Politics has failed to address the climate crisis in any meaningful way. Our contemporary politics which I regard as a plutocracy as opposed to a democracy – meaning that it serves a small elite of incredibly rich and powerful people – cannot address the climate crisis because it is serving the climate-destroying plutocrats. Since the system won’t change, we have to change the system. There’s no ifs or buts about this – climate records are getting broken month by month and in the summer it will be back to breaking climate records day by day. Our politics have absolutely failed to address this so we have to change our politics. It’s not a big deal – politicians need to start serving the electorate instead of the rich and powerful.
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer (left) and Prime Minister Rishi Sunak walk through the Peer’s Lobby at the Palace of Westminster ahead of the State Opening of Parliament in the House of Lords, London, November 6, 2023
THE sickening racist abuse directed at Diane Abbott by top Tory donor Frank Hester represents a challenge to the leaders of both the major political parties.
Hester, who has given the Conservative Party £10 million over the last year, told a meeting in 2019 that looking at the MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington made him “want to hate all black women” and added for good measure that Abbott “should be shot.”
Such remarks should be enough to immediately terminate anybody’s involvement in public life, and they may indeed constitute a criminal offence.
Hester was speaking, remember, just three years after a Labour MP, Jo Cox, was indeed shot to death by a far-right fanatic.
Everyone should first of all send their unqualified solidarity to Abbott, long the victim of more racist and misogynistic abuse than any other MP.
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Racism is a bipartisan problem. And it is reinforced by Starmer’s own treatment of Abbott.
She has been suspended from the Labour whip in Parliament for nearly a year now. Her offence was to write a newspaper letter suggesting Jewish people, among others, had not suffered from racism.
Her letter was clearly wrong and she immediately and fulsomely apologised for it. Since then her case has been “under investigation.”
Yet it is unclear what there is to investigate. There can be no possible reason for leaving her in political suspense for such a protracted period over what is a fairly straightforward issue.
The reason for this procrastination is obvious: because Abbott has spent her life on the left of the Labour Party, and served in senior roles under Jeremy Corbyn, he wants rid of her.
If she remains whipless when the next general election is called then she will be unable to stand as a Labour candidate, allowing some gormless Starmerite or other to be imposed on Hackney North.
Abbott is Britain’s first black woman MP, and its longest-serving black MP too. For her to be treated like this ought to be a source of national shame.
It is past time that the phoney “investigation” into her was terminated and the whip restored.
Keir Starmer sucking up to the rich and powerful at World Economic Forum, Davos.
Beyond each Labour U-turn is a well of suffering and poverty that has no justifiable reason to exist, says trade union case worker Kasmira Kincaid
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Our politicians invariably speak of “fiscal responsibility”; of “balancing the budget” and “living within our means”. The Keir Starmer of today – as opposed to the Keir Starmer who was elected to lead the Labour Party in 2020 – is no different. But these words just serve to obscure the obscenity of what is actually being said: that we can’t afford to feed the poor, to house the homeless, and to allow people to live in dignity and comfort.
But the thing is we can. We know we can. We know it when we see government funds used to drop bombs on foreign countries. We know it when we see sweeping tax cuts to the wealthy, and tax evaders let off the hook. And we know it when we walk past empty tower blocks, full of investment properties, while homeless people die on the streets.
It’s a supreme form of gaslighting to suggest otherwise, asking us to deny the evidence of our senses and experiences. Making sure everyone gets what they need is a logistical challenge, for sure. But there is enough to make sure everyone gets what they need.
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As a new Labour government comes to feel inevitable, many of us are taking stock of what such a government would mean. Over the last four years, Keir Starmer has U-turned on practically every anti-austerity policy in his 2020 leadership bid: from abolishing universal credit and what he once called “the Tories’ cruel sanctions regime”; to scrapping work capability assessments and the two-child limit on benefits; to re-nationalising key public services.
Today I live a life where few of these policies would directly affect me. Yet I haven’t forgotten what it felt like to be in the firing line for government decisions. The material conditions of people’s lives should be the beginning and end of politics. As we voice our opposition to continued austerity we’d do well to remember that. To remember that beyond each of these U-turns is a well of human suffering that has no justifiable reason to exist.
Kasmira Kincaid is a trade union case worker and former benefits claimant.
