Not even two weeks into the Labour Party’s landslide that wasn’t actually a landslide, and the UK’s brand-spanking new government and its corporate media mouthpieces have gifted the public a whistle-stop tour of the worst, the dullest, the whiniest little shits the party has to offer.
Labour’s rightwing gammon-grifters couldn’t possibly contemplate that its spineless, Tory-esque policies would bite them on the arse at the election. So when some morally principled independents, Greens, and other parties pluckily nabbed some parliamentary seats, its “pity me” machine predictably went whirring into overdrive.
Labour playing the victim
So far, Labour politicians have shown if there’s one thing the new government is good at, it’s playing the victim.
First, sore losers Jonathan Ashworth and Thangam Debbonaire took to the television media to whine about their election losses. Their interviews signalled the start of probably quite literally a collective public groan of sheer, unbridled exasperation.
Unsurprisingly, the pair didn’t waste a moment for some deep and conscientious reflection. But why would they spare a precious second on that, when the think tank corporate lobbyist revolving door already beckons?
Instead, it was straight to the voter-blaming. Both bristled at the ‘bullies’ bashing them for their pathetic stances on Gaza. So that would be voters trying to get answers out their prospective MPs then. In Accidental Partridge Ashworth’s most brilliant recent example, as the Canary’s Steve Topple pointed out, this meant:
pretending to do some ninja shit in an attempt to intimidate said Muslim uncles.
Therefore, one person on X rightly noted:
This would probably seem more serious if everyone hadn’t seen the video where he is claiming to be bullied by a man politely asking why Ashworth didn’t vote for a ceasefire https://t.co/fdjhcxeToR
— Ryan Cox (@Swan_Fox) July 11, 2024
Because, does it get any more sickeningly hypocritical than this? In the midst of a literal genocide where Israel has brutally bombed to death over 186,000 people, the Labour rightwing are the real victims, clearly. Plenty on X had words to say on this disgraceful response:
this is 1 minute and 54 seconds of two people talking about how, when you think about it, chief among the real victims of the genocide in gaza is the former MP for bristol central https://t.co/WTvc4mIPnW
— edie (@ediemmill) July 10, 2024
The way in which Thangam uses words like ‘suffering’ and ‘collateral damage’ in this interview (in relation to herself, and not the people of Palestine) tells you all you need to know. https://t.co/rx7flkmTs4
— Grace Pengelly (@Grace__Pengelly) July 11, 2024
think the idea one would go on national television and talk about oneself and others ‘suffering terribly’ electorally in the context of a genocide in gaza is one of the most fucking disgraceful pieces of what about me ism i’ve seen in a while. no wonder she lost. https://t.co/QJq5hZSgQI
— Ben Smoke (@bencsmoke) July 10, 2024
The real victims of the Israeli Genocide of Gaza: Labour MPs https://t.co/7M3kHATrKK
— jewdⒶs // ייִדהודה (@jewdas) July 10, 2024
Faux outrage
But if you thought that some spurned former MPs would be the end of it, you’d be dead wrong.
Cue new Home secretary Yvette Cooper crying wolf on “political intimidation”. Unsurprisingly, liberal Labour’s biggest media bootlicker the Guardian ate this up. It reported that:
An alarming rise in candidate intimidation during the UK’s general election campaign will be addressed next week at a meeting of ministers and civil servants, the home secretary has said.
Yvette Cooper said there had been “disgraceful scenes” in some areas in the run-up to the 4 July vote, as she announced she would chair a meeting of the defending democracy taskforce.
Then, it was Angela Rayner’s turn to spinelessly spin the same narrative for the latest nauseating episode of the suck-up to Starmer show:
The voters are never going to be forgiven for having the temerity to reject a handful of Labour candidates in amongst a Labour landslide, are they?
Angela Rayner pushing the ‘intimidation’ narrative this morning. pic.twitter.com/zXJ9XC1kqi
— Saul Staniforth (@SaulStaniforth) July 16, 2024
Of course, the reality is that it’s arguably the Labour right that has ample experience in this political abuse. Cough *Labour Files* cough *Forde Report* cough:
#FordeReport #LabourFiles https://t.co/g1xYm0H0A3 pic.twitter.com/h5CNwark9L
— Jayne Doherty (@jayneb64) July 16, 2024
Aptly, journalist Jonathan Cook highlighted that Starmer’s Labour has form on smearing anyone trying to hold his party to account:
While opposition leader, Starmer proved his authoritarian credentials by purging Labour of members who dissented from his establishment-friendly, Tory-lite agenda.
