Keir Starmer’s Labour Party will offer no break from police brutality (Picture: Alisdare Hickson)
Keir Starmer has laid down the law. Two of his most senior politicians came out last weekend to defend his racist campaign ads after even some loyal right wing Labour MPs balked at them.
The ads earlier this month placed a picture of Rishi Sunak next to a claim that he doesn’t believe child abusers should go to prison. It drew on the racist myth that child sexual abuse is particularly associated with Asian men.Starmer put his foot down. And last weekend deputy leader Angela Rayner and shadow health secretary Wes Streeting defended the ads wholeheartedly. It was “absolutely right to take the gloves off,” said Streeting.
But that’s not the issue. Streeting doesn’t want to “take the gloves off” when it comes to backing NHS strikes. For him, that’s the wrong way to go for the Tories. But he—along with Starmer and the rest of Labour’s ruling clique—seem much more comfortable when they’re firmly on right wing, racist terrain.
Starmer has decided that Labour can win an election and prove itself “respectable” enough to head the British state by resurrecting an old, right wing “tough on crime” agenda.
It means letting the institutionally rotten police off the hook in favour of promising new powers. And it risks unleashing right wing forces who really thrive off the racist and reactionary politics this all rests on.
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