Kmflett's Blog

I’m no fan of Keir Starmer (I have some time for his 1980s Socialist Alternatives period) and I’m a Spurs fan while Starmer of course supports Arsenal.

Starmer only became an MP in 2015 and has no obvious constituency of support in the Labour Party. Of course he had the backing of the right-wing faction Labour Together to become leader and then PM.

Clearly they have decided to call time on him and the media concerned that Labour might move slightly to the left with some potential new leaders is promoting a shot-gun wedding for a new leader.

Its fair to say these are not issues that concern those struggling with a cost of living and housing crisis.

Gabriel Pogrund and Patrick Maguire’s book Get In about how Starmer became leader provides useful background.

I’ve written previously the book has the quality of an old style newspaper diary column. Not all of it is likely to be true but just enough of it is to mean its taken seriously.

Writing of the period when Starmer stood for and won election as Labour leader (2020) they note Sunday evening meetings at the home of Roger Liddle in Kennington. Liddle was the co-author with Peter Mandelson of the 1996 book the Blair Revolution which provided the template for New Labour.

At the Sunday evening meetings Pogrund and Maguire write were Morgan McSweeney and Wes Streeting and his partner Joe Dancey who had been an advisor to Mandelson. They write of Streeting ‘the smooth talker who all present hoped would one day lead the party’.

One view of present events is that Labour Together have called time on Starmer and decided its time for Streeting. Former Labour Together fixer Josh Simmons has a column in the Times (11th May) calling for Starmer to go.

None of this in my view is the way forward for the left however configured or indeed British politics. Its leading the way for Farage.

Certainly Starmer should go. Who should replace him should be a decision for Labour members and affiliated unions not Labour Together.

Those on the left might continue to ponder if the Labour project has a meaningful future. The idea of reforming politics for the better (reform also has a reactionary meaning historically see Farage) is an impulse in society. The alternative, revolutionary upheaval can seem dramatic, but then skinning the claws of capital one by one is no easy matter either. The point being that there can be other political vehicles for reform, albeit not always socialist ones, with some idea of taking on or at least controlling capital.