THE fiercest opposition that Sir Keir Starmer has faced in this General Election campaign has come from the left wing of his own party. The Corbynista comrades are revolting for multiple reasons. They detested the way Starmer marginalised Diane Abbott — Momentum’s sweetheart and an MP for 37 years.
They despise Starmer’s balanced view on the conflict in the Middle East. They don’t like it that their former great leader himself, Jeremy Corbyn , is unwanted by Starmer’s fumigated Labour Party , and is standing as an Independent in the People’s Republic of Islington North. And — guessing here — they are not too keen on all those Union Jacks fluttering around Keir’s campaign to be our next Prime Minister.
But Labour’s only path to power is from the Blairite centre. At the last election, Labour were led by a defiantly proud lefty and suffered their worst defeat since 1935. Starmer — once a Corbyn fan boy himself! — has dragged his party kicking and screaming to the centre ground.
And far-left fur is flying. Labour’s Lloyd Russell-Moyle, Corbynista MP for Brighton Kempton, has been suspended from the party pending an investigation into a “serious complaint”. Fiery Faiza Shaheen has been blocked from standing as Labour’s candidate in Chingford, East London, after liking an anti-Semitic post on social media.
So Labour’s Corbynista left are feeling purged by their former comrade, Sir Keir Stalin. And their resentment is finding a focus in Diane Abbott.
