Et tu Keir? Starmer might have (twice) campaigned for Jeremy Corbyn to become Prime Minister, but that hasn’t stopped the current Labour leader from brutally turning on his onetime ‘friend’ in his relentless quest to reach No. 10. Starmer announced yesterday that he would be submitting a motion to Labour’s ruling body to bar Corbyn from being the party’s candidate at the next election, on the grounds of his past record in the 2019 election. And today that motion sailed through Labour’s National Executive Committee, passing by 22 votes to 12. Bye bye Jezza…
Mr S was intrigued by Starmer’s decision to focus on political (electability) rather than moral (antisemitism) reasons as the basis for his motion to bar Corbyn. But allies of Corbyn have admitted to the Times that the drafting of the proposal drastically curtails the grounds for legal action against Labour. That leaves him with little option but to retire or run against the party – something that would mean his expulsion as a card-carrying member. Labour is understood to have modelled the wording of its motion to bar Corbyn on a 2021 High Court ruling. The court ruled that Labour could not be forced to run a left-wing candidate it did not judge to be in the best interests of the party, with Liverpool’s Anna Rothery losing that case following her exclusion from the contest to be the mayoral candidate.
Game, set and match to Starmer. Still, it doesn’t do much for his image as a supposed man of principle. After all, as, er, Islington’s Labour branch has pointed out, Starmer was elected on a pledge in 2020 that ‘members should select their candidates for every election.’ If he can’t keep his word to party members, why should the public trust him eh?
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