Clark – I am really grateful for the support that I feel from other contributors here and it was refreshing to be in direct contact with you the other day. You highlight, “My protest outside the High Court in London demonstrates the impression a lone protester cam make with a shit-load of signage.” Although we should be judicious about inserting photos, this one picture demonstrates the need to think outside the box and become more creative in our protests just as Vivian Westward excelled in her ‘canary in a birdcage’ protest outside the Old Bailey. The biased BBC and rightwing press wanted to ignore the Assange trial, but they couldn’t resist the ‘hook’ of that bizarre front page worthy image as it was just too tempting. We must rise to this challenge to secure media attention against the odds. I don’t go out that much now due to the current limitations, but my greatest contribution remain accessible in my slogans and protest ideas available for adoption by any and all progressive groups as the desire to ramp-up protests accelerates.
Last Monday we discovered that if the public protest loud and long enough this Tory Government, with its worrying fake majority in Parliament, can be forced into making a significant U-Turn to correct damaging policy decisions. Last time it was a plucky young football hero who embarrassed them into shifting track; this time it was thousands of irate young people protesting the injustice of downgrades that could have wrecked their future. I doubt it was due to consideration of how this angry response might affect the future voting intentions of this growing cohort as they have been relentlessly exploited for the last decade and if we fail to protest, Investigate and overturn the Covert 2019 Rigged Election, industrial scale voting fraud will be so well established in the next few years that elections will become irrelevant to the Johnson/Cummings Dictatorship. We must take heed of successful tactics in the long battle ahead because sadly we can no longer rely on the progressive Left Labour opposition we had under Jeremy Corbyn.
I am still trying to fathom how those who religiously cling to the total con trick of so called ‘borrowed votes,’ as perpetrated by the Tory propaganda mill with relentless repetition by an alt-right Media machine, can explain the selection of Keir Starmer as the new Labour Leader? Starmer was the MP who insisted on Labour support for a confirmatory Brexit vote that was supposedly the main driving force that resulted in Labour members ‘lending’ Boris Johnson their vote, so there is absolutely no logical reason why he shouldn’t have been blamed for the election failure instead of being rewarded. This is just one of the square pegs that refuses to be rammed into a round hole as the public are told nothing but a pack of lies in order to maintain the fake legitimacy of the ‘landslide victory’ that never really happened. Now the deceitful ‘levelling up’ lie has been exposed as just Tory PR spin to cover the usual malevolent callous Conservative exploitation and neglect of ‘Decimating Down,’ it’s time to change the narrative on voter fraud too.
But the British people no longer have a trusted Labour Leader dedicated to equality and ready to fight against injustice as Jeremy Corbyn did. A treacherous Trojan horse has taken charge, to gut the Labour Party with divide and rule tactics designed to bury the progressive Left agenda for the foreseeable future. Despite promises to unify and retain the popular policies that swelled the ranks with enthused supporters after winning the top spot Starmer can now ditch the pretence that gained him votes and drag the Labour Party to the jingoistic, Zionist, elitist right and political oblivion. His weak performances at PMQs and his determination to support the shambolic Tory handling of the Covid 19 crisis have alarmed us all. But, worst of all his total subservience to the demands of the Zionists in the BoD, sacking Long-Bailey on a pretext and then offering a grovelling apology and massive payout in capitulation to John Ware’s ‘Poison Dart Blowers’ over the Panorama hatchet job, which will now open the Party up to countless lawsuits.
This would have been a disgraceful performance for a leader without any legal training, but in Starmer’s case his flawed decisions reek of deliberate sabotage since this disastrous, destructive miscalculation was the work of a seasoned Lawyer with much touted ‘forensic’ legal analytical skills. Why was Starmer able to go against the advice of the Legal team handling the case in Court, who assured him that Labour would win? Starmer should have immediately recognized the Ware lawsuit as a classic SLAPP case that they would not dare bring to Court. How could Starmer not have anticipated that this unjust settlement would generate a rush to cash in on the unsupported admission of guilt over the anti-Semitism smear campaign? In a 7th of August article that appeared on the World Socialist Web Site, Thomas Scripps provided critical background information on Starmer that should really have served as a warning to members of the Labour Party when he asked, “Who is the new UK Labour Party leader Sir Keir Starmer?”
Telling it like it is, in the article Scripps says that, “the election of Sir Keir Starmer marks the return to a business-as-usual Blairism shorn of any socialist pretensions. Starmer’s campaign sought to trade heavily on his early career as a Doughty Street lawyer, defending human rights and trade union cases—the aim being to spin out of these efforts to hold capitalism to its own laws a radical persona.” How many were so easily fooled by Starmer’s fake façade of Socialism into voting for him to lead the Labour Party, despite a chequered career and a centrist voting history? According to Scripps, “The real measure of Starmer’s politics is the fact that this youthful flirtation with the pseudo-left was no obstacle to his acceptance by the security services into the highest echelons of the British state, becoming Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) in 2008. Once appointed, this millionaire ‘radical lawyer’ fitted seamlessly into the state apparatus and the defence of its crimes.” In reality he hasn’t budged an inch since then!
Scripps highlights the appalling injustice of Keir Starmer’s legal decisions in the past, recalling how, “Three years earlier, on July 22, 2005, the Metropolitan police had killed electrician Jean Charles de Menezes, an innocent man, with seven shots to the head in an underground train carriage. He had been misidentified as a terrorist in the aftermath of the July 7 London bombings. In 2006, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), under the leadership of DPP Sir Ken MacDonald, refused to prosecute any officer involved. After the police’s account of what happened on the day was comprehensively demolished, a 2008 inquest jury into Menezes’s killing returned an open verdict, refusing to rule that the police acted lawfully. They had been barred by the coroner from reaching a verdict of unlawful killing. Starmer, as the new DPP, nonetheless approved the decision not to prosecute any of the police officers involved.” So it’s little wonder that Starmer wants to downplay and insultingly marginalize the current Black Lives Matter protests!
But Scripps reveals more saying of Starmer that, “He tried to do the same in 2011 in the case of Ian Tomlinson, a father of nine who was brutally attacked by police officer Simon Harwood in 2009. Harwood hit Tomlinson, who was walking with his hands in his pockets in the other direction, across the back of the legs with a baton. Tomlinson was unable to break his fall, causing fatal internal bleeding to his liver shortly afterwards. Fifteen months later, Starmer announced that Harwood would not be prosecuted. The CPS was forced to proceed a few months later when an inquest jury found that Tomlinson had been unlawfully killed.” There are similar disturbing revelations about the newly selected Democratic choice for Vice President in the US. Kamala Harris had a damaging track record of prosecutions that targeted wrongly convicted offenders and punished minorities and the working poor by ruthlessly prosecuting parents for the truancy of their children proving that ‘tough on crime’ has always been a great electioneering sales pitch.
Ethical retailer Lush launched a well publicized campaign to expose the “Spycops” scandal and a Canary Article, “a message to anyone thinking of voting for Keir Starmer in the Labour Leadership race,” exposed his involvement. Scripps says that, “In 2011, Starmer was in court to witness the collapse of a trial of environmental activists after the involvement of undercover police officer Mark Kennedy was revealed. The case began the ‘Spycops’ scandal, which has since exposed the extensive, long-term infiltration of left-wing and environmentalist groups by police agents, who grossly abused the rights of campaigners and perverted the course of justice in countless court cases. The CPS is suspected of having been closely involved. As DPP, Starmer refused to pursue the matter. Referring to an in-house CPS investigation, he accepted the manifestly untrue: ‘If Sir Christopher Rose had found systemic problems, then I would quite accept perhaps a retrospective look at all the cases.’ But he didn’t, he found individual failings.”
