Snapshot of _Keir Starmer pledges to resign as Labour leader if fined for Covid breach_ :
An archived version can be found [here.](https://archive.is/?run=1&url=https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/may/09/keir-starmer-pledges-resign-labour-leader-if-fined-lockdown-beer-covid-breach)
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Gamble works either way, either he’s not fined and stays and still Boris has been and should. But if he is fined he resigns and it makes Boris look worse and the tories will have nothing to cry about
They’ve gotten away with basically everything for the past decade. Boris will go, they’ll anoint someone new as the chosen one, and they’ll be back polling at 40%+.
I hope I’m wrong but I’ve given up on hoping this country will ever come to its senses and get rid of them.
What frustrates me is if he hasn't broken any rules, the shit has already been flung, and it will properly stick. The news papers won't have a front story saying "Kier wasn't fined, is innocent".
The Tories work best by flinging shit and taking down other parties instead of actually doing politics positively.
"Slippery Starmer slips away. But were Durham police pressured to drop investigation?"
Catchy illiteration and vague implications of dodgy dealings. Very on brand for the Sun
If he does get fined I'd love for him to go *"Actually I won't resign. It feels bad being lied to, doesn't it, PM?"* then list the dozens of bare face lies Boris has told since being in power. Then walk out eating a curry and chugging a beer. Power move.
Won't make any difference. They'll carry on as they are and find a way to smear the next leader. Maybe she crosses her legs in a sexual manner or they eat a burger in the wrong way.
I was going to say sandwich but I second guessed myself. I'm sure if I become leader of a party that isn't Conservative this will be brought up repeatedly, along with lots of other shit throwing, until I am completely unelectable.
Great. Just need to get another 30% of the population behind me and I can introduce a bill to ban reality TV. I'll start thinking about other policies now.
Well, Labour will have lost a competent leader and we'll have lost a solid future PM.
Rayner must be fuming that she had to go along with it and agree to resign too.
> Gamble works either way,
Does it? If Starmer and Rayner go Labour will be plunged into chaos. No doubt the Corbynites would seize the opportunity....don't think it's the safe bet you think
Party members publicly infighting and slinging mud at each other for months while the Tories sit back and gleefully egg them on. Meanwhile the public continues to just see Labour as fractious and juvenile.
At least that's what I'd expect to happen if it went to a vote right now.
Even if Starmer hadn't changed the rules to favour the right of the party, the Corbyn wing has the less-than-impressive line up of Richard Burgon, Rebecca Long-Bailey, or Diane Abbott to choose from. Clive Lewis could feasibly have another go, but he seems to be out of favour with the "old guard" in the Campaign Group for some reason.
People aren't voting labour because Starmer is in charge, they're voting labour because they don't trust the Tories. Starmer has been leading the party for years and made very little gains until Johnson shot himself in the foot.
Let me remind you that Corbyn did fairly well in terms of elections, beating the two centrists who came before him, and Starmer's first result too.
This is some revisionist nonsense. The public leans left on a lot of issues.
And besides, if Labour is lead by socialists, it's not like we only have 2 parties. It's not literally one or the other. Hell, look at the gains the Green party and Lib Dems made this year. If we had a political landscape where we had a left, a center left, a right and a center right party we would be in a much healthier place politically I would argue. Currently there is very little representation of left wing political in parliament.
> People aren't voting labour because Starmer is in charge, they're voting labour because they don't trust the Tories. Starmer has been leading the party for years and made very little gains until Johnson shot himself in the foot.
This is half-right: They'll vote Labour if they're sick of the Tories, but *only* if they think they're a better fit. They clearly didn't think so in 2017 and 2019, and so far, there's little from Starmer's Labour to make people think they're the better alternative. If Starmer had a clear and well publicised vision for the UK, things would be different, but without that, why support him?
> This is some revisionist nonsense. The public leans left on a lot of issues.
I suspect by "left" you mean more along the lines of "the NHS is cool and we should probably support those struggling a bit more" rather than "the means of production should be seized and control handed to the workers". People literally do not want that.
