Brighton, 29 Sept 2021 – In a down to earth speech leaving no space to ideology or socialist stances Keir Starmer sidelined the remainings of Corbynites and Momentum to increasingly drive the attention of the conference delegates on few schematic bullet points of a plan that would lead the Labour Party to make it to 10 Downing Street: the ultimate goal.
Keir goes straight to the hearts of the audience, but he is aware those who ultimately count are the millions who listen and watch him from home and will see the reports later: the potential voters. It’s all for them his emotional, continuous referral to his humble origins, to his father, a working class man, and his mother a nurse. Clearly wants to reach out to the average population.
He knows his internal hard left opponents, though a minority fringe, are perceived, and in part effectively are, middle class bourgeois. Whatever your views, Corbyn, former leader and MP for the posh Islington, lost heavily at 2019 general elections despite embracing Brexit. The new Labour leadership is seeking now a shift and to communicate that a Labour government is able to benefit all level of British society. In fact, despite the language and appearance aimed at reaching the many, the previous leadership at the ballot convinced too few, unfortunately.
Keir Starmer knows well that the very poor, big part of the working class, voted Conservatives at last general elections; therefore he ditched Corbyn right because voters do not identify themselves in the grassroots Momentum perceived as middle/upper class intellectual-internationalised left wing socialism.
The millions to be conquered to the Labour are today a vast slice of society, levelled down by a decade of Tory austerity, hit by a constant media propaganda, cuts, incompetence and corruption; having to face such a sad reality, does not leave time for debate over opposite views on Marxist ideological nuances and socialism strains of thought.
Starmer understood this very well and communicates it clearly to both audiences, in and out the conference hall, stressing
1) his humble roots to close the perceived gap by the wider public who hate his title ‘Sir’
2) the meaning of being in ‘service’ for the community when he was Chief of Crown Prosecution Service, a top job winning him the title of ‘cop’ and that may generate distance from electorate.
Jobs, fair wages. A mantra. the need for ‘well rounded young workers’ as UK businesses ask and therefore the promise of ”the most ambitious plan for public school improvement in a generation” to form a new working class, but no mention of the university crisis, social exclusion from higher education due to tuition fees debt repayments. It’s a clear choice: the vast majority of voters in the North of the country see school, basic job and salary as the immediate issue to be fixed while university is not their priority.
And so forth with a plan for a Labour ready to govern: tackling crime, a Green deal, a minimum of 3% of budget investment in research ad development.
But where’s the need for a detailed plan at three and a half years form next general elections? Former Conservative, now Labour, ex House of Commons Speaker John Bercow also stressed the party does not need to set out a detailed plan now to win consensus. Is that correct?
That would be the case if the UK wouldn’t be shrinking below the average level of western democracies after eleven years of Tory regime. But, the condition of the country is one of emergency in any sector: from energy supply to domestic economy, from health to education, from foreign policy and defence to trade and diplomacy, from security to crime and voters know this well. Hence the need to put on the table something tangible now, a prospect to build trust that Labour can ‘lead the country out of this mess” as Starmer put it.
That’s why Starmer puts forward a program-manifesto understandable at any level, involving the wider society in order to keep the touch with voters’ everyday issues and give them few key points to reckon as Labour’s strategy over the next years until the elections.
Labour Party wouldn’t have any chance to win otherwise against the mala fide and propaganda machine of a posh elite who misled the population and dragged Britain into a ditch using tactical communication strategies and serial lies.
High level intellectuals, independent journalists, part of the media, artists, lefty high society and part of skilled Labour working class protest Starmer, blaming him for stabbing the lively far-left.
All this is certainly not wrong, but the pressing issue is how to persuade to vote Labour the same millions who still today believe Boris’ £350m Brexit bus lie, think that leaving custom union was a good idea while filling up plastic bottles of fuel and face skyrocketing food prices, millions people who do not reckon as a political tactic the reshuffle of incompetent secretaries of state which enable the Tories to stay in power changing their faces routinely, until next general elections.
Talkeurope.org 