Speaker row shows Starmer cannot be trusted with power
GIVEN the mess the Tories have made of almost everything, many of us have been preparing ourselves for the apparent inevitability of a Labour Government. For those of us with long memories, this has induced feelings of queasiness and anxiety. But it was possible to console ourselves with the thought that while Keir Starmer was a deeply uninspiring flip-flopper, at least he did not appear to be a dangerous extremist like his predecessor Jeremy Corbyn.
Taking a knee at the behest of the race hucksters of BLM in 2020 was a bad mistake by the Labour leader, but since then he appears to have moderated, and not sided with, the enemies of our country.
But that changed this week. For, in effect, Starmer has taken the knee again – this time to Islamist mobs seeking to intimidate MPs into backing the Palestine cause in Gaza.
While most of the aftermath of the unseemly “Gazagate” procedural shenanigans in the Commons has focused on the ludicrous rulings of Speaker Lindsay Hoyle, it is the performance of Starmer which should concern us most.
Hoyle buckled and changed Commons procedure to favour Labour, under huge pressure to do so from Starmer. It has been widely reported that Starmer and other Labour MPs cited the intimidation and threats they had received as arguments for their party’s ceasefire amendment being heard, even though the debate was being sponsored by another party.
PROVIDING Labour MPs with the chance to signal they had shifted away from total support for Israel’s mission to destroy Hamas to a more even-handed pro-ceasefire stance was elevated above the importance of the Commons sticking to its normal conventions. And this came about on the pretext of reducing the threats Labour MPs were getting from pro-Palestine activists.
In other words, when faced with anti-democratic extremism from Islamic radicals, Starmer’s Labour decided to go to extraordinary lengths not to confront it, but to appease it.
For a man who aspires to lead our great democracy, this simply will not do.
Many of us are old enough to remember Margaret Thatcher’s reaction when the IRA attempted to assassinate her during her party’s conference in Brighton in 1984. Rather than cancel her keynote speech just hours after the bombing of the Grand Hotel, she defiantly declared business as usual.
“The nation faces what is probably the most testing crisis of our time – the battle between the extremists and the rest,” the prime minister thundered.
“This Government will not weaken. This nation will meet that challenge. Democracy will prevail.”
The contrast between that response to an actual murderous terrorist attack – killing five people, including a Conservative MP – and the buckling of Starmer’s Labour party in the face of Islamist intimidation could hardly be more stark.
The Tory former attorney general Geoffrey Cox put it well: “The buck must lie at the Leader of the Opposition’s door. He aspires to lead this country and yet he has made arguments to the Speaker that we should alter our procedures in this House because of the risk to MPs and intimidation. That would have people who occupied this House over the years revolving in their graves.”
By pushing the Speaker down such a parlous path, Starmer has not made politicians or indeed the British public safer either. On the contrary, he has actually put them and us at further risk by advertising the fact that intimidation and violence from extremists will be rewarded by concessions.
STARMER managed this week to sustain the false impression that his MPs and his party are “united” on the Gaza issue. But to rank that priority above the need to give no quarter – and be seen to give no quarter – to extremism tells us this man is unfit to be prime minister.
That very much throws a spanner in the works when it comes to the next election for those who have resolved either to sit it out or vote for one of the newer, smaller parties. Were the Conservatives to have their wits about them – normally a forlorn hope these days – they would highlight this telling, catastrophic episode for Starmer daily right up until the election.
Can he be trusted to steer the country in a basic, responsible and patriotic manner, notwithstanding his left-wing tendencies? Some of us had come to think probably yes, given the miserable thought of handing the Tories another term in office they manifestly do not deserve.
These events have changed everything: the answer is no.
‘To give ground to extremism tells us Starmer’s unfit to be PM’