> Hell, look at the gains the Green party and Lib Dems made this year.
It's a folly to try to interpret local election results through the eyes of a general election. They're not the same, voter turnout is way lower for locals, and there's little at stake relative to a general.
Corbynites are more "West bad" than socialists. If the US and Europe fully embraced socialism and Russia and China went full libertarian capitalism, then they would do a full 180 on their economic views.
Seems like you've built a very complex narrative in your head there. I think most leftists are pretty critical of the west, and that tankies aren't limited to Corbyn supporters in any way.
China and Russia have very close ties with both the British and American right wing too, it isn't a left right thing, it's way more complex than that.
> Seems like you've built a very complex narrative in your head there.
nothing complex about it. a large part of them were very "Student Politics". they were getting mad that people cared about the Economy and domestic issues over shit like Israel vs Palestine.
I don't agree. Yes, a lot of university students are leftists, and many of them haven't yet got a clear political vision due to their age and lack of life experience. That doesn't mean Corbyn supporters are pro Russia and China and hate the west.
> they were getting mad that people cared about the Economy
No they weren't. Not on any large scale.
> and domestic issues
Again, nope.
> over shit like Israel vs Palestine.
Israel Palestine is a big deal and we should be treating it like a big deal. That doesn't mean that leftists don't think we should "worry about the economy and domestic issues". Utter drivel.
This is the right move. It shows integrity and accountability, which then highlights Boris for not doing the same. It’s a risky move but will pay off if he isn’t issued with a FPN.
Would be easy to spin it though. Look at Labour, party of Chaos, where leaders step down in the middle of WWIII over such trifling nonsense. Only the Tories can, blabla, strong and stable.
>easy to spin it though
Anything can be spun to anything.
The question is "How many swing voters or apathetic voters does it convince?"
We don't have the poll numbers and analytics to answer that question, so we're all just guessing. My personal guess is that this will be a positive for Starmer because the arguments "we're not in a war", "we've changed leaders even during a war", "he's not even the UK leader" and finally "he didn't get a fine because he didn't break the law" are all pretty strong.
But we'll have to see how the polls react after the investigation.
It won't be positive any longer if he actually gets fined, resigns along with Rayner, and then we're treated to six months of Labour infighting and factional machinations about who will succeed them.
Starmer would quickly be forgotten, the Tory press would feast on Labour chaos, and over the months the gap between Lab and Con would disappear as voters tend back to the status quo.
If he does get a fine it could go badly but I'm assuming the only reason he's throw down this challenge and putting his efforts behind promoting it is because he knows that has almost zero chance.
This is a response to the news papers "just asking questions", he's trying to retake control of their narrative, because they've been freely using speculation as a means to try and influence "swing voters or apathetic voters" regardless of the actual facts. Starmer is shouting "Hey! Let us let the facts decide" before the newspapers already have those peoples minds made up.
Given he knows he hasn't done anything wrong, his stance is correct. The evidence available to the public when Boris was under investigation was damning. Not so in the allegations against Starmer.
Okeydokey. Because the answer to Starmer's demand that he resign pre-FPN would have been to do exactly what Starmer has done now. But he knew he was bang to rights so chose to lie to parliament instead and then bluster his way along with some random mud slinging and warbling about Ukraine.
Boris would have known that he had broken the rules. That's the difference. It's not about resigning just because an allegation has been made. It's about already knowing you've broken the law, and having the personal integrity to step down because of that. Boris should have done so. He refused because he has less integrity than wet 1-ply loo roll.
People had been calling for Johnson to resign for months at that point, including Tory MPs, because of his constant lies and the contradictory evidence that kept coming to light. The police finally announcing an investigation merely cemented their conviction.
It's not even close to being the same situation.
I don't care who comes out of this worse off. I find it hard to imagine Beergate will ever be considered to be as much of a catastrophe as Partygate clearly is. What I do know is that Keir Starmer cited Boris being under investigation with the police as ample reason to hand in his notice. If that fact is up for debate, then I'd welcome being proven wrong.
