Keir Starmer Now Opposes Scrapping Westminster’s Voting System for PR in Blow for Reformers
His spokesperson told Byline Times that the Labour Leader has a “long-standing view against PR”
Labour Leader Keir Starmer actively opposes a move to proportional representation for the House of Commons – putting him at loggerheads with the party membership and trade unions, Byline Times can reveal.
On Wednesday, this newspaper reported that the 350,000-strong union USDAW had become the latest to call on Labour to back scrapping Westminster’s winner-takes-all voting system, First Past the Post.
Two-thirds of trade unions that support the Labour Party now back a major change to Westminster’s voting system amid a mounting campaign among the party and union grassroots.
But Starmer’s official spokesperson has now revealed that the Labour Leader has a “long-standing view against proportional representation”. When asked to clarify if the Labour leader was against PR he said “yes”.
“He isn’t looking to change the electoral system…It’s not something that’s a priority for him,” Starmer’s spokesperson added.
Labour delegates overwhelmingly backed PR at last year’s party conference – after mega-unions Unison and Unite supported the shift. But they do not control the manifesto – a process that is steered by the Labour Leader and his allies on the National Executive Committee.
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Labour ‘betrays millions of young people’ after dropping pledge to abolish university tuition fees
STUDENTS and education unions slammed Labour’s “betrayal of millions of young people in desperate need of hope” today after the party’s increasingly right-wing leadership dropped a pledge to abolish cripplingly high university tuition fees.
Sir Keir Starmer’s latest U-turn on yet another left-wing pledge which got him elected leader in 2020 will help to condemn “millions of future students to a life of debt” and leaves Britain even further away from the publicly funded higher education system it needs, they stressed.
The move is likely to draw criticism from the party’s left, which has repeatedly warned that attempts to please the right-wing press while failing to offer a genuinely progressive alternative will only benefit Tory Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.
With Tory MPs branding Jeremy Corbyn’s successor “Sir Flip-Flop,” Mr Sunak attempted to capitalise on the situation in a fiery Prime Ministers Questions today saying Sir Keir has made a “series of broken promises.”
These include now abandoned pledges to renationalise public services, increase income tax for the highest earners and defend freedom of movement post-Brexit.
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Staggering BP profits, Labour abandons commitment to abolish tuition fees, Nurses strike continues …
Staggering BP profits spark outrage
Fossil fuel giant BP has one again reported eye watering profits. In the first quarter of 2023, BP made £4 billion.
The news has sparked outrage amongst opposition politicians and groups campaigning on the climate and cost of living crises.
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Staggering BP profits spark outrage
Tuition fees: How the left has responded to Keir Starmer’s U-turn
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Left wing faction Momentum compared Starmer’s shifting position to that of Nick Clegg, who famously went into the 2010 general election pledging to abolish tuition fees only to triple them when in government. A spokesperson for Momentum said: “This move wouldn’t just fly in the face of party democracy and the wishes of Labour Students. It would be a betrayal of millions of young people in desperate need of hope. The Labour leadership should learn from Nick Clegg’s failure, not repeat it.”
The former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn made similar comments. He tweeted: “Young people should not be saddled with a lifetime of debt just because they want to get an education. Abolish tuition fees, restore maintenance grants and deliver free education for all.”
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Tuition fees: How the left has responded to Keir Starmer’s U-turn
Don’t underestimate nurses’ resolve, Pat Cullen tells government
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Cullen commented that, although the outcome of today’s meeting appeared to be set, nurses will remain in dispute with the government over pay and staffing.
“Tuesday’s meeting with Steve Barclay appears a foregone conclusion,” said Cullen. “Different unions and different professions came to different, but respectable, conclusions on this pay offer.
“The deal being accepted by others does not alter the clear fact that nursing staff, as the largest part of the NHS workforce, remain in dispute with the government over unfair pay and unsafe staffing.”
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Don’t underestimate nurses’ resolve, Pat Cullen tells government
Breaking: Labour councillor exposes himself running hate account mocking left-wing candidates
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Right-wing Liverpool Labour councillor Tom Cardwell has been outed apparently running a hateful troll account attacking local political opponents.
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The ‘GorstSpam’ Twitter account was set up to attack Garston councillor Sam Gorst and other Liverpool Community Independent (LCI) councillors and candidates who left Labour over the Labour-run council’s swingeing cuts to services for the most vulnerable – and has put out vile misogynistic and homophobic content.
And Cardwell exposed his link to the account when he tweeted one message pretending to be Gorst, then immediately deleted it and was stupid enough to put the same message out on the ‘Spam’ account moments later
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Breaking: Labour councillor exposes himself running hate account mocking left-wing candidates
Phillips deletes tweet about buying house at 20 – she told FT she was in ‘squat’ at 22
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Right-wing Labour MP Jess Phillips has deleted a tweet in which she said she bought her first home at the age of twenty and described how it changed her and her children’s ‘fortune’
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Phillips has previously told the Financial Times, presumably in an oddly-placed effort to boost her working-class credentials, that at age 22 she was living in a ‘squat’
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Phillips deletes tweet about buying house at 20 – she told FT she was in ‘squat’ at 22
Apologies that I sometimes lose it dear readers
Dianne Abbott suspended as Labour MP
I apologise to the BBC that I have quoted their article at some length, I’ve needed to do that to get the meaning across. It may be best to read the original article.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-65365978
The politician said “many types of white people with points of difference” can experience prejudice, in a letter published on Sunday.
But they are not subject to racism “all their lives”, she said.
She later tweeted to say she was withdrawing her remarks and apologised “for any anguish caused”.
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In the letter, she wrote that Irish, Jewish and Traveller people “undoubtedly experience prejudice”, which she said is “similar to racism”.
She continued: “It is true that many types of white people with points of difference, such as redheads, can experience this prejudice.
“But they are not all their lives subject to racism.
“In pre-civil rights America, Irish people, Jewish people and Travellers were not required to sit at the back of the bus.
“In apartheid South Africa, these groups were allowed to vote.
“And at the height of slavery, there were no white-seeming people manacled on the slave ships.”
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https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-65365978
Abbott was suspended following complaints including from the Board of Deputies of British Jews.
Labour’s statement that the comments were “deeply offensive and wrong” indicate that any inquiry is prejudged.
I personally can see the issue that Abbott is making and feel that she should be able to discuss that issue but then she is a Socialist and Zionist Jews have complained…