Keir Starmer has changed the Labour Party, but not for the better

KEIR Starmer is constantly boasting that he has changed the Labour Party.
Unlike most of the shameless liar's proclamations, this one is actually true. He has indeed changed the Labour Party.

He's changed it into a centre-right British nationalist party which occupies approximately the same space on the political spectrum as the Conservative Party of John Major which Scots obliterated at the ballot box in the Westminster general election of 1997.

In some important respects, Starmer's party is further to the right, with its slavish adherence to the extreme and self-harming Brexit bequeathed to us by Theresa May and Boris Johnson.

Any lingering doubts that Starmer's Labour party might still cling on to some vestiges of the left-wing principles that it espoused under Starmer's predecessor Jeremy Corbyn - whom Starmer has ruthlessly airbrushed out of Labour history in a manner that would make Joseph Stalin blush - have been well and truly dispelled by several developments over the weekend.

READ MORE: Keir Starmer will 'directly harm Scotland' with pledge to cut net migration – SNP

The first was the revelation, exclusively reported in The National, that the influential pro- Starmer Labour Together think tank has received almost £2 million in donations from billionaire hedge fund manager Martin Taylor – who gave more than £1.3m in the past two months alone.

Billionaire hedge fund managers are not noted for their fondness for left-wing politics and the idea of redistributing power and wealth from the obscenely rich to the poorest in society.

When a wealthy hedge fund manager is throwing large amounts of cash at a political party it's a very clear indication that, at the very least, he does not perceive that party to represent any threat to his wealth and influence.

In that vitally important respect Starmer's Labour represents no change at all.

Under Starmer, the rich will continue to enrich themselves and Starmer will facilitate it. He has proven this with the huge efforts he and his team have made to court big business, including removing the cap on bankers' bonuses.

Labour Together is the right-wing Labour pressure group which organised Starmer's campaign for the leadership of the Labour Party in 2020.

A campaign that was breathtaking in its cynical lies, clearly having taken inspiration from its near-namesake Better Together.

Starmer has broken almost every promise he made in order to secure the Labour leadership.

He will say and do anything to get into power, including brazenly lying that he ever said something that he was recorded as saying such as denying that he'd said Israel had the right to withhold food and water from Gaza when there is an actual recording of him saying just that. Starmer's promise of change is merely his latest and biggest lie.

Starmer has also made it very clear that he intends to pander to the basest instincts of right-wing English nationalism.

He confirmed this over the weekend in an interview with the Sun on Sunday during which he pledged to cut net migration and vowed to pass laws to ban law-breaking employers from hiring workers from abroad and to train more British citizens. In other words - British jobs for British workers.

A slogan used by Gordon Brown in 2007 which he'd ripped off from the far right, the same slogan had previously been used by both the National Front and the British National Party.

Starmer told the Sun: “Read my lips – I will bring immigration numbers down. “If you trust me with the keys to No 10 I will make you this promise: I will control our borders and make sure British businesses are helped to hire Brits first.”

The SNP's Alison Thewliss (below) sharply criticised the move, which shoehorns Scotland's very different demographic needs into the immigration-phobic imperatives of English nationalism.

She said: “Instead of coming forward with policies based on Scotland's needs, Keir Starmer and Rishi Sunak are both amping up the far-right belief that migrants are to blame for all of our problems - but it's not migrants, it's Westminster.

“From our care sector and our NHS to our economy, the cruel immigration policies that both the Tories and Keir Starmer's Labour have now adopted directly harm Scotland.”

SNP Westminster leader Stephen Flynn warned that Labour's kneejerk right-wing move could impact key public services.

READ MORE: Keir Starmer unveils Labour's Trident 'triple lock' commitment

He said: “All so predictable, all so depressing. NHS and wider public services would not function without our essential migrant workforce.

“Business would not be able to grow without our essential migrant workforce. A race to the right-wing that Scotland's economy simply can't afford.”

In yet another pivot to the right, on Monday Starmer pandered to that other fetishistic totem of Anglo-British nationalism, the nuclear Viagra of the Trident programme which an impotent former empire relies upon in order to convince itself that it still has it, like a bald man with an unconvincing toupee.

Starmer (below) said a Labour government will continue the Conservatives' plans for the ongoing construction of four new nuclear submarines being built in Barrow-in-Furness and will maintain the continuous at-sea deterrent.

There's no money to get rid of the hideous and cruel two-child cap on benefits, but there's money for four new nuclear submarines.

Starmer has made it plain that his commitment to Trident was “absolute” and has previously insisted he would press the nuclear button but claimed the circumstances under which he would do so were top secret.

READ MORE: Anas Sarwar defends Labour's nuclear weapons commitment

SNP defence spokesperson Martin Docherty-Hughes said: “Nuclear weapons have no place in Scotland, and only a vote for the SNP in July will protect Scotland’s interest against the Labour and Tories – neither of whom will do what the people in Scotland want and scrap Trident nuclear weapons for good.

“In the middle of a cost of living crisis, it is objectively wrong that Keir Starmer would funnel billions of pounds of public money into keeping weapons of mass destruction on our doorstep in Scotland, while families are still living in poverty after 14 years of Tory austerity, and our budget from the UK government keeps getting slashed."

If you want rid of the obscenity of weapons of mass destruction from the Clyde, don't vote Labour.

This piece is an extract from today’s REAL Scottish Politics newsletter, which is emailed out at 7pm every weekday with a round-up of the day's top stories and exclusive analysis from the Wee Ginger Dug.

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