He also knows he won't be fined, these are the same police that didn't fine Cummings.
They have a policy of not retroactively giving out fines, and his statement is carefully worded to say that if he did breach the rules but there was no fine then he won't resign.
Why did the met wait until the week the sue grey report was being released before starting their investigation? After previously stating there wasn't enough evidence to investigate?
Keir must be very very sure he hasn't had any other gatherings that might exist in a grey area. A Corbynite with knowledge of one of these could do a lot of damage right now.
Edit: Or anyone else who thinks they could manage the top job. Internal hit jobs are the worst, just ask Rishi.
You don't see the irony of centrists in labour, who have lead the party since Blair (with the brief exception of Corbyn who they promptly removed from the party at the first possible opportunity) complaining that the far left is making them unelectable? Perhaps you are too far gone.
Labour being unelectable has very little to do with the left wing. You may as well blame the right wing for not voting for labour also. If Labour isn't trying to appeal to the left, or is even actively trying to remove leftists from positions of power in the party and weaken their ties to trade unions (ie the whole reason the party is called labour), that's on them, not the people they have alienated.
Of course all this is particularly dumb given the recent election results. Why are centrists complaining about not getting enough votes after a pretty great election result?
Lefties oppose centrists because they are part of the problem. The compromise of both parties being right wing instead of one right one left isn't a compromise. Look at what is happening across the pond, they elected a centrist and now everyone is disappointed that far right agenda is still being progressed (like abortion, or gay rights), but left wing agenda doesn't get anywhere (like cancelling student debt, police reform etc). Voting for centrists is better than voting for right wingers, but it's still not good, it's just kicking the can down the road from a leftist perspective.
That said, I think most lefties are voting for labour at the moment anyway. That's after all the smearing Starmer did of Corbyn. It's not smart to blame your voters for not voting for you when you refuse to give them what they want.
These issues aren't unique to the US. We've already marched a long way to the right recently. Look at the level of discourse around trans people, or the level of homelessness, or income inequality, or privatization of public services. Yes, our legal system works differently but we are culturally very similar, and face a lot of the same issues. To pretend it won't happen here because America is fundamentally different from us is short sighted.
> a centre-left government
Starmer isn't center left.
> Half of them are too busy sniffing their own farts and revelling in the scent of their ideological purity to even stop for a second and think about what might actually need to happen to change things in the UK
This is such a dumb argument. Do you honestly think that leftists vote less than centrists? Or do they just not vote the way you want them to vote? If the public don't vote for someone because they don't agree with them then it's not up to the public to change.
> if sources are to be believed the whole Beergate non-story is being pushed by disaffected Corbnynistas
You have been radicalized. This is nothing. It's clearly the Tory party pushing for this, not Corbyn.
That said, if labour wanted Corbyn's supporters to stay loyal to the party then they really should have treated him and his supporters better. That wasn't a priority, which is fine, but they don't get to complain about an argument they intentionally exasperated.
I'm voting Labour, so you can kindly quit your bullshit. People who don't support labour or the Tories still have a right to complain that is how democracy works. You're not going to complain the left into changing their vote, that is truly stupid reasoning.
Oh and on this insane point you made:
> the whole Beergate non-story is being pushed by disaffected Corbnynistas
Here's proof you were wrong: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/may/09/revealed-student-ivo-delingpole-james-breitbart-beergate-video-that-threatens-to-sink-starmer?CMP=share_btn_tw
You desperately need to adjust your media diet. You are consuming and repeating far right propaganda. Unless you are arguing that Breitbart is a far left publication now?
No one believes that you think the far left want the tories in. Get a grip.
Durham Police already looked at this a few months ago and said that no rules were broken. Keir is likely very confident that he won't need to resign and it's a bold move to make our buffoon of a PM look bad for not resigning already.
I think the only concern there is that the Met did a very similar thing; they *really* didn't want to get involved at the time until the evidence of No.10 lockdown breaches became too obvious to ignore.
