Keir Starmer’s behaviour, demeanour and language has taken a rapid and strange turn of recent. Unable to do anything meaningful about this country’s economic woes or the chronic immigration crisis, the Prime Minister now resorts to words in preference to actions. He relies increasingly on alarmist rhetoric and hollow gestures in order to make us believe that he is a competent and purposeful leader.
It’s the customary response of low-intelligence fringe-leftists
The decision to officially recognise Palestine, a country with no borders, no capital city and no meaningful government, was merely one indication of this lurch. His endless pronouncements on his determination to ‘smash the gangs’, rather than do anything hard-nosed about the small boats debacle, and his new eagerness to repeat on a loop that Labour is the ‘party of patriotism’, represent a faith in performative utterances: the idea that if you say something constantly and with sufficient vehemence such words will translate into reality, or that cynical, feverish invective can effect a desired outcome.
Starmer’s latest ruse in this regard has been to denounce Reform UK’s policy on indefinite leave to remain, damning it yesterday as ‘immoral’ and ‘racist’. This marks a new low. That latter word is traditionally deployed by far-left types prone to Manichean thinking, by those who believe ‘racist’ will act as a magical incantation that will diabolise their enemies and forewarn all those lured by their promises. It’s the customary response of low-intelligence fringe-leftists who, as the recent fiasco within Your Party has reminded us, can’t even be trusted to run a tiny political organisation, let alone a country. It reflects badly on our Prime Minister that he has taken recourse to such desperate language.
Reform’s plans aren’t literally racist. They may pertain to those mainly of Asian origin, to those who were originally allowed in under measures enacted in the wake of Britain’s departure from the European Union – the last Conservative government having consequently lowered qualification criteria from immigrants outside the EU. What Reform proposes is merely a return to some form status quo ante, and if this happens to apply to Asians, that’s because the scheme was aimed at them in the first place.
Reform’s plan, to strip indefinite leave to remain status from hundreds of thousands of settled non-EU citizens and force them to reapply for visas under stricter standards, may correctly be called immoral, or just unfair. But with that second accusation, Starmer crossed the line. Furthermore, it’s likely to backfire. Those inclined to vote Reform have long come to associate the mechanical slur ‘racist’ with people unable or unwilling to engage with their sincere and honest concerns.
Still, our Prime Minister’s descent into hyperbole and apocalyptic forebodings mirrors a panicked predicament. Only on Friday, speaking at the ‘Global Progress Action Summit’, Starmer let loose the language of Armageddon.
‘The next election,’ he said, ‘will be a battle for the soul of this country. This is bigger than Labour, it becomes about patriotism’. Directing his ire at Reform UK itself, he concluded: ‘At its heart, its most poisonous belief is that there is a coming struggle, a defining struggle, a violent struggle for the nation.’ Yet in the Guardian on Saturday, without irony, he accused Reform UK of being an ‘enemy’ hiding in ‘plain sight’. For a Prime Minister who claims to be against ‘the politics of division’, this was all pretty divisive stuff.
But what’s a Prime Minister do when he has been reduced to a state of impotence? He can’t fix our country’s finances. If Labour raises spending, taxes and the welfare bill, it will send the economy into a deeper, potentially fatal doom spiral. If he doesn’t do these things, he will face a backbench rebellion and the threat of being ousted by someone who promises that he will: Andy Burnham.
Likewise, he can’t do anything about legal or illegal migration because he knows the already schismatic left in his party will not tolerate anything that might appear ‘uncaring’ to any ethnic minorities. This is why Starmer has deflected and dissembled ad nauseum with his nebulous desire to ‘smash the gangs’, another verbal tic that belies an unwillingness to tackle reality with actions, as opposed to spewing big words that come to nothing.
In contrast to our Prime Minister, Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood did yesterday display some mettle on this matter, announcing plans to make it harder for new migrants to qualify for indefinite leave to remain. But these are early days for Mahmood, a robust player whose connection with reality marks her out as a decided outlier in her party.
If Starmer were serious about fending off the threat from Reform, rather than resorting to abuse, or empty threats about ‘smashing the gangs’, he would instead talk of the prosaic and ugly imperative to ‘stop the boats’. But these words would entail plain, unsentimental, actual deeds.
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