UK Labour: Starmer’s detractors are still around

On Monday, July 17, 2023, I read an interesting Guido Fawkes post, ‘North of Tyne Mayor Quits Labour Party, Blasts Starmer and Begs for Cash to Run as Independent’.

I was on board with everything except begging for cash.

The North of Tyne mayor represents a group of people living in the north east of England, specifically in Newcastle, North Tyneside and Northumberland.

Guido explains (red emphases his):

One of the rare Corbynistas still standing in Starmer’s Labour, North of Tyne mayor Jamie Driscoll, has quit the party. The now-independent mayor says he was given “no other choice” than to resign after he was barred from standing by party HQ and is promising to govern as a “common sense” voice for the people of Newcastle, North Tyneside and Northumberland. In a scathing letter to Keir Starmer, Driscoll says the Labour Leader has “U-turned on so many policies” and is guilty of “mental gymnastics worthy of gold”.

Jamie’s decision doesn’t come lightly – Guido reported he was planning the move last week – and his revolution won’t be cheap. Before he commits to standing for re-election, he wants to ring round his supporters for £25,000 by August. The self-confessed socialist will then target £150,000 for the full campaign…

Guido reproduced Jamie Driscoll’s letter in full, excerpts of which follow (emphases mine):

Dear Sir Keir,

It is with a heavy heart and deep disappointment that I am leaving the Labour Party. I will now serve the people of Newcastle, North Tyneside and Northumberland as the Independent North of Tyne Mayor.

Given you have barred me from running as North East Mayor, despite being incumbent Mayor, I have no other choice. In 2020 you told me to my face that you would “inspire people to come together… disciplining people to be united is going nowhere.” You’ve broken that promise.

I joined the Labour Party in 1985. I campaigned for Neil Kinnock to become PM in 1987. I’ve campaigned in countless elections. My Mam, my brother, my wife, and my two teenage sons are all Labour Party members. There are thousands of brilliant, dedicated activists, numerous councillors, MPs and Mayors who put public service above factional positioning, many of them good friends. They do incredible work in their communities, and I pay tribute to every one of them. I am not encouraging anyone to leave the Labour Party.

You’ve U-turned on so many promises: £28 billion to tackle the climate emergency, free school meals, ending university tuition fees, reversing NHS privatisation; in fact, a list of broken promises too long to repeat in this letter. And please stop saying “I make no apologies for…” before you find yourself saying “I make no apologies for making no apologies”.

Britain is a mess. Wages have fallen behind inflation. People are struggling to pay mortgages. Knife crime is out of control. Business investment has flat lined. The climate response is barely existent. People with chest pains wait an hour for ambulances. Our transport system is in chaos …

Worst of all, you’ve said you’re not interested in hope and change. Well, I am — Britain needs hope and change. Instead of London Labour HQ barring me from running, you could have used my work as a showcase of economic competence.

My Combined Authority has built affordable homes in rural and urban areas. I’ve worked with businesses large and small to deliver a pipeline of over 5,000 new jobs, all backed by our Good Work Pledge. Implemented a Green New Deal and invested heavily in offshore renewable energy. Our Child Poverty Prevention Programme is hailed as an exemplar of best practice. And we’ve increased adult education enrolments from 22,000 a year to 33,000 a year for the same budget. All this wealth generation was done without charging people a penny in council tax.

I’ve led negotiations and delivered an expanded £4.27 billion devolution deal across the North East to transform our region’s transport system.

I’ve done this by being pragmatic and putting results ahead of party politics — to the effect that I’ve received praise for my “constructive, non-partisan approach” from Labour, Conservative, Lib Dem, Green and Independent Ministers, Mayors, MPs and councillors.

I think I’ve shown that hope and change is not only possible — but that it’s a pragmatic, common sense response to the challenges of our time …

I didn’t become a politician until I was 48. I’m an engineer. Fixing broken systems is what I do.

We need a new settlement. I value patriotism — and believe it’s expressed by public service, not xenophobia. My Dad drove a tank in the army, my brother served in the navy at the time of the Falklands. My politics are simple — I believe Britain should be run in the interests of the people who do the work. That includes those unable to work, and those retired from a lifetime of work. It’s not left-wing. It’s not right-wing. It’s common sense.

The groundswell of support I’ve received has been humbling. Business leaders, trade union leaders, charity workers, huge numbers of Labour members, and elected politicians from every party have encouraged me to run as an independent, saying they will vote for me because the North East needs an autonomous voice that’s not in hock to Westminster Party HQs. They may be right.

In candour,
Jamie

I nearly applauded. However, I did note that he used Obama’s ‘hope and change’ slogan from 2008.

Guido had a follow-up on Tuesday: ‘Jeremy Corbyn Leads Revolution Against Starmer’s Two-Child Cap U-Turn’.

This has to do with Keir Starmer’s U-turn on the child benefit allowance cap after two children per household. Yesterday, I cited someone who responded to another post of Guido’s who said that the child benefit cap had to be put in place because it was being abused. Unfortunately, other benefits for children, including those involving a highly elastic definition of disability, have done little to stop some households abusing the system:

… the benefit cap was brought in to get control of this, but usually they manage to get around this with a “disabled“ child which stops the cap being applied, and a very wide range of conditions including many common mental health conditions can lead to being classified as disabled. Also you will frequently see the same father, who is absent, on the birth certificates of the children, this means that his income doesn’t get considered when applying for UC [Universal Credit], but in reality they are living as a family all together.

Guido has the soundbite from former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, who, in December 2019, was responsible for the Party’s greatest defeat since 1935. Once Keir Starmer — who, by the way, was a Corbyn supporter in 2019 — became leader, he took the Party whip away from his predecessor, who now sits in Parliament as an Independent.

At first, Starmer said that child benefit should encompass more children than the first two. Since then, he’s recently changed his mind and now supports the status quo.

Corbyn told LBC radio that Labour backbenchers were angry with Starmer. The ageing radical even praised Tony Blair:

I have spoken to quite a lot of Labour MPs about it yesterday, not so much on the front bench, but I have spoken to many about it, and they are seething with anger. Particularly as commitments have been made regularly by the party that we would take children out of poverty. Even the Blair government, which Keir Starmer often quotes, did do a great deal to lift children out of poverty…

Guido wrote:

You know it’s getting serious when Jeremy Corbyn is praising the Blair government…

Indeed.

We also got the list of seething MPs and other Labour politicians, a few of whom are among the most radical:

A long list of Labour politicians have already publicly outed themselves as among those “seething with anger”. This includes MPs John McDonnell, Richard Burgon, Ian Lavery, Rosie Duffield, Lloyd Russell-Moyle, Stella Creasy, Clive Efford, Stephen Timms, Kim Johnson, Zarah Sultana and Meg Hillier, as well as Scottish Labour Leader Anas Sarwar and Sadiq Khan, alongside three other Labour mayors. Could someone from the Shadow Cabinet be next…

Guido ended with this:

This is not to mention Jezza’s fellow independent, Jamie Driscoll, who resigned yesterday over the issue. In this context Corbyn was also asked about his own plans to stand as an independent Mayor of London. He didn’t rule it out.

Jamie Driscoll, the newly Independent North of Tyne Mayor, resigned over the issue?

Hmm. Interesting. Why did it not show up in his letter?

A lot of what people say needs to be examined carefully over time. It could be that Driscoll is not a Corbynista, he just happened to fall foul of Starmer or Labour HQ, as he said. I would be interested to read more about him in future.

Meanwhile, Starmer’s detractors are still around. It would not surprise me to find him becoming PM at the next general election then being deposed. Then just who would succeed him? That is the worry.