The LRC went on in 1906 to become the Labour Party standing in elections but, at the time, the Labour Party were in the shadow of the Liberal and Conservative parties. The hardy Scotsman, James Keir Hardie, was the party’s first parliamentary leader from 1906-1908 and the name ‘Keir’ is where any similarities with the present leader ends!
In those days liberal democracy was in its infancy and labour parties around Europe were considered revolutionary. Much early socialist thinking was based on the teachings of Karl Max and people like London Dockworkers Union and socialist organiser, Ben Tillet, flocked to the new party.
In 1917 the party inserted the fabled Clause IV into their constitution which made a commitment, on paper at least, to the common ownership of the means of production. Labour enjoyed electoral success in 1924 forming their first minority government under Ramsay McDonald. In 1929 McDonald and Labour won the election but failed to gain an overall majority and relied on Liberal Party support. In 1931 McDonald led a ‘National Government’ leading to his expulsion from the Labour Party. It was not until 1945 did the Labour Party under Clement Atlee enjoy real parliamentary success, defeating Winston Churchill and the Tories and for the first time implementing parts of Clause IV. The Atlee administration nationalised chunks of British industry, introduced the Welfare State including the National Health Service, unemployment benefit (though unemployment was virtually zero until Thatcher then all these hitherto hard-working people decided they would kick their jobs and go on the ‘dole’) and social security payments. Also introduced was the ‘pluralist’ system of industrial relations giving trade unions a greater say.
The party was part of the post war consensus in British parliamentary politics which lasted until the election of the right-wing Margaret Thatcher in 1979 finally ended this consensus. Callaghan was replaced as leader by a labour traditionalist, Michael Foot, who was persecuted by the right-wing media but stuck rigidly to his politics. Most of those principles the party was founded on are no longer present in today’s variant calling itself the ‘Labour Party’. It is not the party I grew up with when socialists and trade unionists were regular visitors to our house.
Labour enjoyed success in 1964, 1966 – some argued on the back of England’s World Cup success – under Harold Wilson. Wilson went to the polls again in 1970 calling a ‘snap election’ and lost to Edward Heath's Conservative and Unionist Party. Just as some claimed World Cup success guided Labour to victory in 1966 the reverse could be said – and was claimed by some – in 1970 after England crashed out of the competition to West Germany. Some claimed at the time this exit from the competition cost Labour the election?
In the 1974 (ironically another World Cup year) general election Heath was booted out and Wilson was back in Number 10. He retired surprisingly in 1976 and Jim Callaghan assumed the leadership and role of Prime Minister. Callaghan lost the 1979 election and Thatcher became the first female – of sorts – Prime Minister in Britain. The Labour Party would not see parliamentary power again until 1997 under Tony (Tory) Blair. He was nicknamed this because he implemented many policies which would be associated with the Conservatives. Blair with his ‘Spin Doctor’ Peter Mandelson implemented many changes within the party supposedly making them “electable” - meaning betraying all Labour’s values and principles. Nobody told these that the art of politics certainly in their parliamentary sense is to persuade the electorate your policies are correct, not move towards the right. Blair and Mandelson, the latter being around chipping away at Labour values since Neil Kinnock's (pillocks) leadership, who had replaced Michael Foot after the 1983 election, advised Blair to abolish Clause IV and continue with the red rose instead of the red flag. This was the end of the British Labour Party despite winning the 1997 general election by a landslide. The party was now Labour in name only. When Blair got rid of Clause IV miner’s leader, Arthur Scargill, announced; “that man in there has just declared war on the working-class” and left the party as an individual, though the NUM continued to affiliate and contribute money to Blair's Labour Party as did and do many trade unions.
When Labour lost the 2015 election the then leader, Ed Miliband, stood down to be replaced by Jeremy Corbyn. Corbyn offered some hope at revitalising the party and wanted to shift back to Labour values and principles. Corbyn was elected three times as leader by the then over 500,000 members despite the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP) not wanting him. The 2017 general election saw Corbyn and Labour cut the Tory majority to just four. Tory leader and Prime Minister, Theresa May, was in tears as she had before the election a huge majority which she had now lost at the hands of Corbyn! Some Labour MPs, like Stephen Kinnock (son of Pillock) were in tears, not tears of happiness, but tears of sorrow because Jeremy Corbyn, and despite their best efforts, was proving popular among the electorate. If the PLP had got behind their leader as they should have done instead of undermining him at every opportunity then Labour could well have won the 2017 election. The PLP then set about a hatchet job on their leader who would have more knives in his back than did Julius Ceaser. Instead of Brutus and the Senate Corbyn had Margaret Hodge and the PLP out to get him. With their help the Conservative and Unionist Party won the 2019 general election by a landslide. Corbyn resigned as leader and was replaced by the two-faced Keir Starmer. Starmer had claimed he supported Corbyn when under attack but did not hesitate to expel the former leader from the party. Jeremy now stands as an Independent and holds his seat in Highbury and Islington, and continues to support Arsenal – good luck this year, anyone but City or Scousers!
