Starmer Must Go

[BisiBodi]

I made a lengthy post yesterday (on this thread: www.mumsnet.com/talk/politics/5333405-changes-to-immigration-rules-announced-by-starmer?page=2 @ 17:43 if you want to read it) regarding the horrendous "island of strangers" speech by Starmer
Today, Kier Starmer has decided to say that immigration has done "incalculable damage" to the country. My despair and fury over this, and the general direction of labour, warrants its own thread.

Starmer claimed in writing that immigrants have put too much pressure on housing and public services (they don't, and he previously said they don't). He added that the immigration system is “almost designed to permit abuse” and that it risks “pulling the country apart”. He said that he wanted to close a “squalid chapter” in our country’s history (of too much immigration in the last few years), and then he seemed to quote the Rivers of Blood speech and said that without significantly reducing immigration the UK risks becoming “an island of strangers".

He's doing this because he's proposing new laws to make immigration harder and bring net migration down (except they definitely won't). Stuff like increasing it to 10 years before you can apply for indefinite leave to remain (10 years!!), introducing English language tests (in a post that suggests Welsh doesn't exist), reducing social care visas (the system would collapse in a day), being tougher on overseas students and reducing the time they can stay after graduation (if you reduce their numbers at all then Universities will be bankrupt immediately), new ID cards, reduce (oh sorry, "clarify") the amount ECHR article 8 can be used to justify people staying on human rights grounds, etc.

When someone pointed out that high migration helps economies and low hurts them, and that this is true in the EU right now and all over the world, Starmer didn't think so. He said that immigration has been high in the UK but the economy has been stagnant, so there can't be any link. Yes Keir, but the economy was stagnant during A PANDEMIC AND ENERGY CRISIS AND COST OF LIVING CRISIS AND EXPENSIVE NEW WARS AND GLOBAL MARKET TRUMP TURMOIL. If the immigrants hadn't kept us level, your "stagnant" economy would have plummeted like a rock. You cannot possibly be presenting that as X=Y in a total vacuum.

This kind of xenophobia doesn't need explaining, but it's worth saying why it won't work and will lose Labour a lot of votes:

• Conservative and Reform voters do NOT change their vote to Labour ever, so this pandering is worthless. But Labour can lose votes to the Greens and LDs at a high rate. Nearly ALL the Reform votes come from former Conservatives.
• Public concern about immigration is low and goes up and down exactly with how much the press is currently going on about it (see the graph) so is not worth alienating your voter base about
• And it is alienating voters, because you've heard this kind of rhetoric before but it was from the actual NF and BNP
• The Mail's headline today was still attacking Labour because it is impossible to ever go far enough for them, or for Reform voters. Nothing is ever enough.

So, Labour saying "Reform are right actually" won't bring a single voter over to Labour, but it sure will lose you a few. Or, er, a lot. People are resigning their Labour membership and sounding furious. I haven't seen a single event trigger this much outrage from the public (and Labour MPs) in quite a while. Starmer has hugely damaged himself. Germany's far-right AfD are praising him, that's the level it's at.

I already left for the Greens, but today has me going even further. I think it's now worth the potential chaos to get rid of Starmer's version of Labour. In a timely article today, Nesrine Malik called our current elections "hostage politics". You MUST vote Labour or the Tories will get in. Now you MUST vote Labour or Reform will get in.

I don't respond well to threats. Never have. I tend to escalate. And I'm bored of their crap: more cuts, keeping first-past-the-post even though Labour members want PR, refusing to talk about rejoining the EU even though Labour members (and the majority of the country) want full rejoin, this xenophobic shit which goes against everything Starmer said about immigration when he was running for leader (but then he's broken every pledge from that time), the anti-trans bollocks, coming for the disabled PIP and saying all benefits are too high and that people are taking advantage of handouts and all the rest.

Fuck these guys. There's pragmatic politics where you compromise, and then there's this literal far-right shit that means you personally HAVE to be comfortable with saying it in public. It's about the soul of the PM and the party. Today is way over the line of sensible cross-party anything.

And I'm done with hostage politics. What, so we keep Labour in for 8 more years of... this? Of the same or more cuts? I'm rapidly approaching the point where smashing this Labour party so that they never try to be centre- / far-right again would do more good than the short-term harm.

