Starmer's riot hypocrisy!

Right, so Keir Starmer, after a week of sitting and watching riots unfold across the country, finally made a statement condemning them, that was big of him, though arguably it was one of his worst media performances to date. They will face the full force of the law he said, the police will be making arrests he said, they’ll be charged, you’ll regret doing this, be you a part of the riots or whipping up and inciting hatred online. Well, in that case I hope the police will be knocking on the door of Number 10 Downing Street and bringing you in for questioning Keith. Your hierarchy of racism in the Labour Party, your own racist rhetoric against migrants, when you stood on a leadership ledge to make the moral case for it. You might cite abandoning those pledges so often on the basis of cost, but the reality is this particular one cost nothing. You chased far right votes by demonising Bangladeshis, by demanding attendees at a Welsh Muslim Centre return the hostages Hamas took in Israel, the rampant Islamophobia apparent for all to see. You have given these hard right violent thugs licence to do what they are doing with your own rhetoric. These riots are on Starmer, his hypocrisy on this matter is vomit inducing and the matter deserves to destroy his premiership before it’s even got going.
Right, so, Southport, which I covered about a week ago, the far right desecrating a solemn vigil. Middlesborough, where Teeside University has been smashed up because, y’know, education is harmful to people unable to count to ten on their own fingers. Rotherham, where a hotel was set on fire, endangering lives, orchestrated violence that should invite custodial sentences. Tamworth, where the Police & Crime Commissioner has called far right thugs, protesters upholding British values and where another hotel was set alight after the new Labour MP Sarah Edwards doxed the place saying it was regularly used to house asylum seekers, that a Holiday Inn should be for the holidays, painting a damn target on the place. Starmer hasn’t withdrawn the whip from her over this though, he only does that to MPs who vote against child poverty. Liverpool, where shops believed to belong to minority owners were being broken into. Hartlepool where rioters attacked a mosque. Burnley, where Muslim graves have been desecrated with white paint. Belfast, where police were attacked with petrol bombs. Plymouth, where anti fascist protesters, a massive turnout of them, were injured such was the severity of the rioting there, though you’ll only hear about police officers getting injured. Sunderland, Bolton, Stoke, Nottingham, Leicester, Hull, Bristol, Blackpool, Leeds, Portsmouth I’m sure I’ve missed plenty of other disgusting attacks, but Keir Starmer? He only managed to muster one of the most pathetic speeches he’s ever given:
Residents and staff living in absolute fear he said in reference to those who were trapped in the attack in Rotherham. All right minded people should be condemning this sort of violence. People in this country have a right to be safe and yet we’ve seen Muslim communities targeted, but he won’t shy away from calling it what it is, far right thuggery. Oh but let’s not forget his words of reassurance for those targeted too. Well, I won’t shy away from calling you out for your role in this, your hypocrisy, and your emboldening and your encouragement of the far right in your own actions and your own rhetoric. There’s a reason all of this has kicked off on your watch, because you, in your pursuit of right wing votes – not just during the election, but before as well – have driven this and it is only right that other people of white privilege, like you, like me, pretty much the only thing we have in common is a pasty complexion, should call this out, should stand up and say, no chance, not in my name is this being done, solidarity with all people living in fear right now because of the egregious acts of others, but in your case, that should come with a big fat apology for your own role in driving this and yet still far right politicians will say this is Starmer’s fault for making the UK Islamist as if he's on their side! Nothing could be further from the truth.
Starmer’s incessant siding with Israel against Gaza and most notably his refusal to apologise for saying Israel had the right to withhold water and power from Gaza has done untold damage. He’s gone on to insist that isn’t what he said. You damn well did:
Now for as much as he denies ever saying that, the fact he attempted damage limitation over that issue says otherwise and this is exactly what he did whilst on a trip to Wales, where at the last minute he dropped in to the South Wales Islamic Centre where he spoke to Centre, led by an Egyptian Imam and put out a tweet saying:
‘I was grateful to hear from the Muslim community of the South Wales Islamic Centre. I repeated our calls for all hostages to be released, more humanitarian aid to enter Gaza, for the water and power to be switched back on, and a renewed focus on the two state solution.’
