Keir Starmer has deselected or blocked numerous progressive general election candidates, overriding local democracy and preventing local Labour Party members from having the chance to vote to select them.
Starmer has been operating a top-down system where National Executive Committee (NEC) panels select candidates. As Labour List reports:
Five pro-leadership members of the NEC itself have now been picked themselves for… seats – chair James Asser, Gurinder Singh Josan, Luke Akehurst, Unison’s Mark Ferguson, and Usdaw’s Michael Wheeler – as well as former Keir Starmer adviser Chris Ward in Brighton after Lloyd Russell-Moyle’s last-minute deselection, former Rachel Reeves adviser Heather Iqbal, and Starmerite think tank Labour Together’s director Josh Simons.
Elites want “apathy” and “noninvolvement”
This anti-democratic approach is in line with the elite-run Trilateral Commission. Starmer joined the organisation while he was shadow Brexit secretary and maintained his membership during his first few years as Labour leader.
Billionaire banker of inherited wealth David Rockefeller founded the Trilateral Commission in 1973 as an elite networking operation.
In its key 1975 publication, the Crisis of Democracy, it wrote:
The expansion of participation throughout society was reflected in the markedly higher levels of self-consciousness on the part of blacks, Indians, Chicanos, white ethnic groups, students, and women
But for the Trilateral Commission, such increased participation was a negative thing. The organisation characterised such engagement as an “excess of democracy”.
It continued:
the effective operation of a democratic political system usually requires some measure of apathy and noninvolvement on the part of some individuals and groups. In the past, every democratic society has had a marginal population, of greater or lesser size, which has not actively participated in politics.
In itself, this marginality on the part of some groups is inherently undemocratic, but it has also been one of the factors which has enabled democracy to function effectively. Marginal social groups, as in the case of the blacks, are now becoming full participants in the political system.
Yet the danger of overloading the political system with demands which extend its functions and undermine its authority still remains.
It is likely the Trilateral Commission still operates a similar policy. Nikkei Asia reported in 2022 that three of its reporters made history by being the first ones ever allowed into all Trilateral Commission meetings. Of course, they couldn’t say who was there. However, Nikkei Asia noted that, on the idea that the group wants to control excesses of democracy:
Social critic Noam Chomsky has repeatedly criticized the Trilateral Commission for being undemocratic. But this sentiment – that experts with experience and expertise can steer society toward a better place – lives on in the commission.
Starmer: enacting Trilateral sentiment
Accordingly, Starmer has sidelined candidates and MPs of colour who do not toe the line of corporate power. Starmer sought to push the UK’s first black MP Diane Abbott out of politics. He has only now said she can stand for Labour after immense pressure.
Starmer has deselected Faiza Shaheen – a woman of colour who is an inequality economist. As is often the case with Starmer’s longstanding purge of progressives, he used the pretext of innocuous tweets to remove her.
In 2022, Starmer’s party apparatus attempted to deselect Zarah Sultana of the Socialist Campaign Group – another left-wing woman of colour.
The Trilateral Commission is highly secretive and its meetings are off the record. Many members of US intelligence served alongside Starmer on the Trilateral Commission including two former heads of the CIA.
Starmer has been reestablishing elite control of UK democracy after the upset of Jeremy Corbyn’s success. This is completely in line with his membership of the Trilateral Commission.
Featured image via The Telegraph – YouTube and Labour Heartlands – YouTube
