Stephen Daisley Stephen Daisley

Keir Starmer should purge Labour of the far-left

Sir Keir Starmer was having such a good year. He broke cover early on to attack the government’s handling of Covid-19 and did so by speaking explicitly to traditional Tory voters. He repeatedly bested Boris Johnson at Prime Minister’s Questions and gave a good first conference speech in the job. He brought his party’s poll numbers to within a hairsbreadth of the Conservatives, just as Number 10 descended into the dullest soap opera this side of The Archers. Even that cringe photo of him and Angela Rayner taking a knee in the Shadow Cabinet room — like your parents after listening to Stormzy for the first time — can be forgiven because, bless their hearts, they meant well.

Then there was Jeremy Corbyn. The former Labour leader used the publication of the EHRC report into Labour’s handling of antisemitism to pronounce that:

‘One anti-Semite is one too many, but the scale of the problem was also dramatically overstated for political reasons by our opponents inside and outside the party, as well as by much of the media.’

Take a year or two, expel as many as possible, and view resulting legal costs as an investment in the party’s future.

He was boldly suspended, then, less boldly, unsuspended, from Labour. Though Sir Keir will not restore the parliamentary party whip for the next three months. That’ll teach him.

The EHRC report was supposed to ‘draw a line’ and allow Labour to ‘move on’. This kind of therapy babble is to be expected from a party that still thinks of itself as the victim of the antisemitism scandal. In fact, the publication has only underscored how little Labour has come to terms with what it has put British Jews through since 2015.

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