Britain: Keir Starmer, loyal Servant of British Capitalist State
A Review of Starmer's History from Director of Prosecutions to Labour Leader
Article by Joseph Adams, RCIT Britian, 1 June 2020, www.thecommunists.net
Keir Starmer has forced a U-turn from Boris Johnson over the government’s original plan to charge foreign migrant doctors or nurses working in the NHS to pay exorbitant fees for working in Britain. The Bourgeois media has been praising Starmer to the hilt recognising his cutting edge at Prime Ministers questions pointing out that Starmer is much more superior to Johnson. Their praise of the right-wing Blairite was unsurprisingly never shown to Jeremy Corbyn. Instead Corbyn was assailed on all sides by witch-hunt lies and outright hostility by the capitalist press. Not so Starmer, who has become adored by the capitalist press.
“Overseas health and care staff will be exempted from the fee levied on migrants to pay for the NHS in a U-turn from Boris Johnson which came after mounting pressure from senior Tories.
Downing Street said the Prime Minister has asked officials at the Home Office and the Department for Health and Social Care to remove health and care workers from the surcharge “as soon as possible”.
Full details will be announced in the coming days, a Number 10 spokesman said. The U-turn comes a day after Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer criticized Mr. Johnson's previous policy during Prime Minister's Questions. “Many of them are risking their lives for us,” Sir Keir said. “Does the PM think it is right?” [1].
Starmer in his Role as Director of Public Prosecutions
Keir Starmer only became active in Politics in 2015 after he joined the Labour party and became the MP for Holborn and St Pancras. Eight years ago Starmer was already a faithful servant of the state. He was Director of Public Prosecutions well known for prosecuting workers involved in disputes and democratic challenges to the state. He prosecuted socialists and anybody who challenged the state and oversaw most of the state misconducts during that period. His so called propagation of socialism and Labour party activity did not exist.
“Scotland Yard has opened a criminal investigation into secret MI6 rendition operations that resulted in leading Libyan dissidents being abducted and flown to Tripoli where they were subsequently tortured in Muammar Gaddafi's prisons. The announcement The CPS decided more than a year ago that that officer – identified only as Witness B – should not face charges, but Operation Hinton continued while detectives pursued what Starmer described as a "wider investigation into other potential criminal conduct". This involved attempting to trace responsibility for Witness B's actions up MI5's chain of command and beyond. Came as police and the director of public prosecutions, Keir Starmer, said there was insufficient evidence to prosecute any individual MI5 or MI6 officers following lengthy investigations into allegations of British complicity in the torture of terrorism suspects in Pakistan and Afghanistan.” [2].
This is clear evidence that Starmer colluded with the British Intelligence Agencies in aiding the American security services to move suspects around the world, committing rendition through torture and other crimes against suspected terrorists. State officials like Starmer who failed to uphold their human rights enshrined in law are a crucial part of the “success” of the imperialist forces and are understandably trusted by the bourgeoisie as their best agents.
Further Evidence of Starmer's Collusion with Intelligence Agents
“More information is emerging about Labour’s new leader Keir Starmer. Before entering politics he was the director of public prosecutions (DPP). During his tenure as DPP he made several controversial rulings. Now new evidence has emerged linking him with an intelligence chief. And there was a shared interest between the pair in surveillance technology. Firstly, thanks to research conducted by investigative journalist Matt Kennard we now know that Starmer met up with MI5 chief Jonathan Evans in 2013 for ‘drinks’ in his time as DPP.
In his twitter thread, Kennard suggests that a topic of that meeting may have been about the prosecution of MI5, which was accused of playing a part in a torture case. That case concerned Binyamin Mohamed, who was kidnapped, renditioned, and tortured by the CIA with alleged complicity in his interrogation by an MI5 officer, known simply as ‘Witness B’.
In February 2010, Evans criticised the media’s account of what happened with Mohamed. Later that year Starmer decided not to prosecute MI5”. [3]
Starmer was indeed intimately involved with the torture deprivation of known suspects in breach of their clear human rights. He connived with MI5 chief Evans to cover it up or simply ignore it. Yet Starmer is now Leader of the Labour Party. Considering past practice it is more than doubtful that Starmer will consider the members who have been suspended, victimised and expelled from the Labour party through their Kangaroo courts. No wonder he is praised by the Blairites. The leaked document on a climate of fear pervades those on the Labour left because they have recognised that Starmer will use might and main to remove any principled socialist and any honest Corbyn supporter from the Labour Party.
Starmer's Role in the 2019 General Election
During the 2019 general election Starmer who was the Shadow Brexit Secretary opposed Corbyn at every stage. In 2016 he had been involved in the conspiracy to remove Corbyn as leader and maligned and sought to denigrate his views on Europe and Brexit. It was a deliberate policy to ensure Corbyn’s defeat at the General election and in that manner he was successful, having forced the General secretary of the Party Jennie Formby, a Corbyn appointee, to resign. It is clear that the right, pro-imperialist wing of the party is now in control and will set out to purge anyone who does not subscribe to their views. It is also clear that Starmer is treating the most incompetent Prime Minister Boris Johnson with kid gloves since the Covid-19 crisis. His policy is that we are all in it together which “forgets” that austerity, unemployment and poverty are rampant in Britain. Combines with the crisis of capitalism compounded by the divisions of the great powers into two great camps it is clear Starmer is not only on the side of the Bourgeoisie but even mora a golden child of the ruling class. In his former function as the DPP, he refused to prosecute the police over Jean de Menzie's murder and that of the unlawful killing of Ian Tomlinson at the G7 Protests. Starmer has been trained well by both Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, two of Labour's far-right and pro-imperialist politicians.
