Pressure mounts on Starmer to go

by New Worker correspondent

Calls on Keir Starmer to go are growing. Five government ministers resign, including Wes Streeting, the health secretary who has been manoeuvring to depose Starmer for some time, amid reports that more than 80 Labour MPs have privately or publicly urged the Prime Minister to step down. Starmer defiantly tells his diminishing band of followers that he has no intention of resigning as Andy Burnham and Wes Streeting prepare to battle it out when Starmer finally bows to the inevitable and hands in his resignation. 
 Andy Burnham was selected as Labour's candidate for the by-election in the Makerfield constituency in north-west England this week. Burnham held one of Manchester’s seats in the House of Commons from 2001 to 2017. When Burnham made a bid for the Labour leadership following the 2015 general election he came a distant second to Jeremy Corbyn. He left the House of Commons to become mayor of Greater Manchester in 2017. Burnham’s less than covert come-back campaign began last year when it was clear that the Starmer government was on the rocks. But under Labour rules the leader can only be replaced by a sitting member of parliament.
His first attempt to return to Westminster, through a by-election earlier this year, was thwarted by Labour's National Executive Committee, which is dominated by Starmer’s followers and Blairites. Now that Committee has had second thoughts, and if Burnham does regain a seat in the House of Commons, he will certainly run for the Labour leadership.
Some say Burnham has done a “double-banking” deal with his Blairite rival, Wes Streeting, that would ensure that whoever wins the leadership race, the other gets the Number Two job in the Cabinet.
In the Starmer camp others say Sir Keir is digging in – pointing out that over 100 backbenchers and junior ministers have signed a statement arguing that it was “no time for a leadership contest”.
That’s not the view of Dan Hodges, a former Labour insider who now writes for the Daily Mail. He says Starmer is indeed considering throwing in the towel.
Writing in the Mail last weekend Hodges cited an unnamed Cabinet minister as saying that Starmer “understands the political reality” and is considering arranging his departure on his own terms. “He realises the current chaos is unsustainable. He simply wants to be able to do it in a dignified way and in a manner of his own choosing. He will set out a timetable,” the source said. The newspaper said it remained unclear when such an announcement could come, with some of Starmer’s allies urging him to wait until after the Makerfield by-election.
He’s possibly holding out for a top job in a future Burnham or Streeting government – maybe even Foreign Secretary. But what has he got to offer these days?
Graham Hryce, an Australian journalist, told the Russian media that “Starmer has never been anything other than a third-rate politician completely lacking vision. Unlike Tony Blair, who he somewhat woodenly resembles and tries to ape, Starmer lacks both charisma and political judgement. And unlike Jeremy Corbyn, Starmer is utterly void of principle.
“Starmer started out as a Corbyn acolyte, who then destroyed his master’s political career – by levelling false allegations of anti-Semitism at him – in order to advance his own. He then pretended – unconvincingly – that he had never supported Corbyn’s political programme in the first place. It must be conceded that this pose was at least superficially plausible, but only because it was difficult to believe that Starmer had ever believed strongly in anything at all...
...after disposing of Corbyn, Starmer ruthlessly imposed his own anodyne agenda on the Labour Party and filled his Cabinet with compliant nonentities like David Lammy, who continue to support him this week”.
Whatever happens the Remainers believe their time has, at long last, come. They’ve put the Common Market back on the agenda with Streeting making rejoining the European Union part of his campaign platform. Burnham’s more reticent as he knows this is a touchy subject in the constituency he hopes to represent. But he too is a Remainer and both he and Streeting know that on this issue they can count on the support of the Lib-Dems, the nationalists and the Remainer Tories when push comes to shove over a “second-referendum” in Westminster.  