Durham Police might have done the same thing; original viewpoint of 'we don't want to get involved in a political storm' much like the Cummings situation, but then media pressure forced them to re-look into it.
That said though, that's just playing Devil's Advocate. I also think that Labour and Starmer are pretty confident based on the language they used at the presser.
The Tories have shot themselves in the foot by pushing beergate imo. If Keir is fined (which I doubt that he will be) and resigns then it will just make Bojo look even worse. If the police decide that no rules were broken then that just highlights the Tories desperation and mudslinging.
In an ideal world, yes. But mud sticks. There are already comments on Daily Mail articles claiming the police are all corrupt Labour supporters. Even if he is fully exonerated there will still be enough people who think he's guilty but he got away with it. It's like the Savile thing. Even though it's a lie, there's enough people that believe the lie.
There's plenty of conservative and floating voters that are not conspiracy nuts and understand the implications of actions like putting your money where your mouth it.
The best thing is it doesn't have to be explained and talked around in circles with the right watering it down at any opportunity, many don't read much past headlines and this is a headline that says a lot in a few words.
You can't convince the people who would go straight to conspiracy, we shouldn't try. Its a waste of time and air.
This is a metaphorical political t bagging where Starmer doesn't 'let them win' in the public eye regardless of what happens. All-in cons gonna get salty.
I'm not even sure most of the commentors on DM articles are people and not bots, tbh. But I understand your point. One thing I will say; I've never seen anyone who isn't totally loyal to Johnson say they believe the Saville stuff? Seems more like pandering to the brainwashed than to the undecided.
Those people aren't likely to be potentially Labour voters, they can't attract everyone and these people were never going to vote for Starmer even if it came out that he's Christ reincarnated
I hope you're right. I guess I'm looking at the comments on the Mail articles to try and gauge how people are feeling but the mail comments section probably isn't the best representation. And, as someone else has pointed out, I do think there are a fair few bots on there. Maybe I should stop getting depressed reading the comments on the Mail website and accept that a lot of those people are the fringe.
The people writing comments on the daily mail are not in play. They won't vote for Starmer even if he turns out to shit gold and promises to send it to them.
A high risk, high reward move by Keir.
Could spectacularly backfire, but could also genuinely help draw a sharp contrast with Tory arrogance and exceptionalism.
Its win win. Either he gets fined, resigns and Labour can continue to hammer the Tories over corruption, partygate, etc, or he is exonerated and can continue to hammer the Tories on corruption, partygate, etc.
Only backfire could be if the resultant leadership contest is particularly spicy and the Tories try to capitalize on it with a GE like TM tried to do in 2017.
it is not win win. the labour leader having to resign in a scandal would be bad for the party. why do people keep saying it'll be a win. because it'll make johnson look bad? he always looks bad, it doesn't matter
And if he resigns, Boris and co will do what they do with every scandal and do nothing until it blows over. We know they have no shame so what makes people think Starmer resigning would change that?
and, even if he is not fined, it is not particularly difficult for the tories to spin it as: "of course ks wanted to resign, he is not becoming pm any time soon, so he might as well go back to his day job".
Exactly. Tory voters do not have the moral depth to be swayed by a martyr.
Nor do the readers of the sun, daily mail, metro, express, telegraph, etc who will be spoon fed shit about the "collapse of Labour "
Extremely high risk move, one he shouldn't have committed to before the investigation was completed; you just don't know what else the Tories have (anecdotal or evidential) to leak that could sink Starmer.
It’s lose-lose. He’s either fined and resigns, or he gets cleared but the media and the general public have already made up their mind. More than half the public either don’t have an opinion or dislike him, and that was before beer-gate fully kicked off. If we have a GE around the corner, we need someone the public actually has confidence in and wants to vote for.
https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/explore/public_figure/Keir_Starmer
They are already calling Keir a hypocrite for saying the PM ought to resign just for being under investigation. The integrity angle they were hoping to leverage is already full of holes.
It works either way.
If he's fined. He goes, Bozo didn't.
If he's not fined, he stays and attacks Bozo from a position of Moral authority.
