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Starmer’s Labour: a legacy of U-turns and watered-down pledges

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/starmer-labour-a-legacy-of-u-turns-and-watered-down-pledges

From nationalising public services, taxes on the rich, dropping tuition fees to green investment, the new PM’s abandoned promises raise doubts about Labour’s real commitment to its promises for ‘change,’ writes PETER KENWORTHY

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And the new PM, Labour’s Keir Starmer, has also done his fair share of U-turning. Starmer, among other things, pledged and promised to “increase income tax for the top 5 per cent earners” in 2020, during the Labour leadership election — “I will maintain our radical values [ … ] no stepping back from our core principles” as he added in the pledges. Only for him to back away from tax rises.

“We are in a different situation now, because obviously I think we’ve got the highest tax burden since World War II,” he told the BBC in May, when asked about this policy pledge.

Starmer has also essentially abandoned several other pledges, such as to nationalise public services like mail and water companies and the abolition of university tuition fees, among other of his 10 pledges from 2020.

“We are likely to move on from that commitment, because we do find ourselves in a different financial situation,” he told the BBC when asked about tuition fees.

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Labour’s so-called “missions” for Britain (a “long-term plan to get Britain’s future back” that “will drive forward a Labour government”) instead include sticking “tough fiscal rules with economic stability at their heart.”

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If the new PM really wants to turn Britain around and keep his political momentum, he will need more than economic stability, growing cakes and political dilly dallying, however. He will need to improve the lives of ordinary people, as well as keep his promises, principles and integrity.

But Labour’s election manifesto does not even contain the sort of spending plans needed to protect public services from future cuts, the Institute for Fiscal Studies says in a response to the manifesto.

“Delivering genuine change will almost certainly also require putting actual resources on the table. And Labour’s manifesto offers no indication that there is a plan for where the money would come from to finance this,” the IFS adds.

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/starmer-labour-a-legacy-of-u-turns-and-watered-down-pledges

Continue ReadingStarmer’s Labour: a legacy of U-turns and watered-down pledges

‘Stop Starmer’ initiative launches at London’s Conway Hall

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Original article republished from the Skwawkbox.

Campaign group warning of the dangers of red Tory government and to inform the public about Starmer’s authoritarianism and ‘murky’ past holds launch event featuring leading left speakers

Image rights: S Walker

A campaign to inform the public about the dangers of a red Tory ‘Labour’ government launched in London today, with a range of leading left speakers. Crispin Flintoff, the former Labour fundraiser expelled by the party in Starmer’s cowardly purge of the left after sharing, as constituency party secretary, the resignation letter of the group’s chair, told Skwawkbox that the campaign’s aims are:

to educate people about how dangerous a Starmer government would be. The media are unwilling to probe into Starmer’s murky past, expose his dishonesty or report on his alarming authoritarianism.

A healthy democracy requires an enlightened population and Trilateral Starmer is firmly opposed to that.

Ours is a grassroots campaign to get the word out via street stalls, leaflets, tailored social media posts and publicity stunts that emulate Just Stop Oil and Palestine Action. We see this as the only way to get our message out there. If the media pick up on it that would be a bonus.

A Starmer government would be just as bad – or worse – than a Tory government.

The event, which saw London’s Conway Hall full of activists outraged by Keir Starmer’s eager betrayal of the false promises he made to con Labour members into selecting him as party leader, featured:

  • former ANC MP Andrew Feinstein
  • homelessness campaigner Andrea Gilbert
  • tax and economics expert Richard Murphy
  • Sheila Day
  • DPAC’s Ellen Clifford
  • Liverpool’ Audrey White, who famously gave Starmer a dose of uncomfortable truth during his sneak visit to the city
  • former Labour and Respect MP George Galloway
  • ‘free Assange’ campaigner Deepa Driver
  • Palestine Action leader Huda Ammori
  • purged Labour member and star of ‘The Labour Files’ Becky Massey
  • NHS campaigner Dr Bob Gill
  • Jewish former party member Frances Rifkin
  • investigator Ben Timberley
  • Eric Jarvis and Phil Davison of OCISA, the group aiming to fight Starmer in his London seat at the next election
  • Colin Hendrie

Video messages were sent by former miner John Dunn, former union leader Tosh McDonald, ex-Labour MP Chris Williamson, forensic author and journalist Asa Winstanley and Carel Buxton that time did not allow to be shown, but these will be published in due course.

The event has already been targeted by apparent pal of the security services Paul Mason, so it’s doing something right.

There is, of course, no functional difference – at least for the better – between ‘long-time servant of the security state’ and compulsive promise-breaker Starmer’s red-Toryism and the blue version.

Original article republished from the Skwawkbox.

Continue Reading‘Stop Starmer’ initiative launches at London’s Conway Hall