Why I'm disappointed in Keir Starmer?

I would say that throughout the years my politics has changed. I have changed my support for parties in the days when I did not know anything about politics. Now I would say that my views lie towards the left of the political spectrum. I have to admit that I have not voted for the same party each year, purely for the fact that I have been attracted to certain policies by specific parties throughout the years. It merely depends on my interests at the time of election and what policies are in alignment with what I want for society at that time. 

With the Labour Party, I liked the Corbyn era. He looked an ordinary man and I liked that. A plain suit, slightly scruffy and less put together than any other Labour leader. He related more to the image of a working class man than previous leaders in government. He offered a new approach to PMQ's by asking members of the public to send in the questions to be put to David Cameron. There was almost a Corbyn fandom. People would sing the chant 'Oh, Jeremy Corbyn' to The White Stripes' Seven Nation Army, he headlined Glastonbury and enjoyed a rare period leading May in the net favorability polls. As a young person, he engaged our generation into politics and his policies spoke directly to the issues which were faced by many young people such as tuition fees. 

Sadly, I do feel his popularity was only short-lived. The antisemitism scandal within the party led to his downfall. He failed to stamp it out at the first opportunity. Labour MPs left the party in protest at its handling of the issue. The Equality and Human Rights Commission, established under Tony Blair's Labour government, is now investigating the party. And polling by Survation, carried out in 2018 for The Jewish Chronicle, found that nearly 40% of British Jews said that they would 'seriously consider' leaving Britain if Corbyn became prime minister. He holds personal responsibility for the unacceptable way that he dealt with the issue. 

I feel Corbyn was very much a marmite politician - you either loved him or loathed him. A bit like socialism to be honest. However, I think that after the December general election, I was starting to develop a distaste for his style of leadership and personally, I could not see him as future Prime Minister. Now comes Keir Starmer. Sir Keir Starmer was appointed the new leader of Labour in April, following Corbyn's standing down. Starmer beat out Rebecca Long-Bailey and Lisa Nandy with 56.2% of the vote in a contest voted on by party members. He has pledged to renationalise mail, rail and water, abolish Universal Credit and ban tuition fees. Throughout his leadership campaign, Starmer pitched himself as the unity candidate: the person to heal a Labour party that has been riven by internal fighting between the left and right wings of the party. 

He has reached out to former Labour members who quit over the party's handling of the anti-semitism crisis saying, "I will tear out the poision of anti-semitism by its roots." His style of questioning is much better than Corbyn's. Alaistair Campbell, Tony Blair's former director of communications, said: "Every question so far from Keir Starmer spot on. Right issues, right tone, right mix of empathy and detail, and right balance of support for government objectives but determination to hold them to account." His debut on PMQ's was also praised by some political opponents - George Osborne, the former Conservative chancellor, tweeted: "Watching PMQ's, there's one clear conclusion: after a five-year absence, Britain has an opposition again." Unlike Corbyn, Starmer is universally accepted within his party - many believe he is the saving grace of the Labour party. 

This could led to the emergence of a political fandom, something which is not uncommon in the Labour Party. Do you remember the milifandom? The milifandom was famous when Miliband was in charge with teens girls changing their Twitter photos and bios to express their love for Ed. One tweeter describes having an "unexplainable emotional connection" to the Labour leader while others posted pictures of the politician with a crown of flowers. He became a meme on twitter. I think that this could happen with Starmer, He has the same charm about him as Miliband that can attract younger voters. 

Some may even compare Starmer to Mark Darcy, with it even being suggested that he was the inspiration behind the Bridget Jones' book. Mark Darcy is one of the characters in Bridget Jones that can easily fit the mould of many famous men - he is dashingly handsome, intelligent and fawned after by women everywhere. Theories have speculated that the Labour Party leader was the inspiration for Bridget Jones author Helen Fielding. After she went to university with Keir, there appears to be parallels between politicians and the character. Both are upper class while Keir was a barrister and former director of public prosecutions and Mark Darcy, a human rights lawyer. 

Starmer does possess a style of Mark Darcy like charm that can attract the public. Not only in his looks but his decisions so far. In the past two weeks, he has removed Rebecca Long-Bailey from the shadow cabinet and changed to NEC voting mechanisms. He has brought back Rachel Reeves and Lord Falconer, a New Labour veteran as well as a number of prominent Remain MPs. Key Corbyn members of the cabinet are out such as Diane Abbott, Ian Lavery and John McDonnell. The Corbyn era is well and truly over. 

