Oh dear. Having squeaked home in the Batley by-election and with the summer recess less than a week away, Sir Keir Starmer probably thought he had made his way over the finish line of the parliamentary calendar. Unfortunately his party’s youth wing have been able to get one last embarrassment in before MPs pack up for their summer hols, with Young Labour today proudly declaring their support for the Cuban dictatorship.
The organisation, which represents Labour supporters between the age of 14 and 26, has given its ‘unconditional solidarity to the Cubans in the struggle against imperialism,’ blaming the recent protests against the country’s leadership as a result of the ‘imperialist attacks and economic warfare by the United States from the first days of its revolution.’
It uncritically repeats the embattled regime’s propaganda about Cuba’s health system, in which doctors are effectively treated as indentured servants, and of course makes no mention of ‘disappeared’ journalists, police brutality or the collapse of the economy, reliant for so long on tourism bringing in precious foreign currency.
Already Tory MPs are piling in to condemn the twenty-somethings behind the tweet, putting pressure on Starmer’s team to distance themselves from the Castro fan boys. Steerpike wonders if Labour’s leadership will choose to do anything about the party’s official youth wing endorsing the actions of an authoritarian regime. After all, it’s not the first time young activists have embarrassed its MPs during recent months, with London Young Labour effectively calling for the abolition of Israel back in May.
As the footballer pundit Alan Hansen once remarked, ‘You can’t win anything with kids.’ Judging by the state of Young Labour, Starmer will have a hard time disproving that maxim.
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