Now he’s training his guns on voters for ‘intimidating’ the two establishment parties by not voting for them. https://t.co/SwKV0WQ9pr
— Jonathan Cook (@Jonathan_K_Cook) July 16, 2024
But corporate media hacks will still likely fall all over themselves over neoliberal Labour’s fake persecution parade. That is, just as it did when Labour’s treacherous right and its press enablers ran a shocking stitch-up and sabotage of Jeremy Corbyn… oh wait:
In all this discussion, no journalist or broadcaster is ever going to raise the stuff that was thrown at Jeremy Corbyn & his supporters in 2015-19, are they? Absolute 100% total omerta. https://t.co/HgTjVVTvui
— Ally Fogg (@AllyFogg) July 16, 2024
Meanwhile, Ashworth’s drunk on power met a titillating new game of “never have I ever”, but a poster on X called his bluff:
This is a bare-faced lie given that his wife Emilie Oldknow was implicated in the horrendous misogynistic & racist bullying culture among the Labour right highlighted by the Forde report https://t.co/2OCYU2eEv4 pic.twitter.com/L8JMojEU83
— Ban billionaires, improve society somewhat (@Olliek74) July 11, 2024
Ultimately, these Labour politicians prove it: once a narcissistic political opportunist, always a narcissistic political opportunist. Independent MP candidate Faiza Shaheen laid out Labour’s rank hypocrisy in just one post:
Will this committee on intimidation be reaching out to me @YvetteCooperMP? What about Labour councillors going to door to door and spreading lies about me (we have evidence)
How do you think people feel about entering politics after what happened to me?
The idea that the Labour… https://t.co/ek8KLbuCL3— Faiza Shaheen (@faizashaheen) July 16, 2024
It’s clear that the new government’s faux outrage is designed to manufacture consent for continuing its assault on the left. One poster summed up Labour’s fragile white ego in a nutshell:
The moral panic underway on Sunak’s watch is back in full force under Labour. This is an attempt by a fragile, new government to rearticulate the islamophobic coordinates of New Labour against a multiethnic working class which is in the process of organising itself independently. https://t.co/USysywYey3
— Jonas Patrick Marvin 🇵🇸 (@m00dyjonas) July 16, 2024
Some suggested it also hinted that Labour might continue the Tories’ authoritarian crackdown on protesters:
Labour are using Racist dogwhistles & manufacturing a panic that doesn’t exist to ultimately “‘Have no choice” but to ban every form of protest & turn the UK into a Police state, & All to avoid any form of Scrutiny.
This is the comfy bed they’ll leave for Farage within 2 years https://t.co/EqUyuGGzjg— Michael Walsh (@thatbloodyMikey) July 16, 2024
Because ultimately, that’s the thing – it’s increasingly blatant that Labour exists to serve whiteness, and the corporate capitalist and colonial forces that underpin its status quo.
On with the show
Maybe, just maybe, people didn’t vote for the Labour right’s best and brightest (heavy dose of sarcasm) because they’re servile Tory-lite turncunts:
Labour trying to make left candidates, who hold them to account and offer a progressive alternative, look like bullies.
People didn’t vote for left independents to “intimidate” Labour. They voted for genuine change.
The government ignoring that only feeds the far-right. https://t.co/Z22VZ7dQvV
— Niall Christie (@NiallChristie1) July 16, 2024
Because naturally, Labour’s defeat by pro-Palestine candidates had nothing to do with its mealy-mouthed prevarications on Gaza. Vile Islamophobia and anti-Black racism from the arrogant Starmerrhoids also had absolutely no part in it either:
What amuses me is their faux outrage at receiving a bit of stick for their outrageous and criminal complicity in Genocide and War Crimes in Gaza!#LFI #CFI https://t.co/WBhY2h9jkl
— John Wakefield (@Leveller44) July 16, 2024
Where does the Labour Party think this line will get them? Because it won’t win back the communities they’ve alienated. For years they took Muslim and Black voters for granted. Starmer and Ashworth treated Black and Asian voters with contempt and they paid the price – less votes. https://t.co/VqIU8enkss
— Yasar Xalimo (@Xahlimo) July 16, 2024
One thing’s for sure, this is all extremely predictable behaviour from Starmer’s petulant brand of Labour loyalists.
I for one have been sharpening my tiny violin bow good and ready for Labour’s inevitable post-election melodrama meltdown for the next five years.
Graciously, the media has started beaming it incessantly onto our screens. If the cacophony of careerists already clamouring their best victim theatrics is anything to go by, we’re in for quite the show.
Feature image via the Canary