Labour figures speak out as Keir Starmer 'steamrolls' democracy

Writing in the Scottish Left Review, Lauren Harper, a member of Labour's Scottish Executive Committee (SEC), questioned what the "point" of the party is under Starmer - and urged members to speak out against the leadership's approach to an array of policy issues.

Meanwhile a former chair of Scottish Labour warned that Starmer is offering "no change" from the current constitutional set-up of the UK, describing this as a "gift to the SNP".

Labour must also take devolved issues more seriously and create policy to stop Westminster being able to overrule the Scottish Parliament, they warned.

It comes after at least nine Scottish Labour officials quit their roles after the leadership allegedly ordered local branches not to debate the situation in Gaza at meetings.

READ MORE: Scottish Labour official who quit role in Gaza row speaks out

Starmer's position on the Middle East crisis, including appearing to suggest Israel could withhold humanitarian aid from Gaza, have caused outrage among the Labour membership - leading to councillors resigning south of the Border.

He has since denied saying that food, fuel, water and medicines could be withheld - insisting he was simply arguing that Israel has the "right to self-defence".

Harper, a representative for Young Labour on the SEC, called on members to stand together to push for a change in direction from Starmer.

"At the top of the Labour Party, Keir Starmer wishes, once again, to steamroll over Scottish democracy, to overrule the Scottish leadership on trans rights, and to continue housing migrants on barges as a form of temporary accommodation," she wrote.

"Given Labour’s bleak positions despite the solidarity ... you would be entirely forgiven for asking: What exactly is the point of the party?"

She continued: “Starmer’s unease about the two-child cap has shown he is not static, and with enough pressure the wider socialist movement can still change the direction of the party.”

In the same magazine, the SEC's second Young Labour representative, Coll McCail, said Starmer’s policies mean that any victory will rest on the votes of a “disengaged, unenthused public”, and called on members to challenge Labour’s offer of “better-managed decline”.

READ MORE: Keir Starmer claims he never said Israel could withhold aid from Gaza

Meanwhile, two Labour veterans suggested that Starmer’s ditching of “popular, radical policies agreed year-after year at conferences” has left members unenthusiastic about campaigning in the forthcoming General Election.

Former chair of Scottish Labour Bob Thomson and Stephen Smellie, deputy convenor of Unison Scotland, hit out at Starmer’s failure to promise anything for low-income workers, those on hospital waiting lists and young voters.

“If Starmer gets into Downing Street, he will be tied down by his own promises – to the market, to business, to the press – not to do anything that will cost any more money. Is getting him elected really worth getting up in the morning?” they asked.

In response to Westminster’s recent decision to overrule the Scottish Parliament on trans rights and drug rehabilitation, they insisted that Labour must “entrench the powers of the Scottish Parliament on devolved matters so that Westminster cannot block them as has happened too often recently".

Thomson and Smellie continued: “On constitutional reform and decentralisation of decision-making from Westminster, it needs to offer more than promises of reviews. Currently Labour is offering no change in the constitutional relationship between the UK and Scotland. This is a gift to the SNP.”

They added: “A political party needs vision and passion, and Labour must find it or face irrelevance and decline.”

Michael Russell, the SNP's president, said that Labour's own activists speaking out against the party's direction should show Scotland the clear difference between the two parties.

"If Labour’s own supporters and activists now agree that nothing will change for Scotland in the event of a Starmer victory, particularly with regard to the vital issues for our country that the Scottish Parliament has shown are best resolved here, then clearly choosing a better way with the SNP is a no brainer.

"Time and again when the Tories have been kicked out of power a timid Labour Party has then walked away from making real change happen. Now the sell out on everything from the cruel rape clause to the abolition of the House of Lords  has started even before they have won an election."

The former constitution secretary continued: "There is broad agreement in Scotland about the fair, equal and supportive society we want to see but Labour’s own activists now freely admit that their own party doesn’t intend to deliver it.  

"It isn’t hard to draw a conclusion and take the road  independence, which means we never have to through the Westminster cycle of expectation followed by disappointment ever again."

Maggie Chapman, MSP for the Scottish Greens, added: "From embracing a disastrous Brexit that he once opposed to refusing to block the climate-wrecking Rosebank oil field and doubling down on the cruel two child cap that is plunging families across the UK into poverty, it's clear that Sir Keir Starmer is offering more of the same failed policies that have already done so much damage.

"You only have to turn on the news and look at the environmental chaos around us to see how urgent the situation is. We don't have time to waste waiting for the Leader of the Opposition to find the progressive principles that he once told us he stood for."

The issue is bigger than Starmer, Chapman said - it's about the "tired and broken Westminster system he represents".

"Scotland can do so much better," she told The National. "The only way to secure the change that is so vital is by breaking from the past and building a fairer, greener and independent country."