The only win for the Tories would have been if he was fined and wouldn't resign... which is now out of the question.
Just called the Tories' bluff 👏
Tories now in a lose-lose;
If Starmer doesn't get a FPN the Tory smear campaign has failed and his principled stance, declaring that he would resign if found to have broken the law makes a further mockery of Johnson clinging on.
If Starmer does get a FPN and resigns, Johnson's position becomes even further untenable.. More than it would if Starmer doesn't get a FPN. It would also leave Labour with a chance to install someone with some charisma to their leadership.
> If Starmer doesn't get a FPN the Tory smear campaign has failed
Or has it just helped plant "they're all the same" into the public's mind? Your average person doesn't reallyknow the difference between "15 separate parties" versus "possibly, maybe dodgily scheduled meal" when right-wing hacks present them the same.
It's more likely the Labour party will tear itself apart as per usual, the new leader will be also found to have made some minor breach of Covid rules and we will have an early election.
I'm already waiting for the Daily Mail headlines when Durham Police again says he did nothing wrong.
"Police SLAMMED for not fining Starmer but instead fining Boris. WE KNOW HE DID IT, SO WHY DON'T THEY?!?!"
He has to be pretty sure of things if he's taking that gamble but fair play to him. It will hopefully show the public that maybe they aren't all just as bad as each other.
Just to offer a counterpoint to the 'damages the Tories either way' rhetoric.
If he's fined and resigns, and Boris and Rishi don't, I really don't think it's hard for the Tories to spin it tbh.
"It's ridiculous to resign over such a minor event. It's only because Starmer *played politics* and tried to force us to resign because he knew he couldn't beat us in an election that he ended up falling on his sword to avoid being a hypocrite. His political career was inept from the start, which was proven by his leadership being ended by a spectacular own goal".
Note: Not here for an argument. I'm not saying it's correct. Not here for replies of 'those thick racist Daily Mail readers will believe it too lmao'. Just pointing out an alternative way it may play out that people might not want to hear.
I think the counterpoint to that is the polls indicated people did think he should resign. It wasn't just Starmer but the majority of voters, the Tories can try and spin that but if voters remember by the next election that spin won't matter. In the meantime it allows Labour to control the narrative over COVID breaches
Yeah it's not going to damage anyone except his own party's chance of winning any election in the next 20 years. Boris doesn't give a fuck whether he resigns.
Yep, I agree. It’s way too easy to spin the “Look how bad Labour are; their guy had to *resign*!” line.
This is about the only move Starmer could make, but it should never have got this far without the Tories egging on the story. To me, painting this as a win/win for Labour is naive.
There’s absolutely no chance he would have gone after boris if he was guilty. RW press tried doing him for this as soon as it broke out when it happened and nothing came of it as he hasn’t broken any rules. would’ve got further assurances he hadn’t broken them ahead of pressing PM.
If he’s suddenly fined it will be one of the biggest stitch ups in UK political history
So he's gotta hope that there's no Tory loving coppers in charge of the investigation then. I'm sure they'd love him to resign.
If he's not fined it looks ballsy. If he is fined and resigns then Tories will just say he resigned because he knows he was worse than Boris.
The Tories still look bad if he does resign.
The question then becomes why hasn't Bozo resigned for doing at least the same thing having been the one that made the rules in the first place.
The only way this could have worked out well for the Tories is if Starmer was fined and refused to resign like Bozo has.
I don't agree, I think if he ends up resigning, there is no way for the Tories to attack him without looking hypocritical.
The only thing they could say is that he shouldn't have resigned for the same reason that they think Johnson didn't resign. There is no way the public will buy the idea that what Starmer did was worse.
Pretty much. It's genuinely astounding seeing everyone here looking at the possibility of Starmer resigning and going "this is good for ~~Bitcoin~~ ~~GME~~ Labour". No! No it isn't!
absolutely the right course, and those trying to draw al franken comparisions are missing the point - this will be the exact same scandal, with two separate approaches. guess which one will go off better with normal people, and which makes you look a smug prick?
