It’s not circumstances that have forced the Labour leader to backtrack. It’s the fact that he pretended to be someone he isn’t to win power, argues Angus Satow.

Keir Starmer is still persisting with the absurd claim that he’s broken all his promises because ‘we can’t afford them’, due to the conflict in Ukraine, the Covid pandemic and the damage done to the economy by the Truss government’s mini-budget. This line is maintained while more taxation on the top 5% is ruled out.

But within months of becoming leader Starmer was breaking pledges that had nothing to do with money – like his commitment to fight to defend freedom of movement.

 That’s not the only migration pledge he’s dropped. The rest of the list – full voting rights for EU nationals, an immigration system based on compassion and dignity, and end to indefinite detention – has gone, too. He can hardly claim that’s anything to do with Covid, or Ukraine or the mini-budget.

It’s to do with Starmer pretending to be someone he isn’t to win power.

Starmer even committed to make a positive argument for immigration. I don’t think he’s done this once. He won’t even commit to new safe routes for refugees, as pretty much every migrant charity and campaign group has called for.

Migration’s just the tip of the iceberg. One of Keir’s first pledges was to reverse the Tories’ cuts to corporation tax. But when the Tories themselves did this, Starmer’s Labour opposed them. That was before the Ukraine war or the mini-budget.

That’s just one of Starmer’s reverse ferrets on taxation – the pledge to increase income tax for top earners has gone too. The case for wealth taxes is greater than ever now – but Starmer opposes them. He is choosing not to raise tens of billions of pounds.

This is one of the great fictions of Starmerism, which the media utterly fail to challenge. They say they can’t scrap the two-child benefit cap or tuition fees because these are ‘uncosted policies’,  that ‘there’s no money’. But they are the ones who refuse to cost or fund them!

On to another one of Keir’s abandoned pledges – again, nothing to do with ‘tight money’ or the fiscal situation. His foreign policy pledges to promote peace and human rights have been utterly broken.

A Prevention of Military Intervention Act, which he pledged during his leadership campaign would cost nothing. Actually, wars cost millions so it would likely save money. Not only did Starmer drop this commitment but he refused to even advocate a debate or vote in Parliament when the Tories started a campaign of bombing in Yemen.

Starmer’s (laughable) defence here, by the way, was that his pledge only referred to “sustained” military intervention. Actually, it didn’t, it referred to any “military action”. In any case, the UK campaign in Yemen has been going on for months, so is sustained, and he still hasn’t called for a vote.

His pledge to “review all UK arms sales” can’t be evaded by citing  ‘circumstances’ here. If anything it’s more necessary now.

But Starmer won’t even call for an arms embargo on Israel even as the world’s two highest courts take action against Israel amid an ongoing genocide in Gaza. As for “No more illegal wars”, he acted as cheerleader for Israel’s war crimes when he said Israel had the right to besiege Gaza, a line he took nine days to correct.

Next up, the commitment to end NHS private sector outsourcing – gone. The excuse will be the impact of Covid; but waiting lists were long before then.  

And of course Starmer’s actions within Labour are utterly duplicitous, and cannot be excused by ‘changing circumstances’.

Starmer promised unity relentlessly in 2020, praising Corbyn and the mass movement he built. It’s no exaggeration to say he’s shat on Corbyn and the left every day since.

Who could forget the pledge on selections, that “selections for Labour candidates needs to be more democratic and we should end NEC impositions of candidates. Local Party members should select their candidates for every election.”

Since then, he’s overseen an unprecedented system of mass stitch-ups, blocking left-wingers, installing his acolytes and even facing allegations of outright vote-rigging.

Lesser known is his impact on the policymaking process. Since becoming leader, he and his allies have reduced the number of policy motions debated at Labour Conference, drastically limited what can be debated there and ignored every successful Conference motion he didn’t like.

Watch this clip then claim that Starmer’s U-turns have been about responding to circumstances, rather than outright fraud. He’s even taken down his leadership pledges and campaign website!

There’s so much more: saying, ‘We are the Party of Section 28’ then capitulating to transphobia. Talking about ‘BAME representation’, then reneging on plans for a democratic Labour BAME wing. ‘Standing shoulder to shoulder’ with trade unions – then banning MPs from going on picket lines.

And this is taking Starmer and co on their own terms.  But the truth is that pretty much every progressive economist agrees that investment is sorely needed in the Tories’ broken Britain and will pay dividends. Public ownership too would pay for itself. 

The reality of the Starmer project is plain for all to see: Starmer and co lied to win power, giving cast-iron pledges which they knew they would renege on.

Once in power, and backed by the press, they used the machinery of the Labour Party to purge the left. 

Starmer’s leadership campaign was an elite coup: a false prospectus sold to members he would later drive out – all to bring Labour back to a Blairism nobody wanted or would vote for, safe in the knowledge that members could not challenge him outright. 

But let’s get back to the main point: it is demonstrably clear that Starmer lied on an industrial scale in 2020, committing political fraud to win power. Any journalist who does not challenge him – or who lends credence to the ‘circumstances’ claim – is failing in their duty. 

Angus Satow is Head of Communications at Momentum. This article is an edited version of a recent twitter thread.

Image: Creator: Labour Party | Credit: Labour Party. Copyright: Labour Party. Licence: CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 DEED Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic