Dismantling Labour's Base

I can't think of another episode that sums up the Labour right's spite and petty-mindedness more than what's happened this week. Taking out Lloyd Russell-Moyle with a vexatious complaint with no time for him to contest it. Deciding to get rid of Faiza Shaheen - selected fair and square by her CLP - and using decade-old tweets from before she was a party member as evidence for her "unsuitability". And then Diane Abbott who, we learned this week, had had the "investigation" against her closed in December and that everything Keir Starmer has said about the subject since has been an outright lie. The Labour right pushed to block her candidacy, but their schemes suffered a rare reversal as political and media pressure, and Diane's threat to stand as an independent, forced them into retreat. Not that they're too bothered, seeing how they helped themselves to a heap of safe seats suddenly made vacant by MPs pressured into retirement.

This tawdry episode, particularly the targeting of Diane, is a quick time run through of what they've done to the party since Starmer got elected. However, while the media can usually pay little to no attention to internal Labour stitching and purging, unless the left are in charge, this is no longer the case. Since Starmer disgracefully went into bat for Israeli war crimes, Labour has suffered a collapse among its core Muslim vote. This is the immediate precipitating factor of George Galloway's by-election victory and the seeming viability of his party - and is a story even the most obsequious Starmer-loyal outlets could not ignore. Now we're in a general election campaign, all this is fair game for the media. Especially for its Tory supporting sections who are looking for anything to throw in Labour's direction.

That alone makes the Labour right's factional moves stupid. They're undertaking them in full public view at the height of a general election campaign when more people are paying attention. But they say much more than that. Not content with alienating important blocs of Muslim supporters, the shoddy treatment meted out to Diane shows the party thinks it can manage without black British supporters too. All week we've had Labour figures, usually white men, saying she was a trailblazer but now her time is up. What do these geniuses think the conversations are among black households and those for whom anti-racism matters, and is not a guise put on for appearances sake? Again, it's the same disgusting calculation. They think Labour can not only win despite pissing off core voters, it can actually win even more hard right votes by capitalising on the Tories and the media's racist demonisation of Diane.

Apart from the immediate consequence of emboldening racists, especially when right wing street mobilisations are more likely in the coming years, this shows the shape of unpleasant things to come. Labour has never been backward about being forward with its own dabbling in racist politics and strategies. It's embedded in Labourism's soul, and under Starmer it has been deployed as a weapon when considered opportune. But with the elevation of so many Labour right apparatchiks to the parliamentary party for whom racism is a factional and political tool, the readiness to use it has, on paper, grown. These are the ones who will be the loudest cheerleaders for Starmer's "Border Security Command", for demonising refugees and immigrants, ramping up the anti-Muslim rhetoric and, it almost goes without saying, bombing Middle Eastern nations.

The second is that they've got away with their objective. Starmer has carried the can for their obsessive attacks on Diane, but are flush with success from cancelling Shaheen's candidacy and putting Russell-Moyle out to pasture. Who can say whether there will be more in the coming days? By outsourcing shenanigans to the worst people in the party Starmer has given them carte blanche to do as they please, and this entitlement to their fiefdom will include the PLP and Number 10 after the election. They can't wait to do their own leaking, their own briefing against ministers and other MPs/rivals. They want to swan around like they own the shop. And because Starmer has limited his own hinterland thanks to his Faustian bargain with these people, their turn against him when things go wrong is foregone.

But there is much more serious trouble brewing. It's been long argued here (and here) that, despite the seat distribution of the 2019 election result, Starmer inherited a pretty hefty coalition of Labour supporters that was likely to hold together and grow provided he pushed policies that were commensurate with their interests. Of course, he was never going to do that but the warning's there, lodged in the historical record. Over three years on and his politics and the behaviour of his fair weather allies have accelerated that process. Offering nothing for workers, despite his patronising language about "working people", attacking trans rights while pretending to be LGBTQ+ friendly, and the racism of backing Israel and taking delight in attack Britain's first black woman MP is demobilising this support. The current polling numbers flatter Starmer, powered by a visceral anti-Toryism over any genuine affection for the Labour leader and his policy agenda. But they will not last long, and as the difficulties mount the people he and his project have so far alienated, along with millions of others, are going to find alternatives ready to receive them.

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