Scripps points out that, “Starmer was no less reliable on the crimes of British imperialism. Under his direction, the CPS refused to prosecute MI5 and MI6 personnel in 2010, 2011 and 2012. The agents were suspected of participating in CIA extraordinary rendition programmes and the torture of detainees in Guantanamo Bay and Afghanistan. Most infamously, in 2013 the CPS pressured Swedish prosecutors into maintaining a fraudulent investigation into WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, as a pretext for securing his arbitrary detention in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London. Uncovered emails show Starmer’s department writing to their Swedish counterparts, “Don’t you dare get cold feet!” Starmer’s undoubted jingoistic support for the Military Industrial Complex has earned him the trust of Tories, but the alarm of progressive Labour members who now realize that Sir Keir is a treacherous Trojan horse riding into their midst to betray and sabotage all of the achievements of the Corbyn era; Starmer’s craven capitulation to John Ware on behalf of the Zionist lobby leaves us in no doubt.
Starmer is eager to ditch Labour’s economic policies too. According to Scripps, “The new Labour leader also proved himself a pliant tool of the coalition and Tory governments during their reign of austerity. After major student demonstrations in 2010 against the planned trebling of tuition fees were met with a brutal police crackdown, Starmer implemented new guidelines to encourage the prosecution of protestors. They read: ‘Prosecutors should have particular regard to whether there is evidence that a person had come to the protest equipped with clothes or mask to prevent identification, items that could be considered body protection, or an item that can be used as a weapon…’ The terms were kept deliberately vague to allow virtually any hand-held object or face covering to be used as a pretext for an arrest. His guidelines were designed to prepare the state for the implementation of the Conservative/Liberal Democrat government’s vicious spending cuts and the mass opposition they would provoke.”
Scripps reports that, “Explaining his actions, Starmer told the Guardian at the time, ‘There’s a potential for a number of protests over the coming years that may be quite large…’ Following the London riots in 2012 and the rubber-stamp sentencing of over 1,000 young people, Starmer praised the efforts to rush defendants through the courts: ‘For me it was the speed that I think may have played some small part in bringing the situation back under control.’ He visited Highbury Magistrates Court in North London in the early hours of the morning to boost the morale of the prosecutors and praise their efficiency. In 2013, after Tory Chancellor George Osborne launched a gutter-press campaign against ‘benefits cheats,’ Starmer issued guidelines for the CPS allowing those accused of improperly drawing social security to be charged under the Fraud Act. This allowed for sentences of up to 10 years. He also removed the financial threshold on sending cases to Crown Court, meaning even the smallest ‘ofences’ could be punished with long-term jail time.”
Scripps recalls how, “In 2014, Starmer was granted a knighthood for his services. A year later he was elected to the safe London Labour seat of Holborn and St Pancras. The same pro-capitalist, pro-state politics has characterised his parliamentary career. In 2015, Sir Keir abstained from the vote on the Tory Welfare Bill, which left 13 million of the most vulnerable people in society an average of £260 a year poorer. The year after, he voted for retaining the Trident nuclear weapons system, against an ‘Investigation into Contrasts Between Public Statements and Private Policy’ in the Iraq War, and for the Investigatory Powers Bill—better known as the Snoopers’ Charter. As shadow home office minister, Starmer spearheaded what he called a ‘constructive engagement’ between Labour and the Tory government to get this mass surveillance law on the books.” None of Starmer’s voting history chimes with the beliefs and sentiments of the vast majority of current Labour members, who if they knew better would label him a Tory.
Then there was the ‘Chicken Coup’ debacle in which Starmer demonstrated his dislike an opposition to Corbyn. Scripps reports that, “The same year, Starmer joined the likes of Hilary Benn in resigning from the front bench to begin a coup of Labour MPs against the newly elected leader of the party, Jeremy Corbyn. During the subsequent leadership election, Starmer backed Blairite nonentity Owen Smith. Starmer’s leadership team includes Matt Pound, the head of right-wing pressure group Labour First, born out of the witch hunt of left-wing party members in the 1980s. After the 2016 leadership challenge, Starmer made full use of Corbyn’s prostration before the right and appeals for party unity to take up the role of Shadow Brexit Secretary. He used this position to champion a policy for maintaining British capitalism’s relationship with the European Union, working in alliance with pro-EU sections of the Tory Party.” Few details of his negotiating stance were made public, but Sir Keir Starmer gained credibility and attention.
