Let us not kid ourselves that British politics was ever honourable. Politics, wherever it is played, is often a dirty game where the ends justify the means, and no trick is too low.
As ever there are exceptions that prove the rule. John Hume, whose anniversary has just passed, was one of those who confounded the expectations we have come to have of politicians.
He was principled, and worked for the betterment of everyone – even those who did their utmost to do him down.
Compare and contrast his approach with what is happening just a few short miles away across the Irish Sea where Conservative politicians are plumbing new depths to stoke up hatred of people fleeing persecution.
People seeking asylum have become scapegoats for a Conservative administration that has run Britain into the ground. There is no stronger metaphor for the filth which sticks to this government than the UK’s sewage strewn beaches and rivers.
Leading the charge this week was Conservative Party deputy chairman Lee Anderson. Once a member of the British Labour Party, Anderson defected to the Tories in 2018.
His record is shameful. He has attacked many of the most vulnerable in society, including those forced to rely on foodbanks. He was given the nickname ‘30p Lee’ after claiming meals could be made that cheaply.
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This paper still has standards, so I can’t repeat exactly what he said about asylum seekers this week, but he said if they were unhappy with how they were being treated in Britain they could – expletive – “… off back to France”.
His obscenity was endorsed by the justice minister, and then backed by Number 10 Downing Street. This is a desperate administration doing all it can to weaponise vulnerable people for electoral gain. But what would you expect from a government that spent more than £1,500 of taxpayers’ money painting out a mural welcoming traumatised children to an asylum reception centre.
In normal circumstances, you would take some comfort that there was an alternative government waiting in the wings ready to undo the harm.
But these are not normal times. The British Labour Party under Sir Keir Starmer is timidity personified. In pursuit of power Starmer has decided that the only course is to mirror the Tories.
Only god knows why. Those who deserted Labour at the last election now know they were sold a pup in voting for the likes of Anderson. They also know that Brexit is an unmitigated disaster that has cost them dearly. Yet Starmer vows to ‘make Brexit work’.
The right has framed the debate about the state of modern-day Britain by conjuring up images of a nation controlled by trendy lefty elites, by claiming working people’s living standards are threatened by money-grabbing foreigners, and by pinning the blame for its own inadequacies on the legal system, the media, the EU – whoever is at hand.
Rather than challenge this distorted view of the world, Starmer seems content to work within it.
In office Labour will continue to condemn victims of violence abroad to prison barges and military camps, it will condemn children to poverty by retaining the two-child cap on benefits, it will adopt Jeremy Hunt’s failed tax and spending plans, it will hold the line on public sector pay, it will turn its back on combatting climate change, it will … the list goes on.
On Ireland, we know that Starmer will abdicate his responsibilities under the Good Friday Agreement and actively campaign for the Union in any border poll.
The mind boggles.
There are those who hope that the ‘Red Tory’ cloak is just Starmer’s way of securing power; and, once in office, he will do what is right – returning to the centre-left politics that did so well for Britain until Tony Blair kow-towed to George Bush and his folly in Iraq.
But I don’t buy that. Leopards don’t change their spots. If he is frit in opposition, he will be doubly so in office. I suspect he will end up as leader of a short-term interregnum, allowing the Tories to regroup before coming back to finish off the Britain they once called Great.
Starmer talks about his aspirations for working people. We can only judge him by his actions. And thus far, Starmer’s Labour does not seem that far removed from the ‘common sense politics’ esposed by its former member 30p Lee.
