I think the sentiment amongst those of us desperate to oust the Tories yet hold concern with Starmer's leadership and direction is to see a significant Tory loss at the polls, but without dignifying Starmer with a huge mandate. How you can relay that at the voting booths with our antiquated electoral system I don't know. I'll personally be voting third party (in a hotly contested Tory-Labour battleground seat....yes shoot me for being a saboteur), but I can personally understand the apathy and disillusion thats led some to considering the whole ordeal futile. If anything its just reinforced my belief for there to be electoral reform to genuinely make every vote feel counted.
Keir Starmer Labour Leader
- Thread starter Damien
- Start date
Not been following this, so googled the interview.
He's obviously just repeating himself, saying Israel has a right to defend itself. Then responds to the "siege" question by referring to international law. It's a badly handled question but no sane person could watch that and think that he genuinely thinks Israel have a right to cut off food, water and power to Gaza. Although, having said that, I'm not even a tiny bit surprised that Twitter warriors choose to interpret it that way and label anyone who votes for Labour as "genocide enabling cnuts".
Having said that, he definitely deserves stick for not taking the chance to be more explicit in his condemnation of Israel's tactics. That would be fair criticism. Labour seem to be tying themself in knots on this issue, presumably because of all the recent drama around antisemitism in the party.
A wild claim even by their own standards considering it was his predecessor that spooked the BoE and who's disastrous budget led to millions of mortgage holders to have to pay hundreds more a month.
Isn't the logic that even though you disagree with one of Labour's policies (and this particular "policy" isn't even an explicit part of their manifesto) that shouldn't be reason enough to enable the Tories to enact all of their policies?
In reality they all would do nothing if they were in power, except possibly Corbyn
12 months ago, I'd have been posting exactly the same as you, but so many red lines have been crossed for me that I - someone who loathes the Tories as much as anyone - will also not be voting Labour. So I suppose I am hoping the polls are correct, but my conscience will not allow me to lend Labour my support this time.
I think the most pressing area of contention is how he's dealt with those within his party that have been outspoken over Israel's crimes. Deselecting pro-Palestinian candidates for seemingly no reason besides their views on the conflict, some of which are incredibly tame. Parachuting controversial pro-Israeli candidates with seemingly no links to the constituency, including the infamous, self-proclaimed 'Zionist shit-lord' Luke Akehurst. Judged on his actions alone it seems certainly clear he's taken a stance in this conflict that goes beyond an LBC interview, much to the dismay of much of his party base and millions in the country.
Perhaps, but such are the dire straits for those who feel a grave sense of injustice towards the Palestinians that even lip service constitutes as something of a welcome reprieve. What we're getting instead of Starmer is an active stance in silencing and purging any elements that are vocal in their condemnation of Israel. When I (regretfully) voted for Starmer in the Labour leadership elections I wasn't so naive as to expect him to continue Corbyn's hardline stance in sanctioning Israel, but I wasn't expecting the likes of myself to be considered a persona non grata within my own party because of the views I hold regarding an apartheid state committing a genocide.
Brought to you by the same party as the "Gordon Brown/Labour bankrupted the UK in 2008" stuff. And some people swallow it.
Interesting. Although, as I said, it does just seem like more evidence of how over-sensitive Labour/Starmer are when it comes to possible accusations of being antisemitic. I'm not entirely sure why.
Exactly. It's the same thing as those who loudly and proudly rejected labour under Corbyn but now baulk at anyone not sure on Starmer and accusing them of being Tory enablers.
Everyone has the right to vote, or not, for whoever they want, for whatever reason:
You voted Tory because you didn't like Corbyn's free wi-fi scheme - fine you do you.
You're going to vote Green because everyday your timeline is flooded with starving and mutilated Palestinian children which Starmer encouraged - fine you do you.
Everyone has their red lines (except Biden) and reasons they will or won't vote for someone. We all get one single vote, use it or don't. Besides, the chances that your single individual vote will have any affect is so statistically improbable you needn't worry.
Also the idea that spoiling your ballot is some obscene act of unforgivable desecration is fecking hilarious, I'll draw a guy fecking a dead pig's head on my ballot paper, if I so wish.
Look the thing Starmer said he didn’t say or that isn’t what he actually means. Look the Labour polices aren’t
The next day
Starmer knew what he was saying.
The next day
Starmer knew what he was saying.
Funny you mention that. The same Luke Akehurst that Starmer was happy to parachute into a safe seat was very recently hit with an anti-semitic complaint from a Labour Jewish counsellor regarding perpetuating an anti-semitic trope. Though so far it seems to have drawn nothing but radio silence from Starmer's camp. If you were as cynical as I am, you'd conclude that its anti-Israeli sentiment that provokes Starmer's no-nonsense approach to anti-semitism, and not bigoted sentiment itself.
There is also the David Lammy interviews where he doubles down on Starmer supporting Israel starving Gaza.
