Ex-shadow ministers warn of ‘frustration’ over Starmer’s leadership

LONDON: Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has been warned by former shadow cabinet ministers that he will be making a “fatal error” not to listen to grassroots activists ahead of the Budget.

The warning comes in a paper co-written by Jon Trickett and Ian Lavery, who served in Jeremy Corbyn’s top team but were jettisoned by Sir Keir. The pair, together with ex-MP Laura Smith, said that Sir Keir is wrong to argue against corporation tax increases ahead of Wednesday’s Budget.

In their paper, the trio said that “even a Tory Chancellor wants to see increases in corporation tax”, with Rishi Sunak rumoured to be considering a rise as part of the effort to reduce the coronavirus deficit.

They argue: “We must remember that corporation tax is a tax on big business profits – not families. Having spoken to many members of the Labour movement over the last year, it is becoming clearer that the party is becoming more disconnected from its movement and values.”

The trio – all supporters of Sir Keir’s predecessor Corbyn – claim that trend is “reflected in the wider public” because of Labour’s inability to build an opinion poll lead. “It would be reasonable to predict that the blunder and incompetence of the Prime Minister’s response to the Covid crisis, and his failure to implement adequate emergency measures such as test and trace, would lead to a big hit in the polls,” they said. “This has not happened.”

They warned that “across the Labour movement there is concern that the Labour leadership is going to make the same mistake as it did in 2010, by accepting austerity as a core policy principle”.

That would be in “opposition to the feeling in the wider country that austerity failed Britain, leading it to be ill-equipped and unprepared for the pandemic”.

They warned there is a “disconnect between the party and the movement” and “frustration at the command-and-control style of leadership”.

In his foreword to the No Holding Back report, Trickett indicated that discontent on the left of the party was fuelled by the treatment of Corbyn, who was stripped of the whip over his response to the equalities watchdog’s report on anti-Semitism.

“There are many who feel that there is a determined effort to silence the voices of rank-and-file socialists in the Labour movement,” Trickett said. “Numerous examples of this tendency are being cited. There has been no policy-making party conference since Keir Starmer was elected as leader.

“Many comrades were suspended for discussing resolutions in solidarity with Jeremy Corbyn.” He added: “Many leaders from all sides of the political spectrum often make the mistake of cutting links with the movement that elected them. This can be a fatal error, for it is only the movement that can sustain and strengthen a leader.”