Lindsey German on Starmer’s attack on Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour left’s silence

Perhaps the most telling point about Keir Starmer’s attack on Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour left on Wednesday was not that he did it at all but that it was met with such puny opposition. It was, after all, hardly a shock. It has been clear to me for many months – and so it will have been much clearer to those more closely involved with Labour – that Starmer had absolutely no intention of allowing Corbyn to stand as Labour candidate in the Islington North constituency he has represented for 40 years. It has also been apparent to everyone paying attention that Starmer has no interest in placating or working with the Labour left in its broadest definition, evidenced not least by the repeated removal of left candidates from long lists for parliamentary selection.

His article, deliberately placed in the Murdoch press last week, which made clear that if the left didn’t like what he was doing it should clear off, only confirmed his actions and those of his closest acolytes in recent months. Despite the dreams of so many false prophets back in 2020 that Starmer would stick to a broadly centre left platform or even, in the inimitable words of Paul Mason, advance the class struggle, the reality is clear. Starmer’s Labour is a relentlessly right-wing party. It makes no promises about spending if it gets elected. It rejects nationalisation of the big utility and rail companies even though their performance is a disgrace.

Starmer echoes the Tories on immigration, has the union jack as backdrop to all his public pronouncements, wants an increase in military spending and immediately after effectively expelling Corbyn set off for Ukraine to assure its government that he would be as warmongering as the Tories if in office. It is in vain for those who once expected him to continue with many of Corbyn’s policies as evidenced in his ‘ten pledges’ during his election campaign to cry foul. He never had any intention of carrying those out.

The antisemitism slurs against many of the left, including Corbyn and socialist Jews within Labour, have been resurrected in recent weeks in the media and with the EHRC giving Labour a clean bill of health on the question. The right is firmly in the saddle in Labour, and it is on a Blairite agenda (Starmer was apparently urged on this course of further attacking the left and Corbyn by the man himself when they met in Davos). 

The real question for the left both in and outside Labour is what is to be done? And unfortunately the answer from too many is, very little. The left MPs in the Socialist Campaign Group have been largely conspicuous by their absence. It was almost exactly a year ago that these same MPs took their names off a Stop the War Coalition statement opposing war in Ukraine following the threat from Starmer that they would lose the party whip. That had a dampening effect on the left generally, but also crucially weakened anti-war debate in parliament and outside. Indeed, there has never before been a time when Labour has had no anti-war voices in the Commons, and where the raising of such voices outside invites the threat of suspension or expulsion from the leadership.

But surrender over the war has led to retreat on all fronts. Starmer’s diktat that MPs should not visit picket lines has been largely ignored, but there has been little high profile or direct criticism of his general trajectory in abandoning the policies espoused by the left. Now, when the man who was leader only three years ago is treated with such contempt and so unfairly, and those who agree with him are encouraged to leave Labour, there is, as Andrew Murray puts it, a ‘noisy silence’ from the Socialist Campaign Group, no doubt being counselled to keep their powder dry and wait for the right time to fight.

The problem is, every time you don’t fight and every time you surrender it becomes much harder to fight back in the future. It also assumes that if you keep quiet then the right will leave you alone – that isn’t happening and Labour’s right, emboldened by the party’s standing in the polls, will keep pushing. It does not want a core of left-wing MPs causing trouble for a future Labour government and wants to deal with the problem in advance. Labour’s polling success is much more to do with the unpopularity of the Tories than it is any kind of endorsement of Starmer. Nor are his policies likely to be popular with an electorate already suffering the misery of the cost-of-living crisis and the repeated failing of public services. So he wants to silence the left MPs now.

The MPs should have stood up to him over the war, and they should stand up to him now. That would lead to suspension of the whip, but even a small group of socialist MPs sitting in parliament would have a real impact – we only need to look at the role of small groups of Tory MPs pressurising the government to see how that can happen. More importantly it would send a signal to the left outside parliament both inside and outside Labour, that there can be an organised fightback, and that the defeat of Corbynism doesn’t mean the defeat of the left.

I hope that Jeremy Corbyn stands as an independent in Islington North. My hunch is that he would win there – he is immensely well-respected and rooted in the area, and lots of people would work for him. That will be a choice for the Labour left – back Jeremy and follow your principles, or succumb to inactivity, depression or supporting Starmer. To do the latter, as Momentum seems to be, will only prolong the attacks on the left, while to do the former would be to take the movement forward. 

This might not be easy but it is necessary. It is not as though this attack by Starmer is existing in a vacuum. The strike wave sweeping Britain is the largest for over 30 years. More groups of workers are coming out on strike, and the strikes are remarkably popular, largely because so many people feel affected by the same issues. These strikes need to escalate but they also need to be linked to wider political questions. And capitulation on wider questions – whether that is war, antisemitism or the attacks on the left – makes it harder for us to win on the industrial front. One of the common refrains of some of the Labour left is ‘stay and fight’. But that isn’t happening. We organise on many fronts with people both in and outside Labour. But those inside are finding themselves increasingly constrained. Time to face that fact, and time to fight.

This week: Most importantly for me, I will be part of organising the Stop the War demonstration on Saturday in London calling for Peace Now in Ukraine. Please join me if you can. I will also be speaking at a meeting on Marxism in Bristol on Tuesday, and at an international seminar on Friday to mark one year of the war.