition to the policies and language unfolding from the Labour top team this week.
I'm sure they have, but they're still there though. I was going to write an email to our MP but last time I did that I got some non-committal reply and a flat refusal to go against the party line on benefits cuts for the disabled so I didn't see the point this time.
Pointing something out is not the same as condoning it.
Yeah I get that. Sir Keir Starmer simply pointed out, in no uncertain terms, that immigration has done "incalculable" damage to Britain. So he very obviously doesn't condone immigration.
If 30p Lee had made that comment in a speech it would definitely have been dismissed as racist, if Nigel Farage had made that comment it would also have been dismissed as racist, same too if it had been Boris Johnson, there isn't a get-out clause for the leader of the Labour Party.
It is not reasonable to argue that Sir Keir Starmer can parrot the same divisive rhetoric as Enoch Powell and Nigel Farage without any accusations of racism because he is the leader of the Labour Party.
The fact that he is leader of the Labour Party actually makes it even more offensive.
Whether he's swallowed the Brexit KoolAid and gone full "take back control of our borders" in his own head/heart, or is just pretending to do so to finish off the Tory party and begin a fight back against Reform... it almost makes no difference... his language is normalising fear, distrust, blame, even hate against "others" because they were born elsewhere. Xenophic, racist, or neither... to have a PM feed into anti-immigrant sentiment is highly dangerous, and should be condemned in no uncertain terms.
OK. So without my inherent sarcasm.
Two things:
1. It matters not whether Starmer himself is a frothing racist/xenophobe or his words this week are out of political expediency. A politician's words should be chosen, measured and without emotion. Starmer chose those phrases. He's not an idiot. He knows what they hark back to. He said them. He did not need to say them. He could just have set out his approach to immigration and the goals.
2. There are (or probably were before 2016) certain lines that mainstream political parties should not cross. And demonising inhabitants of the UK on the basis of their race, religion, heritage and where they were born is (was) one of them. Starmer was meant to be the unemotional, professional one. The one who could point to a career as DPP, QC etc and say "someone of my background in the law will not stoop to this level". But he has crossed the line.
I wonder what a reputable law firm would think of, say, a trainee lawyer or intern who has put on their socials the phrase "immeasurable damage" with regard to historic immigration to the UK.
Starmer has crossed a line for me now and there's no way back. I was in the wait and see camp. The thing is, I wasn't anticipating him lurching to the right like this, though.
To be clear.... tightening up entry requirements for migrants, because that is what many in the UK want is one thing. That could be said to be about acting for all your constituents, and listening to them properly, not just your own key support. Speeding up and improving the processing of asylum seekers is, again, a policy that is acting for constituents worried about such things, and also better then people living in limbo waiting for a creaking system to handle their claims. But speaking in a way that plays to the idea that immigration has been "damaging" to the UK, to stoke up fear of "strangers"... that is actively damaging relationships between us all that live here, and pushing this country down a course it was already heading fast... when we need a PM that will seek to arrest such negative attitudes and divisions.
. It matters not whether Starmer himself is a frothing racist/xenophobe or his words this week are out of political expediency. A politician's words should be chosen, measured and without emotion. Starmer chose those phrases. He's not an idiot. He knows what they hark back to. He said them. He did not need to say them. He could just have set out his approach to immigration and the goals.
I imagine his speech was wrote by his aids/advisors then put through numerous rewrites so he and his entire coterie of acolytes fully deserve all that’s thrown at them for such an utterly divisive and disgusting speech - they would be fully aware of how it echoed Powell’ss rhetoric, he/his party are continuing to court the reform ****s
Ok? It's not MY ****ing approach. I do not approve of what Starmer is doing.
Lets look at what you wrote "Well there is, because there's the possibility of it getting even worse still under someone else. I know it's not how the system is meant to work, but it's how it does work"
So you are buying into that approach by parroting it and announcing thats how it works. What I was pointing out if people mindlessly repeat that mantra then yes thats how it works. However what we have seen is if people dont then the equasion changes
A mob of about six or eight people is what we have here on this thread. It's not exactly fine political analysis.
Lucky we have you providing fine analysis. Well if you havent noticed the "who else will they vote" has failed repeatedly that is. At the risk of pointing out the obvious to a connoisseur of fine political analysis that some demographics had switched/stopped voting is the reason for him taking this line.
Or the quality " us progressive types just aren't seeing it in our socials?". I mean you could look at the polls or indeed the right wing social media where its quite clear he is thought to be lying iving the worse of both worlds.
Maybe we should post a bunch of childish ****ing memes nicked from the daily heil?
Lets face it binners, you and co werent exactly short of hurling abuse and mob mentality its just slowly vanished as people seem to have caught onto they have been had just as much as anyone left wing who voted for him during the leadership elections.
It matters not whether Starmer himself is a frothing racist/xenophobe or his words this week are out of political expediency.
I am always in two minds which is worse.
Someone who believes something unpleasant vs someone who knows its crap but claims to anyway for personal/political gain.
Generally tend towards the latter since the former might just not know better due to upbringing etc whereas the latter does.
Although I guess you could go meta and excuse them not knowing isnt good to do so for political gain due to upbringing etc.
Just watched the whole speech and follow up questions and thought it was all quite reasonable.
Can't see why the idea that we should control immigration so as to minimise issues and maximise its benefits for the existing population is in any way controversial.
Didn't catch the part where he said "incalculable damage" but I imagine he was referring to the secret tory open borders experiment rather than immigration in general.
Doubt it'll achieve much politically but Labour needed a sensible plan on immigration that works for ordinary hard working people, and it sounds like they've got one.
Onto more important matters now please Sir Kier.
roli case, this is not a thread for researched and considered out points, please return to condemning the PM and joining the urgent race to the far right, where we will find and exploit that magic money tree, as promised by magic grandad. may he rest in peas.
@roli case, what's your usual logon?
Some folk just aren't getting it, it would seem. The policy itself isn't so much the issue (unless it was in and of itself unnecessarily cruel). The point is that Starmer didn't need to be a **** about it with his "island of strangers" and "incalculable" damage.
You can read what meaning you like into, for example, "island of strangers" - but his entourage will contain someone familiar with Powell's speech and Starmer himself certainly ought to be. There is very little chance it was an accident. And if it was, the lack of historic political knowledge is ridiculous in its own right.
Now we've got a pseudo-Rwanda policy potentially too.
And if we were seeking to maximise the benefits of immigration and limit the downsides for the existing population (as suggested above), what is the need to demonise historic immigration?
The framing of all this is very, very wrong from the point of view that I voted Labour last year (as I have since 2010). He's lost me and he's losing two or three of me for every one he thinks he lost to Reform.
If nothing else, he's also a really shit politician (losing more than he is gaining) and Raphael Behr's analysis of him being a political scaredycat is disappointingly accurate.