The Starmer catastrophe is paving the way for Farage

Devoid of a vision, kowtowing to the rich, defined by austerity: as predicted, Starmerism is falling apart - while Farage circles

Keir Starmer’s so-called Labour government is better described a burning skip, and that would be extremely funny if it wasn’t for those suffering the consequences - and if it wasn’t at a time when the far right are on the rise everywhere.

Let’s look at the latest in this catalogue of calamity. In a new addition to the astronomically high pile of ‘these people really do not have the faintest clue what they’re doing, whilst believing in absolutely nothing’, Rachel Reeves, our flailing Chancellor, has watered down plans to tax non doms. Nom doms are very rich people who live here but for tax purposes are registered abroad. Labour’s plans here were one of the only measures they had to get the well off to cough up an extremely modest amount to help rebuild the country.

Why has Reeves watered down these plans? Because of intense lobbying by these very rich and thus very powerful non doms.

She told the World Economic Forum in Davos

“We have been listening to the concerns that have been raised by the non-dom community.”

Incredible stuff. We’ve got the Black community, we’ve got the LGBTQ community, we’ve got the Jewish community, we’ve got the Muslim community and now we’ve got the non-dom community. Who knew that extremely rich people living here and not paying taxes are in fact another treasured minority in our diverse multicultural society.

Now here’s the thing. There’s no question those non-doms have big sharp elbows. They have money and therefore power. Not so with pensioners it? The winter fuel payment was scrapped for the vast majority of pensioners, and despite the claims of the government, that included many struggling and indeed poor pensioners, notably those eligible for pension credit who don’t receive it. There was no shortage of outrage over that, but the government just ignored it. Therein lies a lesson in our so-called democracy, about who gets listened to, and who doesn’t. Rich nom doms, you’ve got the government’s ear. An 82-year-old pensioner in Newcastle who’s scared to turn the heating on because she doesn’t know if she can afford it, bad luck, maybe next time you should hire some expensive lobbyists so Reeves will listen to you.

Now, what else. When Keir Starmer was running to be leader of the Labour party, the courts ruled that a third runway at Heathrow Airport was illegal because the government didn’t adequately take into account its commitments to tackle the climate emergency, that minor little issue which threatens the future survival of our species.

And Starmer then tweeted:

“Congratulations to the climate campaigners. There is no more important challenge than the climate emergency. That is why I voted against Heathrow expansion.”

So what now he’s prime minister? Well his chancellor Rachel Reeves has made it clear that Heathrow expansion is now likely, because when she was asked about it she replied “growth is the no 1 mission of this government”. Well, there’s no growth on a dead planet, and also ever more extreme weather events and rampaging fires are not, I’m afraid, very good for growth either. This is California this month, does this look for growth?

As the brilliant journalist George Monbiot put it, about 70% of the flights in Britain are taken by 15% of people - that is, the most well-off - and therefore there should be a frequent flyer tax.

Meanwhile Starmer repeatedly declared there would be no return to austerity. The austerity pursued under the Tories was of course a catastrophe. It produced the longest squeeze in wages ever recorded since the beginning of the 19th century. It shredded public services, left our infrastructure literally falling apart.

Well now Rachel Reeves is mulling steeper cuts to already disintegrating public services. Now as the former chief economist for the Bank of England put it, that risks an economic doom loop.

Let’s just be clear about how we ended up in this situation. Before the election, the Labour leadership thought they were terribly clever by ruling out a series of tax hikes on the well-to-do. At the same time, based on arbitrary fiscal rules, it was very clear to me they avoiding discussing a projected £20 billion black hole in the nation’s finances. During the election, the media refused to talk about this. I went on TV at the time and spoke about it over and over again, saying that Labour would pretend to discover this upon their election to justify cuts.

That’s exactly what went on to happen. And Starmer and Reeves did speech after speech talking of economic doom and gloom to justify the cuts they planned to make. The consequence? They sucked consumer and business confidence out of the economy.

And then - because they’d backed themselves into a corner - they went on hike the worst possible tax, National Insurance employers’ contributions, which impacts both wages and hiring. A completely ludicrous position not least because they kept saying their whole strategy was about growth. Their whole strategy succeeded in undermining growth and economic confidence, and now they threaten Britain with an economic doom loop.

At the same time they’ve kicked Labour MPs out of the party, because they had the temerity to vote against Tory benefit cuts which drive children into poverty and squalor. They’re now beginning a new clampdown on benefit claimants, even though benefit fraud is a tiny fraction and there’s a far bigger problem of benefits people are entitled to not being claimed each year - an estimated £23bn a year in fact.

Kicking the poor, while standing up for the rich. Starmer and Co. underlined whose side they’re on when they accepted endless freebies from wealthy individuals and organisations, even though their salaries are much higher than the average Brit can dream of.

This whole political project is based on deceit, kowtowing to the rich and having no vision for a country in crisis. Starmer became leader in the first place because he committed to policies like taxing the rich to invest, public ownership, scrapping tuition fees and indeed putting human rights at the heart of foreign policy, which was rather undermined by arming Israel’s genocide

A soulless, empty project which was only handed power because the Tories metaphorically speaking doused themselves in petrol and set themselves on fire, and even then Labour only won 33.7% of the vote with the lowest turnout of eligible adults in the history of British democracy

In some polling, Labour is in third place, while Farage’s Reform are surging.

And the polling on why voters have abandoned Labour since the election is instructive. The top reason is winter fuel allowance cuts, followed by not reducing the cost of living, followed by not improving public services, broken promises and not standing up to the rich. The genocide in Gaza also features

Labour are sinking, but the radical right are surging everywhere, including in Britain, and this catastrophe is paving the way for a Farage government - unless those of us who want an actual alternative get our act together.

PS: I’m hiring a brilliant video and social media expert to do a big relaunch: revamping the YouTube channel, and crucially a huge expansion on TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, and so on. With the far right dramatically on the rise, the left fixing our social media strategy is crucial. You can support the expansion by becoming a subscriber.

You can see how we’re beginning to roll out new viral content, for example here and here.