The Reader has to be unsurprised by The Times celebratory, even ecstatic ‘reportage’ regarding the expulsion of Jeremy Corbyn from the Labour Party. Starmer has always been Tony Blair’s political catamite. Starmer offers no real threat to Blair, whom Mrs. Thatcher named her greatest accomplishment. The Reader is overwhelmed by the Times ‘reportage’ on this Excommunication of Corbyn…
Tuesday February 14, 2023
Headline: Keir Starmer: My Labour is patriotic, a party of equality not protest
Promising change is the easy part. Delivering it is painstaking. It requires commitment, hard graft, focus and humility. From the moment I was elected Labour leader I was clear about what we needed to do to rebuild our party. Not only had we lost an election badly, we had also lost sight of our morals and our purpose. That was why the most pressing and urgent change we needed was in the way we dealt with antisemitism.
Antisemitism is an evil. It is a very specific type of racism, one that festers and spreads like an infection. Its conspiratorial nature attracts those who would have no truck with any other form of prejudice. Indeed, it can be those who call themselves “anti-racist” who are most blind to it. The reason the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) opened their investigation into the Labour Party was because it had become an incubator for this poison. We needed to change. That’s why my first act as leader was to commit to tearing antisemitism out by the roots, without fear or favour.
The first step meant accepting the EHRC’s report in full. That investigation was a humbling and painful experience for a party that has always prided itself on equality and tackling racism. But it was completely necessary. We also had to be clear that anyone who did not accept those findings had no place in the party.
But being frank about what had happened was only the beginning. We then had to begin to right the wrongs of the past. That meant many months of hard work and honesty, rebuilding trust not just with the Jewish community but with all those who were rightly appalled by how low we had fallen.
Before now, there were two moments when I knew we were getting it right. Firstly, when Louise Ellman, a Jewish former Labour MP who under the previous leadership had suffered appalling abuse, came to Labour Party conference in 2021. Then, when I spoke with Jewish voters returning to Labour in Barnet during last year’s local elections. This announcement from the EHRC is the third.
Tuesday February 14 2023:
Headline: The Times view on Sir Keir Starmer’s rejection of Corbynism: Gloves Off
Sub-headline:The Labour leader has been admirably clear in condemning antisemitism in his party but he will need to be equally detailed in his election promises
very so often a modernising Labour leader has to throw down the gauntlet to the left of the party. For Neil Kinnock it was the conference speech in 1985 during which he lambasted the Militant faction in Liverpool for hiring taxis to scuttle around the city handing out redundancy notices. For Tony Blair, it was the Clause Four moment in 1995 when he persuaded his membership to abandon its commitment to nationalising the commanding heights of the economy. And now it is the turn of Sir Keir Starmer to take on the Corbynist rump of MPs who still mourn the loss of the most electorally disastrous leader since Michael Foot.
In his article in The Times today Sir Keir focuses on the issue of antisemitism to challenge those who would derail his drive for victory at the next general election. Welcoming the decision of the Equality and Human Rights Commission to grant Labour a clean bill of health on antisemitism and remove it from special measures, he promises that there will be no return to the barely concealed bigotry that characterised the Corbyn years.
This is to be welcomed, of course. But Sir Keir makes a wider point, and indeed issues an ultimatum. Labour, he implies, will never return to Corbyn’s electorally suicidal brand of leftism, and those in his party who don’t like it can get out. This is refreshingly tough talking by a man who chooses his words carefully. Calling your own party an incubator of poison is a brave thing to do, particularly if you were sitting on the shadow front bench when the poison was being incubated. It will no doubt hearten those who have previously detected in Sir Keir a little too much of the metropolitan lawyer, forever struggling not to speak his mind. But disowning the evil of antisemitism is an obvious hill to fight on. If Sir Keir is to triumph at the polls, he must show the country that he is prepared to tackle more nuanced issues.
…
Tuesday February 14 2023:
Headline: Back me or quit Labour, Keir Starmer tells hard left
Sub-headline: We’re never going back, says leader in ultimatum to Corbynistas
Sir Keir Starmer has issued a challenge to the hard-left Labour MPs who oppose his plans for government to either back him or leave the party.
Labour is due to be taken out of special measures over antisemitism by the Equality and Human Rights Commission on Wednesday morning, more than two years after a report identified “serious failings” under Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership.
Writing for The Times, the Labour leader says the changes he has made to the party are “permanent, fundamental, irrevocable”, describing the party as unrecognisable from the one he took over in 2019.
“There are those who don’t like that change, who still refuse to see the reality of what had gone on under the previous leadership,” he says. “To them I say in all candour: we are never going back. If you don’t like it, nobody is forcing you to stay.”
…
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/back-me-or-quit-labour-keir-starmer-tells-hard-left-3swrnvwwg
Wednesday February 15 2023:
Headline: Starmer says Jeremy Corbyn will not stand for Labour at next election
Jeremy Corbyn will not stand as a Labour candidate at the next election, Sir Keir Starmer vowed today.
The leader of the opposition said his party was “not going back” to the time when antisemitism was rife within its ranks. He also fired a warning shot at the left-wing group Momentum, which has the support of some in Labour.
Starmer was speaking after the Equality and Human Rights Commission, which found that Labour under Corbyn had been responsible for unlawful discrimination, ceased its monitoring of the party. He defended having served in Corbyn’s shadow cabinet and said that he had challenged the behaviour at the time. However, he admitted the party had at the time lost sight of “its purpose or its morals”.
Starmer warned those who were resisting his changes: “If you don’t like that, if you don’t like the changes we have made, I say the door is open and you can leave.”
When asked whether that included those in Momentum, he said that for “whatever group or individual in the Labour Party” the message was clear. “We have changed from a party that looked inwards to a party that meets the public gaze . . . From a party of dogma to a party of patriotism . . . From a party of protest to a party of public service.
…
Is a bit early to celebrate? This Times reportage of ‘the fall of @jeremycorbyn’ is founded on the ‘as if’ that Corbyn political career is now finished. What of :the Al Jazeera expose?
The Labour Files: The Purge I Al Jazeera Investigations
Is Jeremy Corbyn about to disappear from the British Political Scene? The vain hope, of the Blair/Starmer coterie, is that Corbyn will go quietly? From a political actor, who has spent his whole career, in service to his constituency. Or the political fact of Momentum as not just a possible/probable avenue for Corbyn’s ability to continue his service? Not to speak of all those purged, and or dis-invited, by Starmer, ‘Leftists’, might be the key to the Tories maintaining their hold on political power? Which would be more than welcome to the Times Political Romantic ‘sensibility’!
Political Observer & Almost Marx
StephenKMackSD's Blog 