Sir Keir Starmer

• I FEEL badly let down by our MP Sir Keir Starmer.

He said at the Co-op Party hustings there would be no factionalism in the Labour Party and that he would unite it.

To date this is not evident, rather the reverse. Holborn & St Pancras Labour Party is even more divided now than it was in the time when Jeremy Corbyn was Labour leader.

In the current shadow cabinet there is only one person who was in the previous one.

Sir Keir has double standards for different members of his party. There are rules for those who are “on his side” and rules for those who are “on the other side”.

He sacked the only other person from the previous shadow cabinet, Rebecca Long-Bailey, on spurious, unsubstantiated, grounds but did not sack Steve Reed MP in similar circumstances.

Ian Murray MP should have been expelled as he spoke at the practice launch of Change UK.

Sir Keir appointed to his front bench, as domestic violence and safeguarding spokesperson, Jess Phillips who had threatened to knife Jeremy Corbyn “in the front” not in the back.

Sir Keir has never admitted it was those unauthorised words “nobody is ruling out remain as an option” that he spoke during 2018 party conference, that lost Labour the general election.

If Labour had adhered to respecting the result of the referendum, as in 2017, and not muddied the waters with People’s Vote and the fudged remain plan, it would not have lost the “red wall” seats that cost it so dearly.

I am saddened that when the media say libellous things to him about his ex-boss Sir Keir does not challenge those comments and say they are baseless and incorrect. Rather he merely seeks to justify his own actions.

At last week’s PMQs, when Boris Johnson falsely accused Corbyn of having links to the IRA, Sir Keir did not defend Corbyn but instead defended himself.

Sir Keir argued against the unions’ cautious approach on opening schools and getting children back to school – and pushed against his own shadow education minister’s plan, another reason why she had to be sacked.

Why did he not speak out when Israel was bombing Gaza for two weeks recently? And to describe the Black Lives Matter movement as just a “moment” was insulting.

He has sanctioned Labour condemning the XR protest against the national print media which is run by expatriate billionaires.

He has failed to take decisive action on the Labour Leaks document, instead he has set up an enquiry which will take for ever.

Those that undermined the then leader of the Opposition should not have been paid off, they should have been summarily suspended at the very least.

For the time being I remain a member but sadly many of my friends who support a socialist Labour Party have already left.

DIANE PEARSON,
NW5