Keir Starmer: Authoritarian Without Authority

Unlike lower energy bills, winter fuel payments for pensioners and no tax rises for ‘working people’, Keir Starmer has finally discovered a manifesto pledge he intends to honour: votes for 16-year-olds. Speaking before Parliament’s Liaison Committee earlier this month, the Prime Minister confirmed:

“We will definitely get it done, it’s a manifesto commitment and we intend to honour it. I think that if you’re old enough to go out to work, if you’re old enough to pay your taxes, then you are entitled to have a say on how your taxes are spent. And also we do have voting at a younger age in different parts of the United Kingdom and the sky didn’t fall in.”

How progressive. But then, this liberal persuasion seems somewhat at odds with the general authoritarianism of his administration. Less than a year into its first sniff of power since 2010, Labour has already implemented (or considered implementing) serious restrictions on those 16 and under. A ban on the sale of energy drinks, a lifetime ban from smoking for anyone born after 2009, smartphone restrictions and a social media ban, a ban on pre-watershed junk food advertising - not to mention the two IDs required to purchase a knife online, which could make you late for your next massacre!

In Starmer’s case personally, this authoritarian streak is even more marked. He was ruthless when it came to the suspension of Labour rebels who voted against his two-child benefit cap amendment, just as he was during his purge of socialist Labour candidates in the run-up to the general election. He shamefully supported the police in their Orwellian collection of data during ‘non-crime hate incidents’ - those that amount to little more than hurt feelings. And of course, Starmer was little short of draconian when it came to his crackdown on free speech in the wake of the Southport riots, and his subsequent plan to expand the use of facial recognition technology - a national ID card system in all but name.

Far from an allergic reaction to power, Starmer was similarly authoritarian in his former life as Director of Public Prosecutions from 2008-2013. During the 2011 ‘London riots’, sparked by the police shooting of Mark Duggan (a black man), Starmer was responsible for keeping the courts open 24/7 and allowing magistrates to pass longer and tougher sentences. His words at the time serve a chilling reminder of his response to the Southport riots:

"For me it was the speed [of processing cases] that I think may have played some small part in bringing the situation back under control. I don't think people gamble on the length of sentence, particularly. They gamble on: 'Am I going to get caught? Am I going to get sentenced and sent to prison?' And if the answer is: 'I'm now watching on the television some other people who had been caught 24 hours or 48 hours after they were on the streets with us' - I think that's a very powerful message.”

Particularly sinister, was his involvement in the case of Paul Chambers - a man whose attempt to make light of a cancelled flight via Twitter soon escalated into counter-terror police arresting him and raiding his home:

‘Crap! Robin Hood airport is closed’, he wrote. ‘You’ve got a week and a bit to get your shit together otherwise I’m blowing the airport sky high!!’

Two and a half years later, his conviction was finally overturned by the High Court. The Guardian reported that the CPS lawyers had wanted to drop the case, but were overruled by one man: Keir Starmer.

Then of course, there was the prosecution of 30 journalists during Operation Elveden - an investigation into phone-hacking and bribery of public officials. Many of those arrested spent years on police bail, their careers in tatters; some even attempted suicide. Despite the fact that not a single journalist investigated was convicted, Starmer has refused to apologise.

In theory, there’s nothing inherently wrong with authoritarian leaders - provided they have conviction, clear principles they stand behind and are upfront about, and more importantly still, get it right occasionally! Perhaps we could consider Thatcher in that guise - the lady who wielded the iron handbag. Certainly she was tough, but she could always justify her stance according to first principles, and (unlike Starmer) stuck to her guns.

Starmer’s leadership is notorious for its absence of principle, rendering him nothing more than a weathervane. His beliefs (if he has any) are his belief in laws, and the right of people like him to set them. Indeed, I am unaware of any political opinion he has not famously rowed back or contradicted himself on:

Consider the spectacle of his Downing Street inauguration as PM. There was, naturally, no sign of the flag of Saint George (Labour has a particular antipathy towards the emblem flown by the white, working-class). No sooner had the press reported it however and the public anger been lodged, when Keir Starmer suddenly brought out the bunting; optics are always easier when you know which way the wind is blowing. Interestingly, this is a game Starmer is playing again in the run-up to the May local elections - attempting to wrestle the same flag from Nigel Farage’s resurgent Reform UK, which polls suggest will provide the real opposition to him. But this kind of posturing from a man without creed is shameful; if anything, it’s cosplay not conviction.

Worse still, is Starmer’s sudden realisation as to what a woman is - a question he famously could not answer. His damascene conversion coming on the back of the Supreme Court’s ruling, that a woman is defined by biological sex:

“Look, a woman is an adult female and the court has made that absolutely clear. I actually welcome the judgement, because I think it gives real clarity and allows those that have got to draw up guidance to be really clear about what that guidance should say.”

To know how bad this is, you need to watch the video:

Requiring the Law Lords to tell him what a woman is would place Keir Starmer out of his depth in an infant school, let alone the world stage. And having punished former Labour MP Rosie Duffield for having the courage to hold the position he now (presumably) holds, Starmer revealed his nasty streak: bereft of logic or argument to protect him, he has zero tolerance for dissent.

Witness the rage he exuded when telling the Southport rioters he ‘guaranteed they would regret’ their ‘far-right thuggery’ - that’s the people he knew he had lied to, incidentally:

Starmer’s ideology then is nothing other than that which is temporarily politically expedient: kneeling for BLM, pretending not to understand what a woman is, pandering to the Muslim vote, or jailing single mothers who tweet things he doesn’t approve of.

Of course, we all know why Starmer wants the vote for 16-year-olds. Labour is banking on their starry-eyed idealism to keep the red flag flying. But how much faith will they have in the Prime Minister, once they realise he trusts them to pick the government, but won’t let them near a Red Bull or a burger?

Frank Haviland is the Editor of The New Conservative, and the author of Banalysis: The Lie Destroying the West.

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This piece was first published in The European Conservative, and is reproduced by kind permission.

(Photograph: Number 10, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons)