Is Starmer seriously going to resign???

[Swayingpalmtrees]

I have been waiting for a thread to come up about this, but I can't see one to date. I can't believe Keir Starmer has now said he will resign (and Angela Rayner as well) Potentially leaving the Labour party with no leader at all!

Looking at the 'evidence' that is well known and has been published, it appears the Indian takeaway was pre ordered (due to its size) and pre planned according to the staff at the Indian and the leaked memo, it did include quite a number of people and bottles of beer etc and drinking. It was late into the night, so not work related, and no one is suggesting anyone continued to work afterwards as it was so late. I don't see how this is any different to the No10 arrangements! So how on earth will they avoid a fine??

Sir Keir's speech was so wobbly I actually thought he was resigning there and then, and although I appreciate the sentiments of integrity and honour, where on earth does that leave the LP with under two years to the election or less?

Who would replace him? Do we have any thoughts on a plan of any kind?

I am kind of aghast, we are in the middle of a European war, on the cusp of potentially WW3, I am not sure this is a responsible action given the seriousness of our predicament with Russia whom are threatening us on a weekly basis with nuclear war. At the very very least, we need a firm hand on the tiller, so to speak, we do not have time to be squabbling over beer and cheese.
AIBU?

I hope that he's not fined or resigns. Think this is a ploy by the Cons to get rid of their biggest competition after Labour took a lot of Tory seats

I've worked past 10 pm and we had takeaway brought in. I'm teetotal so didn't have beer, others might have.

I hope so, I can’t stand the smarmy pillock. Mind you he’s better than the dirty looking pillock they had before.

I truly hope he does. We have endured months and months of them banging on about Boris’ birthday cake, only to find they were at least as bad themselves. And to add insult to injury,they haven’t got an original idea or policy between them

At least as bad? Oooh, OP has reinforcements!

The sad fact of the matter is that there is no one to take either Boris or Keir’s place on the horizon. Nine that I would have any confidence in anyway. Any suggestions?

None, not nine!

Don’t bet on it. If BJ could be shamed by anything we’d have seen it by now. His premiership CV is appalling without partygate.

I notice that talk of him pushing for a vote of no confidence to resolve the issue within the party has quietened down since KS has had the spotlight shone on him. Clearly they’ve gone another route,

This is a mistake and normalising substandard politicians, would you apply this logic to any other area of your life? Partners, friends, bosses, employees etc? ‘Aw Bob’s a shithead and spends all our money every week in the pub, but you know, I haven’t met anyone else sooo..’

I’m not particularly inclined to follow either party very closely but every time this question is asked plenty of names are put forward. I’m game for trying out someone else against a background of recent actual consequences for royally fucking up for either party.

At the moment we’re the equivalent of the MN trope of the mum weakly calling ‘Jake, kind hands. Don’t bite peoples ears off’.

Its just a political ploy by labour. Starmer is happily declaring that he will resign if found guilty. It puts a massive guilt trip on the police and drags them into the political arena if they do find him guilty. The other side of it is that he hopes that if he is found guilty and then resigns he hopes that public opinion and the newspapers will force Boris to step down from the leadership.

18 Downing Street parties investigated. Johnson attended at least 6. Hosted 1 in his flat (escaping the party downstairs in the office). And then lied repeatedly to cover his own arse, lied to Parliament - and has failed to correct the record. His been in breach of his own legislation and the ministerial code that he signed when he became Prime Minister multiple times.

That's without mentioning the dodgy dealings of the flat redecoration and subsequent "investigation", the holiday in Mystique paid for by ? the attempts to rewrite the rules to get Owen Paterson off. I can't be bothered to list it all.

And I am supposed to be persuaded that they are just the same?

Amazing how many people are parroting that Daily Mail front page.

Bit of a gamble to say you’ll resign if you’re fined because you think you’ll be fined and crossing your fingers that this makes the police not fine you.

If Starmer thought he was going to be fined there are ways he could get round it (see Johnson for details) without plans that sound like something Baldrick would come up with.

It seems like it is going to come down to who had the best party

They have to be fined, its no different than party gate! it doesn't make any difference whether they worked after or not, NHS were working after eating (no beer allowed unfortunately or we would be struck off) but we weren't allowed to even share food, only 2 people per table in the canteen so that you were 2m apart (ignore the fact that you could have been side by side with your colleague 5 minutes before holding a patient up🤦) staff rooms/offices had numbers on each door of amount of people allowed in at any one time (3 on ours for at least 100 staff!!) most of the time we had to eat outdoors to not fall foul of the rules and get told off...... Whatever the weather!

The Fixed Term Parliament Act has been repealed.

I have to say that I know many lawyers (including me) who've had lunchtime drinks and then gone back to work. My previous employer sometimes brought beer round on a Friday afternoon. They didn't try sack me for drinking it!

I'm not in a late-night-working sector which means I earn a fraction of those who are! but I can't imagine that an alcoholic drink with dinner would be unusual / frowned upon in those circs.

The outrage about mixing drinking with work is most amusing.

Exactly

Not exactly is it? NHS staff had to worry about infections within the hospital/medical setting.

Constituency meetings pre election were permitted. Breaking for food was permitted. It's why Johnson's patio meeting with cheese & wine (and his wife) is not being investigated (by your reckoning it should be added to the others).
Gatherings for the purpose of socialising were not - hence BYOB garden party is being investigated as is Johnson's ABBA party.

No different? Other than it was the year after when the law was different, for a start.

It's a bit desperate to try to assert that the situations are the same!

Different year, different rules - this is what a lot of people don't seem to have grasped.

And the NHS had different rules again, maintaining much more stringent rules than those for the general public, for very obvious clinical reasons. There was never a need for those super stringent rules to apply everywhere, healthcare settings are quite different.

Constituency meetings pre election were permitted. Breaking for food was permitted. It's why Johnson's patio meeting with cheese & wine (and his wife) is not being investigated (by your reckoning it should be added to the others)

that’s interesting. So by rights the bar for proving a ‘work event’ may be raised considerably perhaps?

I’d love to see a breakdown of how much police time and investigations involving other public bodies this cabinet has took up since their time in office. A comparison with previous cabinets would be helpful too. (Hinty, hint for any journos who may be lurking)

How is it "at least as bad"? They complied with the law in force at the time. Even if they didn't, there is no suggestion that they had 15 events, they didn't make the laws, and they haven't lied to Parliament about it.

The law at the time allowed people to gather where it was reasonably necessary for the purposes of election campaigns. For what it's worth, at that time it would also have allowed NHS workers to gather where it was reasonably necessary for work purposes. When you say you weren't allowed to share food, I suspect that that was either a different time or your bosses accepted that it wasn't necessary for work. But I can't see how anyone can claim that this gathering didn't comply with exemption criteria.

As for it being no different from party gate - really? One gathering not 15, different laws in place, Labour didn't make the laws, they weren't inviting in all sorts of people who blatantly didn't need to be there, and they didn't lie to Parliament about it.

OP, You don’t believe the leader of the opposition could’ve been working at 9/10pm? I honestly find that astounding.

*during the pandemic. Really?!?

OP’s bored with winding everyone up and has now pissed off!