Why Starmer is no Mark Darcy

Despite this, I have begun to become disappointed in him as a leader. A few weeks ago, Starmer criticised the official demand of the Black Lives Matter 'moment' to defund the police as 'nonsense', and expressed his loyalty to the police. In a BBC breakfast interview, that turn of phrase led to accusations that Starmer was belittling the grievances of anti-racism campaigners. This was three weeks after Starmer faced criticism in a social media post where black Labour party members expressed their disappointment over the failure of him to publicly deal with allegations of abuse towards senior black politicians.  More than a dozen of Labour's ruling committee have accused party officials of defending 'racist, sexist and abusive' messages about colleagues and called for a public apology from Starmer. 

One third of the National Executive Committee's members, including representatives from four trade unions, wrote to the Labour leader this week accusing his office of misleading them about how the party dealt with these leaked WhatsApp messages by senior officials. The messages included senior officials saying they wished a prominent Labour activist would die in a fire, calling a left-wing staffer 'pube head', and commenting that female advisers had 'stopped wearing bras' in meetings. This provoked widespread anger in the party and the party's NEC ordered an investigation. In their letter to Keir, the 13 NEC members said: "The Labour Party's statement was not only inexcusable in defending the racist, sexist and abusive comments in the WhatsApp groups, it also directly prejudged the specific issues of the inquiry. " 

Additionally, Hud Elmi, one of the NEC members who wrote to Sir Keir, told The Independent newspaper: "On Tuesday over a dozen NEC members wrote to Keir and Angela expressing our concerns that Keir's political secretary had given NEC members inaccurate information about the party's communication with OpenDemocracy. Now, the release of this email proves that we were lied to." Starmer has said that he will not comment until the results of the report are investigated and have been published. But he has to step up. I am worried that Labour leader's handling over sensitive issues such as antisemitism and racism is driving voters away and creating space for Tories. 

Corbyn's long involvement with anti-racism struggles and close alliance with figures such as Diane Abbott led many minorities to conclude he was a natural ally. While Corbyn had poor approval ratings in the overall population in the December election, he enjoyed net support among ethnic minority voters. Younger people showed support to Corbyn's Labour for two reasons: their economic and social insecurity, from the housing crisis to student debt to low-paid work; second, they felt their progressive social values were under attack. If Starmer wants to attack the Black Lives Matter movement, he has to expect that young people are going to express their judgement in the next election. 

I worry that Starmer might be heading down a similar path to that of Corbyn's poor grasp of anti semitism. He has a poor grasp of racism in the party. He is sitting on the fence on issues such as trans rights and this is going to affect the support given by these communities in the next election. Perhaps this is down to the nerves of being in the public eye, in a new position as leader of the opposition. But he was to tackle and talk about key issues, otherwise we will see countless years of a Tory government. Even the results of a YouGov poll in July 2020, showed that 38% of people believe Starmer looks like a PM in waiting, 34% says he does not and 28% are not sure. There is the risk that wider disparity could grow in these results, in the opposite direction, if Starmer does not prove his leadership skills.  

Starmer recently said that he will sign up for unconscious bias training amid the criticism of his response to Black Lives Matter protests and called for a new co-chair of Momentum to "get Labour's house in order" over racism. During an appearance by Starmer on LBC on Monday morning, a caller challenged him for describing the Black Lives Matter movement as a 'moment' in the BBC breakfast interview. Starmer did insist that he had been misunderstood, telling the LBC called: "What I was saying last week is that Black Lives Matter needs to be a moment, and I meant a defining moment and a turning point. I didn't mean a fleeting moment." Yet, it hasn't changed the opinion of some people who think Starmer has made a mockery of racial injustice by introducing this compulsory 20 minute course on unconscious bias for Labour MPs. If the Labour leader believes he is in need of unconscious-bias training, does that not imply that he thinks he could be racist? 

It is upsetting that cracks are already beginning to show in Starmer's leadership. I hope that he can mend them before he loses his support from key social groups. Otherwise, we will see the slow dwindling support by key groups in society as issues fail to be handled. I enjoy Starmer's forensic style of questioning and believe that he does have the potential to become an excellent leader of government. Yet, I worry that my initial disappointment will develop into a consensus felt by many others and perhaps stereotype the Labour Party to that of failed leaders. Ultimately leading us down a downward track of Tory governments for years to come.