That's just a media trained politician doing their thing. "Repeat your key messages, don't speculate on stuff you're not qualified to speculate about" She's not qualified to make a call about whether any other country has or has not broken international law. Although, obviously, she should have made that explicit in her reply.
As I said with Starmer, the issue here is their extreme reluctance to condemn anything that Israel has done, rather than actually endorsing genocide. And they deserve all the stick they get for that. It seems as though they've decided that even the most indirect criticism could be perceived as antisemitism and they want to do everything possible to avoid this (I'm not entirely sure why?) Even Ireland's famously right wing (according to the caf) government have done a much better job than Labour of calling Israel out.
Why though? In your opinion, why would that be the case? What's in it for Starmer? I can sort of see why they don't want to be accused of antisemitism (party still scarred by all the drama around Corbyn and his alleged antisemitism) but what's their motivation for being straight up pro-Israeli?
Starmer was clearly just repeating himself. So clearly that none of his lackeys thought to mention that in their appearances in the days following it and it took him nine days to come up with the excuse that he was answering the previous question.
Cheers forgot that one.
Putting aside the fact no one needs to be qualified to say turning off water is against international law(It’s clearly a war crime)from 2016 to 2020 Thronberry was the Shadow Foreign Secretary.
Its a good question. One interpretation is Starmer has been so desperate to rid his party of the anti-semitism allegations that he's taken the German approach of absolving Israel at every given step to the extent of being a rabid apologist out of fear of any allegations persisting.
Personally? I'm not entirely sure in all honesty. Granted the UK isn't prone to the same level of powerful lobbying the US is in regards to super PACs and donors holding them to ransom over certain viewpoints and legislative promises, but to me it feels like there could be an insinuation that holding a strong stance against the state of Israel as a mainstream politician is akin to career suicide.
I agree somewhat, but I think once that anti-semitism hunt happened, this was always going to be the outcome for Labour, unfortunately
Lets also be honest up until a couple of months ago the current stance was looking like the best one to play (from a political standpoint), who knew Isreal would score massive own goals and shift global opinion against themselves...
Here lies the issue with politics, though. It's never really about what is right; it's more about what will be best received.
Starmer was clearly just repeating himself. So clearly that none of his lackeys thought to mention that in their appearances in the days following it and it took him nine days to come up with the excuse that he was answering the previous question.
Well it took me all of one viewing of the video to come to that same conclusion, due to having a functional brain.
Yeah, that's the assumption I would make.
Good to know I should be voting for people you believe don't possess functioning brains to be the next chief legal counsel, Foreign Secretary and Prime Minister in Thornberry, Lammy and Starmer respectively.
To be fair it's more than that, it's the embodiment of your legally recognised authority to give power to represent you to a person and their party affiliation in (GE terms) in forming a Government.
Also legally, its the single most direct important element of personalised authority the ordinary person can wield in selecting a government of this country. To deface it, or in some way to render it useless, is a disgrace.
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They obviously made the grave mistake of assuming that everyone else watching would have a brain as functional as mine.
Well said.
Some of the posts in this thread over the last page or 2 are certifiably fecking insane.
Only someone without a functioning brain could watch that clip and not see what you're saying is true, which is why I should support three politicians who didn't to run the fecking country.
Because if I don't they might only get a 150-200 seat majority, rather than the 240+ that is being projected.
Voting for Starmer’s Labour is giving your stamp of approval on their massive shift to the right and will only serve to solidify their position.
Vote for the party that best matches your political viewpoints or spoil your ballot if none of them do.
The best case scenario for the left isn’t a Labour government with a supermajority, it’s a Labour government with a slim majority and whatever left leaning party you like picking up enough seats to be in the conversation or enough votes for the Labour leadership to recognise that moving to the hard right isn’t the only way to get into and hold power.
Vote for the party that best matches your political viewpoints or spoil your ballot if none of them do.
The best case scenario for the left isn’t a Labour government with a supermajority, it’s a Labour government with a slim majority and whatever left leaning party you like picking up enough seats to be in the conversation or enough votes for the Labour leadership to recognise that moving to the hard right isn’t the only way to get into and hold power.
Absolute nonsense. If you comprehensively reject the list of candidates on offer and everything that they stand for then defacing it is your best way of making that known. The real disgrace is your vote being tied to the FPTP system which renders it mostly meaningless in the first instance.
It's simpler than that.
His wife, Victoria Alexander, comes from a Jewish background and through her he has extended family living in Tel Aviv.
“My wife’s family is Jewish. Her dad is Jewish, their family came over from Poland. The extended family live in Israel,” he told Britain’s Jewish News in February.
He has never been to Israel but “we’re in regular contact with them and we’ve got various visits planned, basically to take our kids for the first time.”
He said he has attended Shabbat dinners with his wife’s relatives on numerous occasions and visited London synagogues to attend family bar mitzvahs and weddings.
