If we support Starmer’s Labour blindly – we risk repeating past mistakes

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People leaving the post-Corbyn Labour Party are doing so reluctantly because they feel the party has left them. Those insisting that everyone should remain regardless of leadership or morality, should play Tony Blair’s Greatest Hits and jog down memory lane.

Who jetted to Australia to gain Rupert Murdoch’s blessing for a neoliberal reinvention of  Labour as New Labour? See the picture above.   

I protested with two million to oppose the 2003 Iraq War. Who ignored us? Who joined an illegal war that killed a million Iraqis? Who faked the evidence? A New Labour government.

Who colluded with the USA to ship people to secret torture bases ? A New Labour government.

Who proudly addressed the Mansion House in 2002 and said this over the fizz of champagne and the chink of gold cutlery:

What you, as the City of London, have achieved for financial services we, as a government, now aspire to achieve for the whole economy:  Gordon Brown.

Successive New Labour governments championed Thatcherism, prompting the Iron Lady to reflect that her greatest achievement was New Labour.

Who extended the Tory deregulation of financial services? Who turned the UK housing market into a casino for billionaires? What party invoked decades of mortgage slavery and locked a whole generation out of home ownership? That would be New Labour.

Lest we forget – it was New Labour that laid the ground for the 2007/8 financial crash in the UK and New Labour that rushed to bail out the banks.

Which party expanded John Major’s Private Finance Initiatives (PFI) in the NHS to facilitate governmental corruption and corporate backhanders on an unprecedented scale? That would be New Labour. 

Who said that supporters of the Boycott, Sanction and Divest movement against Israel were guilty of bigotry? Who also said that:

“despite the challenges that we must address in respect of relations and rights of the Palestinian people, modern Israel stands out as a beacon of freedom, equality and democracy” 

Why that would be Labour’s Emily Thornberry – one of the few to transition to Starmer’s right wing front bench. This opponent of BDS remains Shadow Secretary of State for International Trade.

Nobody in Starmer’s latest right wing reinvention of Labour will offer anything but tokenistic chiding of Israel. As Rebecca Long Bailey found out, all critiques of Israel are now smeared as racist. In a stomach churning move, RLB was even forced to mop up the splatter from her own political assassination and eat humble pie in the Guardian. 

Those ‘challenges’ for Palestinians loom large as Israel prepares to annex the West Bank and extend its brutal occupation of Palestinian land. I regard Israel as a racist terror state, I oppose Israeli apartheid and the maiming and murder of unarmed Palestinian protesters by Israeli snipers. Labour’s current position is shall we say – rather more ‘nuanced’. 

I supported Corbyn’s moral principles. I will not support Labour just because they are Labour.

Labour supporters say I should focus my fire on the Tories. But what is the point in attacking the Tories if Labour are busy becoming the other Tories once again?

I will not compound the death of the Corbyn project by enabling Starmer’s rehabilitation of Blairism. We have already seen what happens when socialists unwittingly lend moral authority to neoliberalism.

As  John Thatcher one of the commenters on Sodium Haze succinctly remarked:

What is generally referred to as the “soft left” are the problem. In spite of everything that has happened to the LP since Blair and New Labour, they simply refuse to wake up to reality. I now think of them not as the soft left but as the stupid left. A new party is desperately needed Real Labour if you like. But you can forget any such party being led by the Campaign group of MPs.They have no intention of risking their comfortable positions for the vagaries of real politics.

Sodium Haze does not support any political party, we argue for moral positions for rational reasons. This is the only compass that matters. To those who berate me for not falling in with Labour’s new order – who point the finger at me and shout ‘traitor’…

…I point the finger right back at them. What principles are you betraying and why? Who will end up getting hurt if we swap socialist principles for a (possible) sniff of the velvet rope?

In the absence of a new party millions are politically homeless once again. I wish those minded to fight the good fight within Labour all the luck in the world – but climate change etc won’t wait for Labour’s ponderous processes to play out – we need that new party and we need it now.

Since 2013 I have worked between 4-6 hours a day on this Ad-Free site: trying to give a voice to those without the power or agency to speak out for themselves and uncovering truths that well paid journalists in the corporate media dare not utter.

I am a home schooling parent on a low income – paying for the domain, web hosting and security entirely out of my own pocket.  

If you found this article useful and could spare us a few shillings to help keep our lights on, it would be very much appreciated.

Thank you in solidarity with all our readers. John Lynch, Editor.     

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