“In February 2009, Starmer approved a decision not to prosecute any police over the controversial shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes.
In July 2010, Starmer announced the decision not to prosecute the police officer Simon Harwood in relation to the death of Ian Tomlinson this led to accusations by Tomlinson's family of a police cover-up. After a subsequent inquest found that Tomlinson had been unlawfully killed, Starmer announced that Harwood would be prosecuted for manslaughter. The officer was acquitted in July 2012, but dismissed from the police that September.” [4].
The Lockdown Left in the COVID-19 Pandemic Crisis
The RCIT has been one of the few revolutionary organizations who have fought against the Lockdown here in Britain and throughout the world. We have identified the denial of democratic rights and the move towards Bonapartist attacks which did go hand in hand with the lockdown measures. While it is obvious that mass testings, quarantine of proven cases and immediate health treatment are highly effective in fighting the pandemic, it is also clear that none of these measures limit democratic rights contrary to forced general lockdowns. In addition to opening the road for the expansion of Bonapartist attacks, general lockdowns are neither necessery nor medically effective on the long run. However, a broad support for Lockdowns has come from the trade union bureaucracy, the Labour party and a number of centrist organizations in Britain. As we have said previously this Lockdown left falls into a deeply reactionary rut that leads into supporting the loss of democratic rights like the right to assemble.
We warned at the very beginning that the lockdown enforced by the Bourgeoisie had nothing to do with combatting this pandemic effectively but exactly the opposite. It had everything to do with smashing the gains of the masses and the working class, de-facto worsening the living situation of the poor and the ill (who not gain but suffer from the isolation in their homes) and to enable Bonapartism to save their rotten crisis ridden system. Keir Starmer has sought to work with Boris Johnson rather than provide opposition to his reactionary plans. In many ways Starmer advocates the slogan ‘we are all in it together’ and this reactionary Blairite will if he and his allies see it as necessary form a national government with Johnson.
“While we do not, and cannot, know the exact course of events it is pretty clear what is the objective, historical, meaning of the current situation – irrespective of the intentions of this or that government leaders. What is currently taking place is a global counterrevolutionary offensive – a pre-emptive counterrevolution. The ruling classes launch gigantic economic and anti-democratic attacks which will worsen dramatically the conditions of the working class to fight. This is why the lockdowns and the suppression of the right to demonstrate are so dangerous.
COVID-19 is the perfect excuse to suppress these rights. This is why the ruling class is spreading fear and panic. This is why they will use it not only now but for months and years! And if the COVID-19 pandemic is temporarily over, the ruling class will surely warn about a return of it. Or there will be another pandemic by another virus. We repeat our warning: the bourgeoisie will use the danger of such pandemics for years in order to confuse and paralyze the working class and popular masses.
This is why accepting the logic of lockdowns and suppression of the right to demonstrate “because of the pandemic” is so dangerous. They want to bind our hands for years of slump and authoritarian rule. This is why the RCIT sharply condemns all those leftists who support lockdowns and suppression of the right to demonstrate. These forces objectively serve the counterrevolution. They are a modern version of social-chauvinism in WWI.
We have no doubt that we are marching towards great events. At the moment everything seems to be superimposed by the COVID-19 crisis. However, the fundamental contradictions of capitalism have not and can not disappear. The ruling classes have launched their counter-revolutionary offensive not because they are strong but rather because of desperation given the devastating crisis of their system. The harder the bourgeoisie strikes now, the stronger will be the reaction and the greater the response from the workers and popular masses.”. [5].
The RCIT in BRITAIN puts forward the following policies and the task ahead in these fraught times in the middle of the COVID-19 Pandemic which gives the revolutionary movement immense possibilities.
* Expansion of the Health system in Britain under the control of workers and the popular masses
* No to mass lockdowns! Defend the democratic right to assemble and demonstrate! Nobody should take away our right to fight and rally against injustice and oppression!
* For an international team of medical experts to develop a cure and preventive vaccination as soon as possible! They must be under the control of workers, local branches of the trade unions and other organs of the masses!
* Nationalise the pharmaceutical companies under workers control to develop drugs against widespread illnesses like COVID-19, Influenza, HIV/Aids and many more!
* Support our brothers and sisters in the global south! Cancel all public and household debts!
* No sackings, no wage cuts. Nationalisation under workers control of large enterprises, which sack workers respectively which shut down production!
* Fight for the building of a New Workers Party!
Footnotes
(2) https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/jan/12/libya-rendition-torture-abduction-mi6
(4) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keir_Starmer
(5) https://www.thecommunists.net/theory/the-covid-19-global-counterrevolution/concluding-words/