The shape of things to come

The Green victory in the Gorton & Denton by-election was a slap in the face for all the major parliamentary parties. Labour lost a seat it’s held for a hundred years. Reform came a poor second  and the Tories lost their deposit trailing behind just a few hundred votes above the Liberal Democrats, the Monster Raving Loonies and the other also-rans. 
Trumped by the Greens the Faragists put their failure down to the “Muslim vote” while the Starmer crowd blame left “extremists” for making the common course with the Greens that led to Labour’s downfall in Manchester. But at the end of the day Starmer & Co got the kicking they so richly deserved because voters were sick of the lies of the false prophets of all the mainstream bourgeois parties in Britain today.
Jeremy Corbyn, one of those “extremists” that Starmer doubtless had in mind, welcomed the Greens’ stunning victory and said his supporters “will work constructively with the Greens, because there is only one way we can bring about real change: together”.
On the other hand Richard Burgon, one of the few left social-democrats still in the Parliamentary Labour Party says the “blame for Labour’s defeat lies squarely with Keir Starmer and his clique”.
He says “they put factional interests over having the candidate best placed to win, Andy Burnham. If Labour is to be the “Stop Reform” party, then the leadership must stop treating progressive voters with contempt - and start appealing to them.
“That means a return to real Labour values - through policies like a Wealth Tax, public ownership of energy and water, and an ethical foreign policy that are all popular with the public. And it means ditching the approach of trying to ape Reform and kicking the left, that has alienated so many people who have voted Labour previously”.
We’ll see. The Greens deservedly got a massive protest vote this time round but their “eco-socialism” is only a rehash of the stale left social-democracy we see time and time again within the European Union that the Greens much admire. 
Angela Rayner and Andy Burnham wait in the wings to pick up the pieces when Starmer inevitably goes. They uphold the NHS. They talk about public ownership. They pay lip-service to the old Bennite social-democratic tradition. They support the union bureaucrats at the helm of the labour movement. But that’s as far as it goes – and as far as it will ever go as long as the careerists and time-servers remain in charge. We, as communists,  want real change. We have to put socialism back on the working-class agenda. 
We must keep up the fight against the whole capitalist system in Britain and throughout the world. The struggle for peace and socialism must begin anew – in the unions, amongst the rank and file and on the street. It must start now...

Left challenge in Camden!

By Theo Russell

Tariq Ali speaks

A lively meeting of local activists was held at the Indian YMCA in Central London last Wednesday to mobilise grass roots support in Keir Starmer’s constituency for the Camden People’s Alliance (CPA), which is standing in the May local elections in coordination with Your Party and the Greens.
The CPA is led by Andrew Feinstein, a former South African ANC MP, anti- arms trade and Gaza campaigner, who has played an active part in the creation of Your Party. In July he submitted the motion inviting Zarah Sultana to leave Labour and join Your Party as an "interim co-leader" with Jeremy Corbyn.
The meeting was held to launch the CPA’s local elections campaign, which will be run “in consultation with” the Greens and Your Party, with the Gaza war and affordable housing as key concerns.
Andrew Feinstein stood against Keir Starmer in Holborn & St Pancras as an independent in the July 2024 general election, taking second place with 7,312 votes against Starmer's 18,884. His manifesto included opposing austerity and corruption, increased public spending and an end to NHS privatisation, and opposing the British government’s involvement in the Gaza genocide.
Feinstein told the meeting that the CPA’s creation was due to Britain’s support for Israel, and said “it’s a myth that Israel represents all Jews”. He said Keir Starmer was “actively complicit in the genocide”.
“Starmer does not regard ordinary people – teachers, care and health workers as important, for him only donors to the Labour Party are important. We have the best democracy money can buy.
“We don’t just want Starmer out of power, we want him out of Camden too. And we want whoever replaces him to take him to The Hague to face justice for complicity in genocide”.
He added that "Zhoran Mamdani (the new Democrat New York mayor) would have no chance of being selected as a Labour Party candidate".
Sarah Friday, Camden Trades Council Secretary commented that “it’s a scandal that the British government refused to agree an end to the appalling slaughter in Ukraine”.
And the meeting was also addressed by the veteran left activist, journalist and author Tariq Ali, who said “I think this time we’re going to win – unless Starmer goes first”. Ali has joined Your Party, the first time he has joined a party since 1981, when he was expelled by Haringey Labour Party. He commented that “Reform which has four MPs, is getting far more media coverage than Your Party, which has six MPs”.
Around 40 people joined the meeting including many extremely enthusiastic activists, including a Your Party member from Tottenham who said they would be standing against David Lammy in the next general election and said "we can bring him down". He said that three councillors had been physically removed from a Haringey Council meeting, after they called for withdrawing investments in Israeli companies.