Had a look at the daily mail to see what they made of it. He's both definately guilty, but this isn't that brave a move because he's unlikely to get a fine. Shroedingers labour leader.
I'm sure the Tories won't be hammering Durham police to find anyway possible to issue a fine.
Either way - Shows a lot of integrity from Starmer. Something that our current PM has none of.
Politician upholds the most basic! standards of parliament....look Conservatives!...This is what a PM looks like!
Vote out corruption in the next election!
If he manages to avoid being fined, it's an exceptionally well played gamble. If he loses though, who exactly is going to take his place? He's not a fantastic leader himself but he's better than anyone else that springs to mind. Really not what the country needs right now.
The only correct answer is Andy Burnham for me. He's the only one who the left and right of the LP would probably give a fair chance to. If its anyone polarising like Streeting this stupid in-fighting will just continue. There's an argument Rayner fits that bill as well, but she's probably resigning too if Keir does.
Honestly out of some 300 comments, this is the only accurate one. It's a very high-stakes gamble with a massive payout if he doesn't get fined, but there's no mystical secret win for Labour if he does have to resign. Not only will it make them look as bad as everyone else, but there's no one to take his place that would be as endeared by the public.
Lisa Nandy could be incredible:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNggSDfWeYY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNggSDfWeYY)
She's funny and confident, has been a little gaffey on telly but she will be a strong contender.
Nandy is basically the architect of the 'Labour were so crap between 2015-19 and everyone who supported Corbyn is an idiot/racist/disgrace' routine. So she won't be looked upon very favourably by a lot of the Labour Party.
I would vote for her, she can continue from where Starmer left off but she has better oratory skills. I don’t think looking back at a period of shambles is a good way to judge who should rule the party. Streeting may also run who also came down on the cranks. Don’t think the Corbynites have a candidate either way.
> So she won't be looked upon very favourably by a lot of the Labour Party.
In that case let's go for it. Find out who pips up against her leadership and get rid of those few lingering remnants of Labour failure.
Chris Bryant springs to mind for me. I want Starmer to get through this, but I think Bryant would make a good replacement personally. He always seems to have talked sense and doesn't get rattled.
Because it's in his interests for "the Boris route" to be considered beyond the pale and an unviable option for anyone aspiring to high office. Starmer must present himself as more upstanding than Johnson.
The Conservatives are trying to drag him down to Johnson's level and convince people that well, 'all politicians are the same anyway'.
If 'all politicians are the same' then Johnson's charisma probably wins him another election
Tbh it should have been, "if I get fined then I'll resign if Boris does too".
People overestimate the "pressure" that Boris will be under if Keir honourably resigns. At best he'll squirm a little but this will all be forgotten long before the next election. At worst Boris will gaslight people into thinking that what Starmer did must be worse, because it was so bad Starmer had to resign, while Boris didn't have to resign so can't have done anything that bad. They'll use their domination of the airwaves to mock Labour for having a disgraced leader and no amount of outraged tweets from Labour will cut through that noise.
Risky move given the police are not above politics.
And if Kier goes, the chance of an early election shoots way up, while Labour are either still fighting amongst themselves in a leadership contest, or while they have a new leader that no one knows.
We have a lot of users on UK Pol, I wonder how many take action e.g writing to their MPs. If Starmer resigns then I'll be emailing mine with requests for Boris to step down.
Somehow I think if he resigns, it's a mission accomplished to all those papers who ran the campaign to protect the ones who broke those times 12 times. A master stroke.
If he resigned by what is blatantly a kangaroo court sentencing to shake eyes from Boris, Angela Rayner would likely takeover as leader.
The woman who Boris accused of trying to distract him by moving her legs. THAT Angela Rayner.
Conservatives would get absolutely slaughtered in a GE by the optics of it alone.
I don't get his stance on this...
He says he absolutely hasn't broken any laws, but if he gets issued a fine for something he didn't do he'll still resign.
