By John Pickard, Brentwood and Ongar Labour member.
Those who supported Keir Starmer’s leadership bid in the first weeks of 2020, were either taken in by his ‘Ten Pledges’ or they thought, in contrast to Jeremy Corbyn, that he was a “winner”. Those who voted for this travesty of a leader have been disabused on both accounts – he ditched his ten pledges as soon as he took office and his poll ratings are barely above (or below) Rishi Sunak’s.
A poll by Ipsos published yesterday continues to show that while Labour itself is well ahead in the polls, Keir Starmer’s ratings are floundering. Asked who “would make the most capable Prime Minister”, 37% opted for Sunak, and only 36% for Starmer. Yet in January Starmer was three points ahead – a miserable lead, but a lead nonetheless.
In the “likeability” stakes, Starmer does even worse. When you read this data, bear in mind that we are in a cost of living crisis and for the first time in British history we have a family in 10 Downing Street richer than the family in Buckingham Palace. Nearly half of respondents, 49%, “do not like” Sunak. But more, 52%, do not like Starmer either.
None of the credit for Labour’s poll ratings go to Starmer
It is into this dire scenario that the Guardian editorial writers have chosen to comment. Fools rush in, as they say. The Guardian editorial today (April 5) starts with a completely ludicrous and unsubstantiated comment, that “It is to his [Starmer’s] credit that Labour is riding high in the polls”. It is clear from Ipsos and a dozen other polls that this is just not true. In fact, none of the credit for Labour rising in the polls is down to the Party leader and indeed, the same editorial then goes on to explain why it is despite Starmer that Labour is rising in the polls.
Just to be clear, the Guardian newspaper is no friend of Labour’s left, its columnists and editors having happily taken part in a biased media-wide campaign to undermine Jeremy Corbyn. In three pages of obituary for the late Desmond Tutu, it failed to mention once his strong opposition to the policies of the Israeli government and Tutu’s comparison of the old and the new apartheid. It is all the more revealing, therefore, that it is telling some home truths, and in an editorial no less.
Perhaps the editorial writers have been reading Left Horizons, because they have written exactly what we have written many times. Here is a sample:
“He [Starmer] has had 12 slogans since becoming leader, each one more meaningless than the last…”
“Unfortunately, Labour presently appears uninterested in transforming the country…”
“No one knows what Sir Keir or his party clearly stand for – apart from attacking its left flank…”
“His policies are distinguished by their lack of ambition and are dwarfed by the problems they seek to solve…”
Machine politics have created a wave of disillusion within the Party
In another Guardian article, otherwise favourable to Starmer, Jessica Elgot, repeats some of the same criticisms as the editorial:
“There can be no doubt the machine politics has left many party members – and even perhaps its voters – feeling uneasy. Starmer’s own personal rating is worsening with Labour voters despite the healthy poll lead. Ipsos’s Ben Page said Starmer was on track to become the least popular opposition leader to win a majority in recent history”.
“Unease” is a serious understatement. The bureaucracy and outright contempt for party democracy have indeed created a wave of disillusionment in the party, so much so that tens of thousands have left and at least as many more are sitting on their hands content to do nothing to help. But what we need to understand as Labour Party members is that Starmer’s abysmal leadership is not the sum total of national politics.
There is a generalised revulsion against the corruption, greed and incompetence of this government and a desperate yearning for change. As Ipsos found, “77% of people are dissatisfied with how the government is running the country”. That is the reason – not Starmer – why Labour is ahead in the polls. Two thirds of people, Ipsos found, “do not like the Conservative Party…and 65% think it is time for a change at the next election”.
Despite the fact that so many party members have walked away – and despite having the worst leader in its history – Labour will be seen by millions as the only viable alternative. They have not seen or been affected by the icy grip of Labour’s anti-democratic bureaucracy.
As for those who are still in the Labour Party, there are only two justifications for staying on. One is to organise against the take-over at the top by quasi-Tories, difficult though it may be. The second is to prepare for the inevitable resurgence of the left – beginning in the trade unions – when the Starmer project fails in office and ‘Sunak-Hunt’ austerity is replaced by the ‘Starmer-Reeves’ variety.
Love the concept of eco socialism John!
When I think back to 2015, and J.C.’s triumph against all of the Neoliberal expectations. Can you all remember? It was a time when the Neoliberal interlopers, thought that they would be clever in offering the Socialist Left, a chance to put a left member onto the nominations list, for the Labour Leader’s position, provided of course, that he attained the required backing of other MPs within the party. We all know that he did this, and we further know, that the Neoliberals, well and truly, ‘shot themselves in the foot.’ Furthermore, they were also aware of their own ‘faux pas,’ for indeed at the first CLP meeting thereafter, I can remember them all in that meeting, ‘shell shocked,’ to say the least, and very humbled and ominously silent. Words had obviously deserted them. At that same meeting, I can remember making comment that we should remove all Neoliberal members from the Party, in order to give Jeremy Corbyn and the Left, a chance to re-establish Left Socialism within the Party. I was joined in our meeting by some of the older members who had been through the ‘Mill’ many times in trades Union and political circles, and we had the necessary knowledge to be able to speak from experience of the past, with regard to Right-wing underhand tactics. Unfortunately, we were voted down because the ‘Boss’ had said that he wished to make the Party ‘Broad Church’. Therefore, other Left-wing members, -younger, and more compassionate members. In reality, at that time, insufficiently knowledgeable enough, to be more tolerant of the plight of Right-wing members, -decided to go with Corbyn’s ‘Broad Church’ doctrine. A totally unjustified move, to those of us who were more militant, because as we predicted all those years ago, the neoliberals rallied with their lies and innuendo’s and they did to the members of the left, exactly what we said, that the left should do to them. We must now form up as a Full Party of Left Socialists and EcoSocialists. In order to bring about massive change for the better, for the majority Working Class inhabitants of Britain, and for the British environment in which we all live. I say this in view of the fact that, for the past 44 years of Dictatorship from Neoliberal sources against the working class of Britain from the time of Thatcher, who rid the country of so much of its industrial base. To Blair, who contributed so much to the introduction of PFI and the squandering of the people’s holding, in Health services, Municipal services, Rail and Transport services, and helped to turn the country away from, Manufacturing Industry, to Service Industry, and helped to make London the Finance capital of the World. To compound that, since 2010, the return Neoliberalism of Tory origin once more, has imposed, only on the working class of Britain, the most heinous and belligerent austerity regime ever seen in this country. Again, I say this, to emphasise the fact that it has only been applied to the poorer working class, in an illegal, undignified and untruthful manner, because all of those classes above working class, have, in the past 13 years of Austerity, seen their fortunes lifted by 3 times the amount that it was before Austerity was inflicted upon the working people. That is neither right nor proper, and we must do all that is necessary to redress the situation in its entirety. No Matter What It Take’s! J.D.