Not sure how Welsh Muslims can do that, given they were in Wales, but presumably in Starmer’s head any Muslim will do, anything is better than him apologising for what he said about water and power because Keir Starmer never apologises for anything.
Then there was all his continued stop the boats rhetoric and his border command idea to turn boats around, Migrants not wanted, instead of changing what went before under the Tories, let’s slash sky high migration, let’s wheel Yvette Cooper back out, perhaps she’ll bring her anti immigration mugs with her, she’s already used Rwanda flights to deport people to Vietnam and Timor but actually right wing Labour’s complicity in bashing migrants goes back a lot further than Starmer, all the way back to Jack Straw in the Blair days and his bogus asylum seekers comments. It’s standard for right wing politicians, this racist commentary emboldens far right thuggery and Starmer is just the latest one of them, but if he’s scratching his head and trying to work out how it has come to this, he needs to look in the mirror. He’s ignored the hierarchy of racism in his own party, from a report he commissioned, that he chose to ignore for so long, refused to publish for so long and hasn’t changed his views or attitudes going into a General Election campaign. He decided to scapegoat Bangladeshi’s in that campaign, one of the most successfully integrated groups into British multicultural society that there is, he bemoaned why we weren’t deporting them faster, because we had a returns agreement with them, despite that returns agreement being a Tory one and being less than a month old when he actually said it! The fact is Bangladesh has been an authoritarian regime for some time, with clampdowns on freedom of speech and expression so severe, there’s been an uprising there and the Bangladeshi former Prime Minister has just fled the country, but sure, deport them faster. Oh, incidentally, would you like to know where the former PM has sought asylum? Yeah, she’s applied to come here. Wriggle out of that one Starmer. Moral case for migration he once said, binned off for a few far right votes and what a fine mess you’re in now.
All he has done is give the green light for people to attack ethnic minorities and we’re seeing it bear out. The language of politicians matters and now that Starmer is Prime Minister it matters more than ever, but instead of realising that, he’s doubled down on it and it actually speaks volumes to his competence to my mind, because this is a guy who is supposedly a human rights lawyer, who should know the power of words, who should know about what counts as a safe country, and what the legal standards for such things are, but as he has shown repeatedly, towards arms sales to Israel, towards the plight of Palestinians, his refusal to back a ceasefire to the point it triggered mass resignations of Labour councillors around the country and triggered protests of outrage amongst people with a semblance of empathy in their souls.
Indeed many of the people affected around the country by these riots have shown actually the best of British in their response. A clip that heartened me this morning was in Middleborough, where members of the Muslim community came out with tea and biscuits for the police, not always the people on their side of course.
Starmer presides over a country where there has been no change at all so far under his regime, where migrants are still to be derided rather than embraced as having made and continue to make this country what it is, to be targeted rather than welcomed and therefore these riots that we’re seeing, this far right racist thuggery – thuggery not actually a strong enough word, it’s mindless criminality - happening on his watch, is because of him, because of his words, because of his actions and standing up and effectively trying to wash his hands of that, in a pathetic speech to condemn, whilst as always ignoring his own part that he played in this cannot and must not be ignored. This is Keir Starmer at his most hypocritical and he has to be called out for it. His ongoing refusal to acknowledge his own responsibility here, his eternal refusal to ever hold his own hands up to mistakes and shoulder blame himself has worn far too thin now. These riots should be his legacy, he’s built them up. Sure we can point to Tommy Robinson on his Aya Napa sun lounger tweeting incitement, but he’d have no oxygen if it wasn’t coming from people with even greater influence than he has, and sadly we can point to migration headlines, we can point to scapegoating, we can point to politicians words, we can point to Labour’s hierarchy of racism, where only antisemitism ever seems to matter and all roads lead to a man, who won’t take responsibility for any of it, yet thinks he can crop up on telly and condemn actions he himself bears responsibility for. He disgusts me utterly and his premiership can’t come to an end fast enough.
Meanwhile, the attacks on those who aren’t white, incited as they have been are only one aspect of Starmer’s awfulness as kids are set to starve and pensioners freeze, essentially for no better reason than Sir Kid Starmer and Rachel ‘Freeze’ Reeves will not tax the rich. I bet there will be tax rises for us soon enough though. Get the details of that story in this video recommendation here and I’ll hopefully catch you on the next vid. Cheers folks.