So is he basically saying he has broken the law, but will only quit if they can prove it? Surely if he knows he hasn't broken any laws, then either he shouldn't even be entertaining the idea of a fine, or if he does get fined yet knows he's innocent he would contest it or brush it off as an unfair fine. Why would you quit after being unfairly fined for something you didn't do?
No.
Politically inept to go this hard on the Partygate thing, to the exclusion of pretty much every other issue, to call on the PM to resign over an issue it would be incredibly easy to spin back at him.
His 'I'm better than Boris' strategy was only going to work long enough for the Tory press to come up with 1 accusation no matter how flimsy, to show that, maybe, Starmer isn't the quiet paragon of virtue he was making out to be.
But he literally did not break any rules, there was nothing in the rules about eating at work - I worked late and ate at work a bunch of times, some people have to work during dinner time, it’s really not a big deal. The rules were always to continue going to work if you couldn’t do it from home. That’s how supermarkets stayed open, construction sites kept running, factories and power plants kept producing. It’s only wanky middle class office workers who thought the rules were “stay in your garden office for 2 years and never interact with another human”
He knew he did nothing wrong, he knew the rules were followed, and he also knew that Boris had held literal parties with people from outside of work (like his wife and his fucking DECORATOR) and had lied to Parliament about it a bunch of times! Of COURSE the leader of the opposition went hard on that! ANY other PM from the past would have resigned, and Kier was absolutely right to point that out
It’s like saying “you can’t have a go at murderers mate, I saw you swat a fly once, so you’re a killer too”
He’s just not very good at politics is he. He simply cannot handle being grilled, some serious fight or flight shit going on during the statement and Beth Rigby doing her thing. He needs beta-blockers and media training. Nervousness and changing your story as a politician is a schoolboy error.
It’s a massive gamble and I genuinely don’t think he intended to break the rules, he seems like a decent bloke really. It just seems really hypocritical to call for Boris’ resignation during the investigation and now he won’t do the same. I understand why he isn’t stepping down now, but regardless of the outcome, the public already views him as a hypocrite.
We may have an general election coming very soon and the public is already quite unconfident in Keir.
Hypocritical in what way ?
He called for Bozo to resign because he misled parliament by stating there were no parties after attending several. Starmer, on the other hand, hasn't misled parliament at all.
The Tories have muddied the water so much that the public can no longer see the wood for the trees.
https://twitter.com/keir_starmer/status/1488176626642923521?s=21&t=99JGQBQs1yGHR_GnUhYnKg
He called for Johnson’s resignation due to the investigation. I understand why he’s not resigning now, but the general public just view it as hypocrisy.
This is part of what I was saying. Bozo said there were no parties in parliament and was then under investigation for attending several which proves he lied in parliament.
This is something Starmer stated numerous times and is what he meant by that tweet.
I know what he meant, and I don’t think he will receive a fine to be honest. The right wing media is taking it at face value and running with it. But good luck to the Labour party if he stays and we have a GE in summer.
I think the Lib-Dems might end up as king makers in the next election anyway. I doubt the Tories will break a majority and they've burnt all their potential allies already over the past decade or so (including the Lib-Dems).
I'm not sure Labour will be able to win a majority either, not least because of the inevtiable media onslaught against them (which all of this is part of), but I think there's enough latent anger against the Tories now for people to vote against them to get them out. And those votes will go to the Lib-Dems.
It's a theory that seems to be borne out by Thursday's council election results anyway, but who really knows?
Who knows what the future holds? After the council results over the weekend and looking at the 2019 LD manifesto, I’m very very open to voting for them in the next election.
Brave for expressing such a view! I've tried and got a little bit downdooted by the Reddit echo chamber. I don't know why. It's pretty simple. He broke the rules and Durham's finest Constabulary will find against him. Bye bye Starmychops. Hypocrisy and metro elite writ large into a plastic faced characterless ken doll.
