we need to turn to each other again

  • Post last modified:July 5, 2024
  • Reading time:13 mins read


So there it is folks, a Labour Party win that Stevie Wonder could have seen coming has taken place.

Arise, Sir Keir Starmer, wettest wipe of them all, the most-dead eyed of robocops.

Before we dive into why none of this is cause for celebration, let’s take a quick look at what Starms has said on his campaign trail.

He got the support of shitrag, the Sun:

He continued his transphobia by saying trans women don’t belong in single-sex spaces:

Not for the first time, he joined in on a right-wing talking point by blaming refugees on small boats, and wouldn’t even commit to establishing safe routes for said refugees:

And, it’s hard to forget his deeply racist comments on Bangladeshi people in the UK:

If you only came into existence when sad sack Sunak called the election, you’d be forgiven for thinking that Starmer was the right-wing candidate. The Labour leader is beyond merely pushing Labour to the centre. Actually, he’s churning out right-wing policies that are an insult to an actual working-class movement.

Labour: a muted reaction

As the old adage goes, elections aren’t won – they’re lost. It’s not so much that Labour won, as much as the Tories lost. And, as Sky News’ Sam Coates pointed out:

Voters everywhere seem to dislike existing governments of all stripes – Tory in Westminster, SNP in Scotland and Labour in Wales – and there have been massive drops in support for all: the single biggest dynamic in this vote.

We’ve had over a decade of food banks, callous deportations, the Windrush scandal, the Grenfell tragedy, tens of thousands of dead disabled people, cost of living crisis after cost of living crisis, soaring energy prices, PPE scandals, ministers partying while people died from Covid – do we need to go on?

The Tories have removed themselves from government. And Labour? Well, do any of those statements from Starmer above suggest he’s remotely interested in helping the most vulnerable in our society? Do they fuck.

As economic justice campaigner Richard Murphy explained, it’s not that Labour won – it’s that the Tories lost:

Red Tory vs Blue Tory

Functionally, there is no longer a difference between Labour and the Tories:

Ultimately, what it comes down to is:

To his eternal shame, Starmer has chosen the dogwhistles of transphobia and small boats – exactly the same as self-professed right-wingers:

Don’t get us wrong, it’s still hilarious that this shower got the boot:

However, we have endless rage for charlatans like Jess Phillips – who was busy smirking at Corbyn’s loss in 2019 whilst now claiming in 2024 that politics “has got caustic and nasty”:

Yeah, it’s hard when the electorate respond to your words and actions innit, Jess?

The thing that we kept coming back to last night, though, was Palestine.

Gaza

Just as he has with almost every other vulnerable group in the country, Starmer has failed to stand with Palestine, as Hamza Yusuf reported:

Keir Starmer is a friend of Israel. It would be an easy task to use his unstinting support for Israel as it continues to pulverise Gaza as the exclusive evidence of that.

Yusuf continued:

The now infamous endorsement on LBC of Israel’s collective punishment of Palestinians as Israeli defence minister Yoav Gallant declared a total siege and cut off all water, food and power was reprehensible.

The decision to whip his party to vote against a ceasefire when Israel had already killed more than 10,000 Palestinians and to later reprimand an MP for daring to suggest the killing on an industrial scale in Gaza amounts to genocide is unforgivable.

Starmer has, in his own words, said:

I support Zionism without qualification.

This hasn’t gone unnoticed:

Last night, our Twitter feed was a mix of election reaction and horrific footage of a young child in Gaza with half her face blown off:

Nobody expected the Tories to support Palestine, but it shouldn’t be unreasonable to expect a Labour leader to do so. However, that’s exactly the kind of leader Starmer is: cowardly, right-wing, and terrifying.

Nothing but us

Often minorities and other vulnerable groups are told – ‘vote tactically now, your turn will come’.

The truth is, there is no help coming. There is nothing but ourselves.

If there’s one thing we can learn from the Corbyn era it’s that the British public were given a rare offering of a political vision that would actually serve the most vulnerable in society. It turned that down – because saying “wait your turn” is actually just “never”:

Mainstream media, and right-wing members of the public who are reluctant to call themselves so, will delight in asking people to vote tactically, to hold their nose, to wait their turn. Doing so is exactly what liberalism is about – having no political vision beyond #ToriesOut maintains the status quo and keeps things ticking over while the rich get richer, and the poor get poorer:

The political circus is one small part of what we actually can – and need – to do for each other.

These rich and privileged wankers don’t care about us. They’ve shown that time and time again.

It’s heartening to have independent campaigns but parliamentary politics will never be the source of our freedom. Mutual aid, unionism, and abolition is.

We move.

Featured image via YouTube screenshot/Guardian News





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