Starmer wins as Tories crash!

by New Worker correspondent

Rishi Sunak has resigned. Tory biggies, including Grant Shapps, Jacob Rees-Mogg and Liz Truss, have lost their seats. Plaid Cymru surges forward but the Scottish nationalist vote slumps. The Liberal-Democrats bounce back with 71 seats – their best result for a hundred years. The Greens are up from one to four. Jeremy Corbyn successfully staves off the Starmer machine. George Galloway doesn’t. Four other independents from the Muslim community take seats from Labour on Palestine solidarity platforms and Reform enters parliament for the first time with Nigel Farage at the helm.
Tory grandees are now scrabbling around to look for a new leader as Labour prepares for the Starmer era following a landslide victory of Blairite proportions in the general election.
Labour trounced the Tories this week winning 412 seats in the House of Commons that gives a huge parliamentary majority of 174. But Labour’s triumphant return owes much more to the Tory collapse than to anything Sir Keir Starmer had to offer. The turn-out was down – possibly the lowest since the Second World War and Labour’s share was only around 36 per cent – much lower than Tony Blair’s victory in 1997. And if Starmer & Co refuse to change course over Palestine the rift with the younger generation, the Muslim community and the left as a whole will only widen.
Labour lost four seats to pro-Palestinian independent candidates and faced serious challenges in several others including Starmer’s own London seat where a pro-Palestinian activist came second with 18.9 per cent of the vote. “Labour need to take the votes lost over Gaza as seriously as we took the loss of red wall” said Blair’s former adviser John McTernan as the results came in on Friday morning. 
"The work of change begins immediately" Starmer said soon after he moved into Downing Street though this would not be as simple as "flicking a switch". Platitudes come easy to a man like Starmer who spoke of the need for schools and affordable homes and vowed to "rebuild" the country's "infrastructure of opportunity...brick by brick" to meet the "challenges of an insecure world".
Jeremy Corbyn, the former Labour leader who defeated a Starmer stooge to keep his Islington seat as an independent,  said Starmer “will have a very large majority in parliament, he has put forward a manifesto that is thin to put it mildly and doesn’t offer a serious economic alternative to what the Conservative government is doing. And so the demands on him are going to be huge, the demands from the people are going to be huge.
“If you don’t give yourself space, to increase spending on the desperate social needs, I mentioned the two-child policy, but there are plenty of others, then I think there are going to be political problems. He must have known this when he agreed this manifesto which is a bit of a straitjacket around any proposals he may want to push forward.
“If the government ends the two-child benefit cap for example, hallelujah! I will be delighted. But if they don’t, I’ll be there, saying: why haven’t you done it? If they bring in rent controls in the private sector, well done. If they don’t, I’ll be there. Because this is a vote to show that people do want a true and independent voice in parliament to speak up for social justice”.

A tragedy for Labour

Not a day goes by, it seems, without someone’s expulsion from the Labour Party. Most people have lost track of the Corbynistas who’ve been suspended these days. It began with trumped-up charges of “anti-Semitism”. Now it been extended to “auto-exclude” anyone associated with Socialist Appeal, the Labour in Exile Network, Labour Against the Witchhunt and Resist. And it’s being applied retrospectively to condemn Labour members for taking part in events with members of banned groups in the past, even though they weren’t banned at the time.
    Taken to its logical conclusion, the Blairites should now move to expel any dead members they don’t like on the same grounds. Tony Benn would top the list. Sir Keir Starmer QC, the great “forensic” silk, could easily find some sort of legal precedent for posthumous expulsion. He could point to the precedent set by Charles II, who had the remains of Oliver Cromwell and the other dead “regicides” dug up and ceremonially hanged in public when the monarchy was restored in 1660.
    But Starmer beware. The Pharaohs and Caesars did this sort of thing big time to those they deemed traitors or blasphemers and look what happened to them…

Starmer’s true colours

It hasn't taken long for Sir Keir Starmer to reveal his real agenda for Labour now. He talks about “unity” but what he means is closing ranks behind the neo-liberal ‘New Labour’ agenda and unity around the Blairite has-beens in parliament that backed his cause. His first act has been to call for a Brexit delay. His first response to the coronavirus crisis has been simply to call on the Government to produce a lock-down exit strategy and his reaction to the damning Labour internal report on the treacherous role of the Blairites in undermining the Corbyn leadership was to call for a probe into who leaked it.

Some within the Starmer camp dream of high office in a ‘government of national unity’ whilst the usual fake lefters bleat on about the need for a new ‘Marxist’ party to challenge Labour in the polls. None of them can explain why all previous attempts to do so have failed dismally.

The New Communist Party has never confused the Labour Party with a revolutionary party nor imagined that we can gain a workers’ state through parliamentary elections. But a Labour government, with the yet unbroken links with the trade unions, offers the best option for the working class in the era of bourgeois parliamentary democracy. Our strategy is for working class unity, and our campaigns are focused on defeating the right-wing within the movement and strengthening the left and progressive forces within the Labour Party and the unions. We support those in the Labour Party fighting for left policies, which is part of the struggle for a democratic Labour Party.