It was not long after Starmer managed to secure his place at the top that the strong signals of betrayal became evident to those who had foolishly voted for him. Scripps says, “Now Labour leader, he has signalled his readiness to join a full-blown government of national unity with the Tories, in response to the coronavirus crisis. Starmer’s shadow cabinet appointments have already won the praise of their Tory counterparts, with new Shadow Home Secretary Nick Thomas-Symonds posting on Twitter: ‘My first act as Shadow Home Secretary has been to speak to [Home Secretary Priti Patel] this evening about the public health emergency we face and the constructive dialogue that is going to be needed in the days and weeks ahead.’ Other shadow cabinet appointments include former leader Ed (‘austerity lite’, ‘controls on immigration’ mugs) Miliband and arch-Blairites Rachel Reeves and Lord Falconer.” It is obvious that the Tories approve of this lurch to the right as it is reflected in BBC and media accolades.
Scripps reports that, “Corbyn loyalists Richard Burgon, Dawn Butler, Barry Gardiner, Ian Lavery and Jon Trickett were removed, and Corbyn, John McDonnell and Diane Abbott jumped before being pushed. The political chameleon and loyal flunkey Rebecca Long-Bailey as Shadow Education Secretary is the supposed ‘flag-bearer’ of the ‘left’.” Starmer took the earliest possible opportunity to remove this token progressive from his front bench on the flimsiest of Zionist appeasement grounds showing he is in lock-step with the BoD. He adds, “Corbyn spent the best part of five years strangling a popular movement against austerity and war, in a stated attempt to prevent the total collapse of a discredited party of third-rate, right-wing politicians. The fruit of his labour is the election of a backroom state functionary to the Labour leadership.” Saying, “Starmer will make a fitting figurehead for the party’s final descent into political oblivion.” We must all hope that he is wrong and Starmer’s poor performance will see him challenged and ousted.
By the time Labour launched their Leadership contest Keir Starmer had already gained a lot of public attention and valuable name recognition due to his role as the chief Labour representative in the negotiations over Brexit. This appointment won him credibility among a predominantly pro-remain contingent within the Labour Party, but he also gained acceptance as a tolerable ally among Tories opposed to a hard Brexit. However, it is logical to assume that Labour Leave supporting Party members would probably have felt compelled to punish Starmer in the Labour Leadership contest. Those who supposedly ‘lent’ their votes to Boris Johnson to “Get Brexit Done” in its most destructive iteration, would have taken the opportunity of retained Labour Party membership to show their disdain for the MP who was most responsible for Labour’s openness to holding a second referendum. So one of the above scenarios must be incorrect: either Starmer’s Brexit stance was immaterial to Labour voters or the “borrowed votes” spin is just a big fat lie!
If progressive politics is to have any hope of surviving this crisis we must aggressively campaign to change the false Tory narrative that the BBC and mainstream media are so eager to push. We can disarm the Tory rhetoric: when “strong and stable” became a point of public ridicule for robotic May, she dropped it like a hot potato. The fake “Borrowed Votes” are just “Stolen Votes;” “Levelling up” must become “Decimating Down” and the “Red Wall” is now the “Tory Sinkhole!” Although I am not accomplished in blurting out pithy quips on Twitter this can prove a very useful tool in the hands of someone like Rachael @Swindon, with a progressive Left following online. We still need to convince Carole Cadwalladr, or any other professional investigative Journalist, to expose the truth about Covert 2019 Rigged Election and it would really be a plus if the Led by Donkeys’ team took up our cause. Anyone who has the contacts to direct these people to this Forum or put them in touch with me will be doing us all a really great service. DO NOT MOVE ON!