Starmer and the party calling itself the ‘Labour Party’ won the 2024 general election with a record number of seats. Starmer was taking the party further to the right than did Blair and has betrayed even further the basic principles of the one-time Labour Party. Labours popularity with the electorate appears, in a short period of time, to have gone from an all-time high to a record low under Starmer. Despite this apparent decline in popularity Starmer continues with his policies. He is giving money to Ukraine to fight its war with Russia while, at the same time, implementing cuts in social security to the poor at home. In order to feed the Ukrainian war machine he proposed cuts in pensioners' heating allowance and despite how much many people support Ukraine in the war they do not expect to fund it through cuts to their own living standards, already at rock bottom!
When Labour lost the 2015 election the then leader, Ed Miliband, stood down to be replaced by Jeremy Corbyn. Corbyn offered some hope at revitalising the party and wanted to shift back to Labour values and principles. Corbyn was elected three times as leader by the then over 500,000 members despite the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP) not wanting him. The 2017 general election saw Corbyn and Labour cut the Tory majority to just four. Tory leader and Prime Minister, Theresa May, was in tears as she had before the election a huge majority which she had now lost at the hands of Corbyn! Some Labour MPs, like Stephen Kinnock (son of Pillock) were in tears, not tears of happiness, but tears of sorrow because Jeremy Corbyn, and despite their best efforts, was proving popular among the electorate. If the PLP had got behind their leader as they should have done instead of undermining him at every opportunity then Labour could well have won the 2017 election. The PLP then set about a hatchet job on their leader who would have more knives in his back than did Julius Ceaser. Instead of Brutus and the Senate Corbyn had Margaret Hodge and the PLP out to get him. With their help the Conservative and Unionist Party won the 2019 general election by a landslide. Corbyn resigned as leader and was replaced by the two-faced Keir Starmer. Starmer had claimed he supported Corbyn when under attack but did not hesitate to expel the former leader from the party. Jeremy now stands as an Independent and holds his seat in Highbury and Islington, and continues to support Arsenal – good luck this year, anyone but City or Scousers!
Starmer and the party calling itself the ‘Labour Party’ won the 2024 general election with a record number of seats. Starmer was taking the party further to the right than did Blair and has betrayed even further the basic principles of the one-time Labour Party. Labours popularity with the electorate appears, in a short period of time, to have gone from an all-time high to a record low under Starmer. Despite this apparent decline in popularity Starmer continues with his policies. He is giving money to Ukraine to fight its war with Russia while, at the same time, implementing cuts in social security to the poor at home. In order to feed the Ukrainian war machine he proposed cuts in pensioners' heating allowance and despite how much many people support Ukraine in the war they do not expect to fund it through cuts to their own living standards, already at rock bottom!
Starmer is also supplying arms to Ukraine under the false illusion Russia is a threat to Britain and the rest of Western Europe, which they are not, all of which cost money. He is talking about a ‘coalition of the Willing’ sending troops to aide Ukraine which would put Britain in a state of war with the planets largest nuclear power, Russia! Who is this fucking idiot? As the party continues to fall in the polls Starmer refuses to step down despite requests by some trade union leaders to do so. He believes his policies will bear fruit. But if things continue in this vein with support crumbling, even within the trade union movement, the Labour Party could well suffer the fate of the old Liberal Party, near extinction without actually dying!
Never has a party lost support so rapidly as his government. With a huge majority, largely now on paper, they should be able to push policies easily through Parliament. The reason for their inability to do this comes not from Kemi Badenoch’s Tory opposition - they were nearly wiped out in 2024 - but from his own MPs. This is creating more than an illusion the party in government is split and fragmented. Despite all the signs Starmer continues his charge to the right trying to beat Nigel Farage’s Reform UK, a far-right party, in the right-wing race to the bottom. Starmer has become obsessed with these fascists and instead of beating them with left-wing ideology he is trying to emulate them. Could Starmer, like Blair before him I suspect, be an establishment mole in there to destroy the Labour Party from within? He has expelled anybody who holds traditional Labour left-wing views including a former leader!