Voters didn't show unwavering support for Labour at the last election, they showed that they will be extremely flexible and vote for whoever can win in their area. If Labour become unpopular in the polls, that will be someone else and not them. Labour's lead is incredibly fragile and changeable and today's performance is EXACTLY how they lose it and deserve to lose it. Yes, some young men went to Reform before the election... and twice as many young women went to the Greens. Labour's share fell 21% in 18-24 year olds. You cannot gain a single Reform vote by going right. It will never be far-right enough.
Saying that Reform are correct and using their rhetoric in speeches and changing your policies to theirs is NOT how you defeat them, or run a country.

Replace Starmer, quickly. At the very least.

And so what is the purpose of this thread, other than to vent into an online echo-chamber? I think it's a request to a call to action. It's a call out to everyone who currently resides - whether you like it or not - in a Labour controlled constituency and has a labour MP.

You can easily find out the details, together with links to their speeches and/or voting records, from service such as They Work For You.
Check the details of your MP, and especially their stance on immigration and other matters important to you, then email them.

They’ll probably raise the threshold at which it stops. I really hope they don’t U turn completely, there are so many pensioners who don’t need it.

@BIossomtoes has offered an olive branch, and asked to put it to bed.

I think using anything other than Pension Credit as a qualifier will be really expensive to administer and probably not worth it.

Tax threshold would work just as well.

Why didn't they do it that way it the first place though? Nobody would argue that wealthy pensioners 'need' it, but the way labour did this smacks of cruelty.

Unfortunately also applies to Ukraine.

Putin is a monster for what he is doing to both Russian and Ukrainian youth.

@TheNuthatch I know. It was ill thought through.

This is Labours problem, try and correct a mistake but that then attracts criticism too.

What do people want?

Missed that, onwards and upwards!

I'm not criticising the reversal (if there is one), I'm criticising the original decision.
If the only cost effective way to do this was to link it to pension credit, it should have been left alone imo.

Why is that a slur?

It’s only a slur if you think they will be ashamed of supporting him?

It’s interesting it’s happening now. There were a few threads laughing at people voting in local elections expecting change but in reality they’re having a bigger impact than anything else.

Not make such obvious and entirely foreseeable mistakes in the first place???

They're supposed to be competent. It's not as if the policy was dreamt up by the latest intern!

As Nuthatch said, Olive branches have been offered and accepted. We have moved on.

I listen to the podcast Political Currency with Osborne and Balls.
Shortly after the WFA decision was made, they both agreed that when a new Chancellor arrives in the treasury, one of the first things slapped on the desk by treasury officials is a cut to WFA. Reeves was the only one naive enough to agree to it.

Naive or brave? Just because pensioners are the most likely to vote does it mean they should always be the beneficiaries of every government policy and protected from cuts at all costs. The triple lock is complete unsustainable, as is the WFA. It's not their fault that we are a massively ageing population, but we are where we are.

I heard that from a different former chancellor which means it’s likely to be true. It does concern me that pensioners appear to be politically untouchable when we’re generally the wealthiest demographic. God help the government that has the balls to tackle the triple lock.

As Labour are about to reverse it, I'd say naive, and I'd add cruel and stupid.

Agree

My point is that we are where we are, there is no point continual dragging up the original decision.
Yes it was a stupid decision, has there ever been a Govt that hasn't made these?
Personally, i'd have just removed it from higher rate tax payers.

Should Labour increase the threshold allowance, that should only be welcomed but it wont be, it'll be portrayed as weak/flip flop blah blah blah as posters on here are already doing

Why should it only be welcomed? Of course they’ll get backlash. You probably contributed to the same when the last gov were in.

If we are discussing competence don't all parties have their issues there, I mean despite Reform's attempts to professionalise the party the unedifying business with Rupert Lowe really undermines those efforts. Is what he is saying about Farage the truth- something about running a cult?

Is Chagos on hold because it is too expensive? So spend the money on WFA backtrack instead?

Then we need to get better at confiscating assets and monies from offenders to help pay for more prisons, etc. Hit the offenders in their pockets.

Just read an interesting article in the library in the Times by David Goodhart.
He talks about the post liberal world and a social democratic conservative hybrid with left leaning economics but somewhat more right on social and cultural issues. The latter to make the majority feel safer essentially. Maybe just a posh way of the post woke backlash. Seems to me this is more where Starmer may lie ideologically too. I reckon most Labour members always knew Starmer is sort of small c in many ways so surely if that is also where the majority of the electorate also lie it’s a good thing for the party, rather than a bad thing.