During a campaign event organized by the Jewish Labour Movement, other party leadership candidates said they were “Zionists” while Starmer was hesitant.
“I do support Zionism,” he later told Jewish News. “I absolutely support the right of Israel to exist as a homeland. My only concern is that Zionism can mean slightly different things to different people, and… to some extent it has been weaponized. I wouldn’t read too much into that. I said it loud and clear — and meant it — that I support Zionism without qualification.”
(this is back in 2020)
After Corbyn, UK Labour elects Keir Starmer, Zionist with Jewish wife, as leader | The Times of Israel
Just who is your situation of not being able to vote for anybody, made known to?
No, your best way is to withhold your vote completely. An analysis of voting patterns including those eligible to vote who don't', always takes place.... nobody but nobody takes notice of defaced ballots, they are not counted, if they are examined at all it's to make sure no real vote has been missed by accident.
I somewhat "enjoy" talking about economic theory so i would be interested in why you disagree regarding my claim that sunak and hunt have done nothing in terms of them as respective chancellors inacting policies which directly and significantly impacted inflation coming down and the easing of the cost of living crisis. To be more specific i believe that the cost of living and inflationary pressures, as well as the general malase of economic crisis we we have seen over the past 2/3 years in particular (so not specifically as a result of the productivity drop and lack of investment due to austerity for example), have come about as a result of:
1) the impact of Brexit (which is on the conservatives hands)
2) the war in ukraine impacting energy security and worldwide markets (not their fault),
3) Covid (not really their fault but also decisions taken such as furlough and others like eat out to help out (lol) under Sunak taken over covid have added a inflationary pressure that we are going to be dealing with for a long while to come)
4) Liz truss and Kwarteng absolutely destroying the UK's market credibility and bond market significantly to the extent they had to remove virtually the entire cabinet to stop the complete freefall of the pound.
5) Private sector Profiteering off the back of growing inflationary pressure. For example Sunak cutting fuel duty and energy providers not passing it back on to the consumer. Increased profitability on virtually all essential goods beyond the price ratio that the wholesale price was correctly moved by levels of inflation. To be clear, the price of a can of beans for example, has increased due to supply side inflation rising energy costs etc, however, Markets have used the crisis to realign for the maximum profitability possible under the guise of "inflation" beyond what was needed for them to maintain the previous levels of profit. Usually this would be fine because in a free market this would be checked by competition underdcutting, which would keep prices somewhat equitable, however due to the scope of the crisis everyone was in on it simultaniously. If tesco were profiteering in normal times asda would just undercut as long as it was still profitable and take market share.
There are no policies inacted by either Sunak or Hunt as chancellor that made a dent into any of this, some of which would be unfair to expect them to be able to combat in fairness in terms of energy specifically, but that doesnt change my claim that inflation has essentially come down of its own accord due to prices capping out at the absolute maximum they could do for consumers to still be able to purchase and not cause public dissent, and supply side factors realigning closer to previous sustainable levels.
Is there anything particularly wrong with that? It's not unusual for a British politician to support an Israeli state is it? He wants a two state solution I believe.
Ah. Ok. Well that explains it!
Do you have a Green Party (or equivalent) you can vote for?
The whole premise of your question is based on a similar assumpption! You're assuming the polls are true, and it's a two-way Labour-Conservative contest.
Otherwise, a Green voter could say, "by not voting for the Greens, you're helping Keir Starmer become PM" or other similar non-sequiturs.
Zionism is a cancer. There's loads wrong with it. Or do you mean being a supportive husband and son in law?
Basically this. You could argue it is a failure for them to have let inflation get so bad in the first place, but inflation (especially this time around) is an external shock that they've done moderately well to get it back under control. And they've done so while ensuring GDP doesn't crash entirely. It is a B grade at best, but my original point was a comparative one - Starmer/ Reeves v/s Sunak/ Hunt. On that front, I have a tad bit more faith in the latter two. Going forward as well, Sunak/ Hunt have at least proposed economic policies. Reeves completely refuses to suggest anything concrete she would do.
Happy to disregard the family issue as I can't see how that would be a problem. Are we talking about Zionism as in 'the right of Israel to exist as a nation state' or the policies of the Israeli government?
#1-4 was either external or done well before Sunak/ Hunt took over. Again, I am not saying they have done a good job. Just that they have not done a bad job. And looking forward they are putting forth ideas, primarily the traditional conservative idea that one must reduce the tax burden to spur economic activity. It is half baked but half baked is better than nothing at all, which is what Labour is offering. That is my only point.
On #5 and profiteering - that's far from the UK's biggest economic problem. The main issue is the complete lack of productivity gains in at least 20 years which has made the UK's GDP per capita go from parity to the US in the mid-00s to 40% lower than the US today. Why does Labour not have an ounce of idea on what they would do differently to close that gap a little....