On February 26th 2026 a by-election was held in Gorton and Denton, a seat held by Labour for almost a century, and Starmer’s Labour Party were humiliated into third place. The Greens, who now hold the mantle of ‘left-wing’ ideologists something Labour lost many years ago, won the seat with a landslide. They received 14,980 votes easily enough to see their candidate Hannah Spencer take the seat. The electorate, certainly in Gorton and Denton, voted for left-wing policies rejecting Starmer and his right-wing one-time Labour Party. The Labour candidate, Angeliki Stogia, came a humiliating third place behind Reform UK with 9,364 votes. Reform Candidate, Matt Goodwin, came second with a respectable 10,898 votes. Labour are already making excuses about ‘mid-term governments always suffering setbacks’ which is true but not to this extent. This was a humiliation, a hammering, a shattering blow for Starmer’s party. Reform are also looking for excuses as to why, as their leader Nigel Farage expected, they did not come first. Claims by party Chairman, David Bull, on BBC2 News on 27th February; “you saw around 12% of Muslim voters entering the polling booth with their wives which is illegal”. Could Reform’s major gripe be these voters voted Green and had nothing to do with so-called ‘family voting’? Either way Starmer has just suffered another crippling blow and the question must now be asked, what is the state of the British Labour Party? In a separate opinion voiced on the same programme it was claimed by a so-called political expert that the Greens could not “win a general election because their extreme policies include withdrawal from NATO”. Surely this would be a matter for the British electorate not the BBC? Or was this a subtle hint if they did win a general election their leader, Zack Polanski, could suffer the fate of Marxist Salvador Allende in Chile back in 1973 if Polanski became PM?
This defeat in the Gorton and Denton by-election is just another humiliation for Keir Starmer. He has been forced to U-Turn on so many occasions and this is the second by-election he has lost. Two safe Labour Party seats lost to either Reform UK or the Green Party. Reform UK won by just six votes the Runcorn and Helsby by-election beating Labour. On the same day Reform also swept the board in the council elections as the number of Labour Party councillors dwindled. All bad news for Starmer.
On February 26th 2026 a by-election was held in Gorton and Denton, a seat held by Labour for almost a century, and Starmer’s Labour Party were humiliated into third place. The Greens, who now hold the mantle of ‘left-wing’ ideologists something Labour lost many years ago, won the seat with a landslide. They received 14,980 votes easily enough to see their candidate Hannah Spencer take the seat. The electorate, certainly in Gorton and Denton, voted for left-wing policies rejecting Starmer and his right-wing one-time Labour Party. The Labour candidate, Angeliki Stogia, came a humiliating third place behind Reform UK with 9,364 votes. Reform Candidate, Matt Goodwin, came second with a respectable 10,898 votes. Labour are already making excuses about ‘mid-term governments always suffering setbacks’ which is true but not to this extent. This was a humiliation, a hammering, a shattering blow for Starmer’s party. Reform are also looking for excuses as to why, as their leader Nigel Farage expected, they did not come first. Claims by party Chairman, David Bull, on BBC2 News on 27th February; “you saw around 12% of Muslim voters entering the polling booth with their wives which is illegal”. Could Reform’s major gripe be these voters voted Green and had nothing to do with so-called ‘family voting’? Either way Starmer has just suffered another crippling blow and the question must now be asked, what is the state of the British Labour Party? In a separate opinion voiced on the same programme it was claimed by a so-called political expert that the Greens could not “win a general election because their extreme policies include withdrawal from NATO”. Surely this would be a matter for the British electorate not the BBC? Or was this a subtle hint if they did win a general election their leader, Zack Polanski, could suffer the fate of Marxist Salvador Allende in Chile back in 1973 if Polanski became PM?
This defeat in the Gorton and Denton by-election is just another humiliation for Keir Starmer. He has been forced to U-Turn on so many occasions and this is the second by-election he has lost. Two safe Labour Party seats lost to either Reform UK or the Green Party. Reform UK won by just six votes the Runcorn and Helsby by-election beating Labour. On the same day Reform also swept the board in the council elections as the number of Labour Party councillors dwindled. All bad news for Starmer.
The irony is it was Starmer who expelled former left-wing leader, Jeremy Corbyn, and it was the PLP who stabbed the same man in the back. The voters of Gorton and Denton voted for Corbyn policies, could this be repeated nationally? Not if the BBC and, I dare say, MI5 have their way! It was the polices similar to those of a former Labour leader expelled by Starmer which the electorate of Gorton and Denton voted in their droves for. Could there be a subtle message in this result?
There is still time for the Labour Party to pull itself out of the ashes but not, I suspect, under this leader. Urgent repair work is needed and traitors like those who stabbed Jeremy Corbyn in the back, including Starmer, would have to go or take a back seat. Perhaps a think-tank could be organised consisting of sensible left-wing government MPs, Rachel Maskel MP for York comes to mind, starting by reducing money for Ukraine and spending on the home front. People want to see an improvement in living standards, safer working terms and conditions and a lot, lot less grovelling to US President and far-right nutter Donald Trump. Remember Britain has a Labour Government not a right-wing republican one based in Washington!!!
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| Caoimhin O’Muraile is Independent Socialist Republican and Marxist. |
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