There’s nothing actually wrong with a Labour leader trying to articulate a nuanced reason why a liberal society should oppose the overreach of strong men dictators in aggressor states… Sometimes that’s important to do, and this might be one of those times (though I personally can’t speak to that)…. The problem, as with all of the messaging from this incarnation of Labour, is that the nuance is entirely weighted towards “the right wing case is completely right, actually, and any scent of hesitancy* from the left side who voted for me and still comprise a lot of my party’s base is awful and stupid and I don’t care if I dissavow it”…. Which is possibly as unnuanced as humanly possible. I mean there was no reason to go after Stop The War, who are an utter irrelevance to vote winning, other than to tip cap to the in-party factional elements who hate them… but then Starmer’s Labour only cares about appealing to the two demographics - ‘Embarassed Tories who’d like to pretend they aren’t racist’ and ‘90s liberals who’d like to pretend they aren’t selfish… and also a bit racist’… All backed by the Mandlesonian ideal that no one else has anywhere to go.
And hey, maybe that works. I’m happy to nod disagreeably until we see where that leads. I’m one of the utilitarian idiots that will always vote the way they want. I just won’t complain if it doesn’t … or if it briefly does, but then has embarrassing Cleggian consequences down the road
* specifically regarding War here, of course… not opposition to slow Covid sanctions, obvious real time government cronyism or incoming anti-protest bills, etc.