Labour keeps on mentioning change in it’s campaign to be elected but change may be unnoticeable apart from change in name only. Kier Starmer has basically ditched all his policies in the run up to this General Election. Before Kier Starmer was elected as the Labour Party Leader he vowed to keep in place a range of policies that his pedecessor Jeremy Corbyn introduced and which were supported by Kier Starmer at the last General Election in 2019. He named these his ’10 pledges’ . So what happened to these? Well many of these policies were those that he used to gain support within the Labour Movement and have subsequently fallen by the wayside and Starmer has provided various excuses for these. He has removed links to these pledges on his website but I was in a position to take screenshots of these pledges before they were taken down. However on the eve of the General Election of June 2024 what remains of these pledges that Starmer made firstly to the nation as a whole and secondly to the members of the Labour Party. Let us examine this issue in more detail to show you whether or not Labour still has an agenda for change or whether this is General Election is just a culmination of the endless ambition of Kier Starmer who will go to great lengths to fulfill his own ambitions.
Firstly the 10 Pledges these can be viewed on my previous article
First I should explain that I have always voted Labour. I have previously been a Labour Party member on 2 occasions. The first time I withdrew my Labour Party membership was when Tony Blair took over and decided to ditch principles of socialism. I didn’t agree with the direction that he was taking the Party in and by refusing to undo the harm inflicted by Thatcherism and Majorism. I rejoined to support Jeremy Corbyn when he took over and started to bring back the principles and values of economic socialism again which had been lost and abandoned by ‘New Labour’. Since Kier Starmer has been leader of the Labour Party I have found it very difficult to understand what Labour actually stands for. I wanted to believe in the best but as we approach the next General Election in July 2024 I have found myself at the Crossroads and unable to decide on which way to cast my vote. It’s simply not enough to blindly believe that Labour offers me the best value for my vote and for the Nation as a whole.
It’s become increasingly obvious that Labour are no longer offering a real socialist agenda. They say that this option has been costed out. There has been some awknowledgments that there is an intention to partially bring the railway companies back into public ownership as their licences to operate are run out and will not be renewed but what of other policies and is there any evidence of socialist principles left. It appears to be just a token gesture. Well I have to say on the whole I am disappointed. I cannot fully see where these claims to offer ‘change’ come from because there appears to be very little. Financial constraints have overcome ambition. Ambition has been stiffled and there is very little ambition on show in Labour’s Manifesto. Even some policies appear to be just wishful thinking particularly around strengthening our borderd and stopping illegal migration. Although Starmer has some experience of progressing cases of terrorism through the courts he has never had to deal with the matters of policing and the real hands on stuff like actually catching the people responsible. Labour do not seem to be offering a deterant in the same way as the Conservatives are. Strengthening Border Forces Agencies appears meaningless as does the level of co-operation that he is both expecting and anticipating with the EU. Neither of these will materialise so his plans are wooly and amount more to wishful thinking than anything else. There is no plans to rejoin the EU. Increasing administration is also no a deterrant nor a solution. finally the Publicly Owned Energy Companty idea initially sounded attractive if it was in line with my own ideas about eventually taking back public ownership of the Energy Providers (Follow this story on this link ). However having read into this a bit more it turns out to be just a committee type of affair to promote British Renewable Energy and not a company that the public will be able to subscribe to in order to get their Energy provision from and to which they would pay their bills to. This idea of Labour falls far short of my own ideas on the matter which would eventually have led to obtaining public ownership of the energy providers at no cost to the public but simply by putting the other companies out of business by draining their customers away from them to a publicly owned company offering a better deal and supplying the government with revenue that would othersise have been siphoned off by wealthy shareholders. Hence my dissappointment at learning that Labour had no such plans or ambitions. So now you can see that I am beginning to struggle to see where the claims of great changes ahead by voting Labour comes froim. Quite simply I just can’t identify any.
So now it comes down to why does Labour even want to win at the next General Election when there is nothing to be gained by winning. There is simply no ambition at all in the Labour manifesto which signals any great change. Quite simply the only change will be a change in personel. Now we look back at the lost and abandoned ‘ 10 pledges ‘made by Kier Starmer when he was attempting to take over leadership of the party and wonder if it was just some sort of coup and wonder whether we just all got swept along by one man’s ambition to simply be called ‘Prime Minister’. It appears now that this election is just another hurdle for a man to satisfy his own vanity. the same happened in 2019 with Boris Johnson when the country was swept along by one man’s ambitions and vanity and ego. Look where that ended up!
Maybe a vote just to thwart Starmer’s ambition may be the way forward now. Maybe a protest vote that may say to the Labour Movemnent that I just don’t think that you are ready to take the lead or to assume power when you have no real agenda and no real ambitions and your policies can hardly be hailed as anything like socialism. Labour shoukld not sell out their key principles just to assume power as they did under Blair because there will be no real change. Britain needs change but not necessarily a Labour Party that can’t supply real change. 5 years is a long time doiung nothing and that might prevent people voting Labour again if they are promising change that they simply can’t deliver. Blair and Brown have no lasting legacy because they failed to take advantage of a large majority and still did nothing to undo the harm of Thatcher and Major. The case of Blair and Brown demonstrates quite clearly of the follies of electing a Government that lacks core principles. Blair’s ‘New Labour’ failed to address the harm that Thatcher and Major and their sucessive Tory Governements had done to Britain. Britain still lives under the dark cloud of Thatcherism which persists in the current Tory policies and in every pore of society here in Britain. The Privatisations that Thatcher and Major made are still holding Britain back almost 40 years on from when they came about. We need a Labour Government willing to address what is necessary to do: not to convieniently sidestep the issues. Water and Energy Provision should be key issues in this General Election 2024 but they are not. These issues feed into the current ‘Cost of Living Crisis’. So maybe Labour should sidestep this election and wait for a time when they can make real changes and address the issues that really matter to Britain. More and more I am plagued with real doubts about Labour’s ability to bring about real change and also about the true motivations of Kier Starmer and the direction he is taking the Labour Party in.