Think Starmer’s a decent, honest man who has been badly treated? Holden’s coruscating biographical investigation should make you change your mind
In the light of Sir Keir Starmer’s resignation as MP for Holborn and St Pancras, now is the perfect time to review this book and reflect on the health of democracy in the UK. If you are a centrist – a right wing Labour supporter, a Lib Dem or a Tory wet (if such a thing exists any more) – please read on. You might be susceptible to evidence. Obviously, Reform and Restore supporters are invited to read it as well, but they seem to be immune to all forms of rational argument.
I’ve been struck by the number of civilised and relatively sane people on social media (and in real life, comfortingly) who have misgivings about the defenestration of Keir Starmer. Even those who were broadly in agreement with the need to replace him, if Labour were to have any chance of forming the next government, seem to feel some regret because they see him as a “decent” and “well-meaning” man who was trying his best to cope with the post Tory Shitshambles situation. Admittedly, he’s not in the same league as Johnson, Sunak, Truss, May or Cameron when it comes to duplicity or incompetence, but he seems to have fooled a huge number of people who, against all available evidence, feel sorry for him.
If you have felt anything akin to this in relation to Sir Keir, I’m prescribing an essential antidote – read The Fraud by Paul Holden, and for a palate cleanser, watch The Labour Files, the Al-Jazeera documentary on YouTube. Both of these modern, seminal texts forensically and irrefutably demolish this, exposing it as one of the great modern myths of our time. The Labour files, in four parts, was broadcast in 2022 and I wouldn’t be at all surprised if you had never heard of it.
Or of the Forde report, the independent report commissioned by the Labour Party to investigate anti-semitism within its ranks. The report that, when it did not back up the Starmer backed-official line on Corbyn and the party he led, was comprehensively buried and effectively disowned. And yet still, to this day, Corbyn is routinely vilified in Parliament, in the press and casually, raising a consensual laugh amongst the chumocracy of the British media, for supposedly being Anti – Semitic. If you have any regard for the truth in public life, or the health of our democracy and public life this is something that must be of the greatest concern.
The book systematically demolishes Starmer’s mystifying reputation for probity, establishing beyond doubt the following facts:
- He was associated with the shadowy Labour Together movement that actively undermined the Labour Party’s campaign during the 2019 General Election. In particular, the book documents how Labour Together illegally and covertly channelled party funds to support the election campaigns of leading Labour right wingers, when left wing candidates in more marginal constituencies were far more in need of any additional resources that were available. In this way, Labour Together, under the leadership of Morgan McSweeney, almost certainly deliberately broke electoral laws regarding funding of election campaigns
2. He lied repeatedly during his leadership campaign in order to persuade a left wing mass membership, who had been largely recruited and invigorated by Corbyn’s adoption of manifesto policies that at the very least were on handshaking terms with Socialism, that he was cut from the same cloth. He even went as far as to describe the Corbyn manifesto of 2019 as “foundational”. All ten of the promises were subsequently broken.
3. He actively pursued a campaign of vilifying predominantly left wing labour members and hounding them under the guise of investigating complaints of anti semitism. Under Starmers’s leadership an extraordinary number of jewish members were accused of antisemitism leading to suspension and /or expulsion.
4. He repeatedly (and to this day) misrepresents the EHRC investigation into Anti Semitism in the party as one which concludes that Corbyn was antisemitic and that the party was institutionally anti semitic. The Left Wing Jewish Voice for Labour, published a pamphlet about the EHRC investigation ( you can get it for free here: https://www.versobooks.com/en-gb/products/2915-how-the-ehrc-got-it-so-wrong ) and it concluded there was:
- no evidence of widespread antisemitism, direct discrimination or victimisation in the Labour Party
- – no evidence that Corbyn or his office were responsible for the Party’s poor handling of complaints
- – no evidence that Corbyn or his office sought systematically to undermine antisemitism complainants or protected those accused
- – a dangerous disregard by the EHRC for the elementary democratic as well as legal principle of free speech.
5. Having set up The Forde enquiry led by an independent KC of some repute, Martyn Forde, into AntiSemitism in the Labour Party, he refused to publish it and then when it was finally published, proceeded to bury its contents. Forde’s report concludes that Anti Semitism had been weaponised by the Labour Right and that thee supposed “interference” into ongoing investigations by Corbyn and other senior leaders had been with the intention of speeding up the process, rather than, as the Starnmerites implied, to obstruct the process. Indeed, under Corbyn complaints were investigated at a far higher rate than under the previous leaders’ regimes.
6. Starmer was at the forefront of the disgraceful Government policy on Gaza, refusing to recognise Gaza as a state, refusing to condemn Israeli aggression as Genocide, despite repeated judgements to that effect from respected international bodies such as the UN and Amnesty International, amongst others. Holden provides ample evidence of the Israeli Government’s involvement in lobbying labour MPs and making payments to them or their constituency offices.
There’s much, much more, both in the book and in the Al Jazeera documentaries. It’s really shocking stuff. But what’s more shocking is how long they got away with it. Have a look at The Labour Files by following the link below and spread the word. Thankfully Starmer, because of all of this, and the series of dreadful policy mistakes made from the beginning of his government, didn’t last in office very long. The arrival of Andy Burnham represents a second chance. His instincts, as represented in the book co-written with Steve Rotheram, Head North, are much more people centered, and left wing. The policies they outline in the second half of the book give a lot of grounds for hope, but we have been let down before. I’ll watch and wait with my fingers crossed. It will be very instructive to watch how they handle the candidate selection for the upcoming byelection and whether Zach Polanski puts his name forward for the Greens. If the new labour incarnation has any sense and it actually means anything substantial, they would welcome back Andrew Feinstein. (watch the documentary for more about him) I’m not holding my breath.
The Old Grey Owl 