Labour's death spiral has already begun

Pete North

August 29, 2024

In Starmer's speech on Tuesday, he highlighted that some of the recent riots saw racists slogans and gestures, and "swastika tattoos". There was only one instance of this that I know of. But Starmer is addressing the largely politically disengaged (who still watch the BBC), knowing that there's enough of them for a lie like that to find an audience. He's laying down the justification for all the draconian policy that follows. He's manufacturing a phantom menace.

This is reinforced by his reference, in a speech in Germany yesterday, to the rise in "mass far-right populism" as seen in Germany and France. He's building the rationale for ignoring popular sentiment on immigration. We are all tarred with the same brush, and in Starmer's mind there are no legitimate concerns, and no reason for him to divert from his policy agenda.

This means Starmer will spend his entire time addressing issues that don't exist at the expense of problems that very much do. In that regard, he and Sadiq Khan are peas in a pod. Government by gaslight.

This sets the tone for the entire administration. We've already seen much the same from Yvette Cooper in her determination to treat misogyny as terrorism. Whatever merit her case has, we know this will not extend to the endemic misogyny in British Islamic culture. Labour doesn't actually need to adopt the APPG definition of Islamophobia because they're already telling us British Muslims are a protected class, and that which should not be tolerated will get a free pass. Labour's electoral fortunes depend on it in 2029.

In fact, Starmer's need for a far right to exist is so acute, he will take measures to provoke one into existence. If that was the intent of locking up people for tweets while granting early release to rapists then it will surely work a treat.

Labour's class war is absolute. This was abundantly evident during Brexit. The issue for Starmer was not that we voted to leave the EU. For him, it was an abhorrence that we were even allowed a vote on it.

Fundamentally, the modern left sees the primary function of government as one of shaping public morality. He will take steps to control what we're allowed to read and say out loud, and he will turn the police into a morality police. Everything except crime will be policed, except if that crime can in any way be labelled far right. A definition that will expand in scope over time.

This, of course, is not going to work. It will be his downfall. Labour has never had to govern alongside social media before, and Labour still thinks that the state has the means and the right to control the narrative. Starmer is in for steep learning curve. The metropolitan media and the midwit left are just stupid enough to buy his "far right" shtick, but most of us aren't. He's painting himself into a corner.

It should be recalled that Starmer won power with only twenty percent of the vote and his mandate is threadbare. His only moral authority is by dint of being in office, and his every diktat from here on in erodes it. His approval rating is already collapsing and he has nether the charisma or the competence to recover it.

Moreover, he is already on the downward slide. He's already breaking election pledges, and will likely be forced into a humiliating u-turn over winter fuel payments. You can't on the one hand tell the public you're taking prudent measures to get public finances under control while spunking billions on foreign aid and climate boondoggles. You can't impose further tax rises and austerity on the public while doling out bumper public sector pay rises. He's already toast. The next parliamentary term will more resemble an episode of The Walking Dead.

As such, we can expect to see more of Starmer parading on the world stage and in the foyers of Brussels, since they will be the only places where he is well received. He has more in common with Europe’s dilapidated political elites.

Meanwhile, his attempts to remedy the economy will flatline. There is no economic recovery without first getting a grip on energy policy. This is highly unlikely having appointed a circus clown as energy secretary, who is hellbent on plastering the landscape with useless social panels and transmission lines to nowhere at the cost of tens of billions. The green lobby will get their subsidy bungs and we will be presented with the bill.

This is against all against a backdrop of rape, murder and lawlessness that a police force, utterly hamstrung by wokery, has no chance of getting a handle on. It's hard to see anything going well for Starmer. To stop us noticing the state of the country he would have to unplug the UK internet connectors and confine us to our homes again.

This administration does not have the first hope of bringing remedy to any of our serious problems, not least because Labour dare not name them. They will thus waste their time with yet more witless constitutional tinkering, rapidly facing the prospect of being the most unpopular government since polling began.

Even the most sycophantic pundits on the left will have to concede that the 'adults in the room' have no answers, and that fixing Britain requires more than just a change of management.

© Pete North 2024