JUST when one thinks Starmer’s Labour can’t sink any lower, one remembers that he is New Labour, after all.
What’s Keir’s goal? If it’s to purge the left and sideline parliamentary socialism for another decade, he’s succeeded.
But if he is trying to win back voters in Wales, Scotland and the so-called ‘Red Wall’, he is failing miserably.
And henceforth came Starmer’s latest attempt – flag waving.
A leaked strategy document, seen by The Guardian earlier this week, advised Labour to make “use of the [union] flag, veterans [and] dressing smartly”.
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Thankfully, the plans were immediately criticised by the remnants of the Labour left.
“So why opt for a faux flag-waving brand that’s a cheapened version of patriotism?” Clive Lewis wrote in The Guardian.
“Perhaps the glaring lack of any kind of political project, as some expressed in the party’s focus groups, is one reason.”
Starmer’s honeymoon period has been over for a long time.
The ‘not Corbyn’ approach is even failing him with sympathetic journalists, most of whom are questioning his absolute lack of substance.
So instead of taking aim at a government who have overseen a ridiculously high Covid-19 death rate, Starmer naturally opts for flag waving tactics to try and win over voters who still, by and large, hate the Labour brand – whether it be under Blair, Brown, Miliband or Corbyn.
New Labour-lite have also been shown up by the Biden administration, who remarkably halted arms sales to Saudi Arabia earlier this week.
While it may not last, it’s certainly a welcome move in the eyes of anti-war campaigners.
Questions remain over US weapons trade after Biden freezes Saudi arms sales
A Sinn Fein MP also urged Ireland to rejoin the campaign, while Labour MPs have called on the British government to follow suit.
Ireland must join Saudi arms embargo to be ‘champion for peace and human rights’, Sinn Féin MP urges
This week also saw the continuation of our Arab Spring: A Decade On series, with Kit Roberts reporting on the latest situation in Libya.
And shockingly, revolution (of some form) could be afoot in Greenland, with a Danish MP suggesting the island nation could achieve independence within a decade.
Greenland could soon be on the path to independence – 300 years after colonisation
FEATURE OF THE WEEK
While Bitcoin and cryptocurrency is usually reserved for discourse on the right, Redaction has been keen to display the flip-side.
This week, we took a look at whether Karl Marx would have engaged with the technology.
Would Karl Marx have endorsed Bitcoin?
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