In his 2020 Labour leadership bid, Keir Starmer pledged to put an end to factionalism and unify the Labour Party. Just like all of his other "pledges" it was a barefaced lie, and what Starmer has delivered is the most extreme and fanatical Labour Party factionalism in living memory.
Starmer started off by stitching up the leadership nomination process to exclude socialists, women, and people of colour from future leadership election contests, via a huge transfer of power from party members to right-wing Labour MPs, and things have only got worse since.
Labour left-wingers blocked from standing in their own seats over absolutely spurious bollocks; introduction of an incredibly dodgy online voting system that mysteriously favours Labour right-wingers and Starmer nodding dogs; endless Stalinist diktats banning local Labour associations from debating forbidden topics; the biggest ever purge of Jewish Labour Party members; the mass exodus of Muslim Labour politicians over Starmer’s genocide complicity (with Starmer’s allies gleefully describing this as "shaking off the fleas"); the mass stitch up of nominations to parachute elitist Starmer allies into constituencies all over the country; the cruel mistreatment of Diane Abbott; and the use of vindictive "lawfare" against former party staffers.
Starmer’s enforcers wasted years, and at least £2.4 million in members’ donations pursuing five former staffers with evidence-free allegations that they leaked a damning report into the Labour right’s racism, bigotry, and internal sabotage during the Corbyn years.
Starmer’s response to this leaked report was to commission Martin Forde to investigate the contents of the report, and who leaked it.
Forde found that it was impossible to ascertain the source of the leak, but Starmer and his goons ignored Forde’s findings and continued with their vindictive prosecution regardless of the lack of evidence.
Starmer also ignored Forde’s warning that Labour was operating a "hierarchy of racism" and becoming a "hostile environment for people of colour", and binned his recommendations aimed at stamping out factionalism and bigotry in the Labour ranks.
Finally, after dragging the process out for years, Labour has finally abandoned their vindictive prosecution of Karie Murphy, Seumas Milne, Georgie Robertson, Harry Hayball and Laura Murray, but this evidence-free witch hunt has cost the party at least £2.4 million (it could be much higher if Labour covered the legal costs of their former employers in the confidential settlement).
Given that Starmer and his goons are likely to be handed control of the entire country in a matter of weeks, there are some dire implications.
If these awful people are prepared to expend such efforts on prosecuting factional opponents, despite never having had any evidence whatever of their guilt, do we really want these terrifying people running the Home Office and the Ministry of Justice?
And if they’re prepared to waste such a remarkable amount of their own party’s cash on a vindictive prosecution that had absolutely no chance of success due to their total lack of evidence, surely this wastefulness bodes extremely badly for the public finances too?
And if Starmer’s Labour are so obsessed with witch-hunting factional opponents and perceived "enemies" that they’ll misuse party funds to put innocent people through years of legal stress based on literally no evidence, surely there’s a danger that they’ll misuse their new powers over the police, secret services, and other state infrastructure for this kind of vindictive score-settling too?The last working-class hero in England.
Clio the cat, ? July 1997 - 1 May 2016 Kira the cat, ? ? 2010 - 3 August 2018 Jasper the Ruffian cat ? ? ? - 4 November 2021
I mean would you buy a used car from cuprinol man [wooden, hollow and maggot infested to the core]? He'd probably sell you a death trap and ask you to pay the bill.
Missed this repulsive comment, apparently from Nov last year. The 'labour source', one journalist saying 'senior', Yvette Cooper claiming it didn't come from 'anywhere near the leadership', has never been named and apparently not been disciplined. (Interesting that most commenters presumed it was Akehurst even back then.) Change the religion/ethnicity to Jews being referred to as parasites and imagine the outrage. They'd be bringing back the death penalty over it.
Labour comments on "shaking off the fleas" quote r/LabourUK 7 mo. ago CelestialShitehawk
You may remember a few weeks ago long term Labour right leak outlet Lee Harpin posted a tweet saying
Lab source on the few quitting the party over party stance on Hamas. "Shaking off the fleas."
Harpin quickly deleted the tweet after people pointed out how openly racist it was.
To be honest I expected this to be one of those things that simply never get mentioned again, however today we have two Labour figures commenting on the quote.
In an article from a few days ago that was posted here earlier sometimes journalist sometimes Labour advisor (not actually sure which she is right now) Ayesha Hazarika says:
Just as he has done important work regaining the trust of the Jewish community, so must he treat the Muslim community with care and respect. We are worth no less just because we are Muslim. After the resignation of Muslim Labour councillors, a senior Labour source was quoted saying it was a sign the party was “shaking off the fleas”.
This is the kind of dehumanising language one would expect from the Home Secretary, not the Labour Party.
I understand this was not a member of Starmer’s team and that he and General Secretary David Evans were furious about this briefing, and rightly so. That is not what Labour should ever be about. And I don’t believe that’s who Starmer is.
And this morning Yvette Cooper on Laura Kuenssberg's show said:
My understanding is that did not come from anyone anywhere near the Labour leadership and that the party has made that abundantly clear and I understand that that has been recognised and accepted. Clearly it's a disgraceful thing to say and that's why nobody in the Labour leadership would have said it.
I'm not totally clear that Cooper actually means when she says "the party has made that abundantly clear and I understand that that has been recognised and accepted", since these are the first public comments I've seen on it.
Anyway I think Andrew Fisher put this very well on twitter when he said.
Yvette Cooper says the briefing from a Labour source that people resigning over Gaza was "shaking off the fleas" did not come from anyone in the Labour leadership.
Which suggests they do know where it did come from. So has that person been disciplined?
Additional blast from the past here in that this very much reminds me of anonymous racist comments around the Batley and Spen by election, which Angela Rayner promised to investigate, and which I have heard nothing about since.
Observe the stark difference between, on the one hand, the media-wide unconcern at the outrageous racist insult that is 'shaking off the fleas' and, on the other, the two or three days of headline-grabbing commotion (including the employment of actual expert lip-readers) over the question of whether Corbyn said 'Stupid woman!' under his breath during an exchange with Theresa 'Go Home vans' May. (Dec 2018)
Indeed, I speak as one of those derided by Labour's traitorous anti-Corbyn element as 'trots', 'rabble' and 'dogs' -- with evident cross-media approval...
I was under the illusion, given my five year ban issued in January 2020 for allegedly threatening to murder the Kinnock clan, that I was one of the fleas, namely, actual Left who opposed the Rightist scum. I/m confident, if we had Concentration Camps the Rightist scum would have ensured we were place in the camps for re-education, namely to love Keith without qualification.
on June 7, 2024, 12:01 pm