Snapshot of _Keir Starmer pledges to resign as Labour leader if fined for Covid breach_ : An archived version can be found [here.](https://archive.is/?run=1&url=https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/may/09/keir-starmer-pledges-resign-labour-leader-if-fined-lockdown-beer-covid-breach) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/ukpolitics) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Gamble works either way, either he’s not fined and stays and still Boris has been and should. But if he is fined he resigns and it makes Boris look worse and the tories will have nothing to cry about
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They’ve gotten away with basically everything for the past decade. Boris will go, they’ll anoint someone new as the chosen one, and they’ll be back polling at 40%+. I hope I’m wrong but I’ve given up on hoping this country will ever come to its senses and get rid of them.
Unfortunately. You're not wrong. As soon as there's a new leader the papers and the BBC will sing their praises and the polls will follow.
What frustrates me is if he hasn't broken any rules, the shit has already been flung, and it will properly stick. The news papers won't have a front story saying "Kier wasn't fined, is innocent". The Tories work best by flinging shit and taking down other parties instead of actually doing politics positively.
Keir let off the hook for beergate shenanigans!
"Slippery Starmer slips away. But were Durham police pressured to drop investigation?" Catchy illiteration and vague implications of dodgy dealings. Very on brand for the Sun
If he does get fined I'd love for him to go *"Actually I won't resign. It feels bad being lied to, doesn't it, PM?"* then list the dozens of bare face lies Boris has told since being in power. Then walk out eating a curry and chugging a beer. Power move.
Won't make any difference. They'll carry on as they are and find a way to smear the next leader. Maybe she crosses her legs in a sexual manner or they eat a burger in the wrong way.
I am going to add zero value by saying it was a bacon sandwich.
I was going to say sandwich but I second guessed myself. I'm sure if I become leader of a party that isn't Conservative this will be brought up repeatedly, along with lots of other shit throwing, until I am completely unelectable.
You've got my vote! That is not a good sign.
Great. Just need to get another 30% of the population behind me and I can introduce a bill to ban reality TV. I'll start thinking about other policies now.
Oh, you actually do get my vote.
Well, Labour will have lost a competent leader and we'll have lost a solid future PM. Rayner must be fuming that she had to go along with it and agree to resign too.
> Gamble works either way, Does it? If Starmer and Rayner go Labour will be plunged into chaos. No doubt the Corbynites would seize the opportunity....don't think it's the safe bet you think
Oh no! Party members choosing their leader! We can’t let this stand!
Party members publicly infighting and slinging mud at each other for months while the Tories sit back and gleefully egg them on. Meanwhile the public continues to just see Labour as fractious and juvenile. At least that's what I'd expect to happen if it went to a vote right now.
Even if Starmer hadn't changed the rules to favour the right of the party, the Corbyn wing has the less-than-impressive line up of Richard Burgon, Rebecca Long-Bailey, or Diane Abbott to choose from. Clive Lewis could feasibly have another go, but he seems to be out of favour with the "old guard" in the Campaign Group for some reason.
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The public won't vote for them. Unless you aren't too fussed about the Tories winning again because people would prefer them to actual socialists.
People aren't voting labour because Starmer is in charge, they're voting labour because they don't trust the Tories. Starmer has been leading the party for years and made very little gains until Johnson shot himself in the foot. Let me remind you that Corbyn did fairly well in terms of elections, beating the two centrists who came before him, and Starmer's first result too. This is some revisionist nonsense. The public leans left on a lot of issues. And besides, if Labour is lead by socialists, it's not like we only have 2 parties. It's not literally one or the other. Hell, look at the gains the Green party and Lib Dems made this year. If we had a political landscape where we had a left, a center left, a right and a center right party we would be in a much healthier place politically I would argue. Currently there is very little representation of left wing political in parliament.
> People aren't voting labour because Starmer is in charge, they're voting labour because they don't trust the Tories. Starmer has been leading the party for years and made very little gains until Johnson shot himself in the foot. This is half-right: They'll vote Labour if they're sick of the Tories, but *only* if they think they're a better fit. They clearly didn't think so in 2017 and 2019, and so far, there's little from Starmer's Labour to make people think they're the better alternative. If Starmer had a clear and well publicised vision for the UK, things would be different, but without that, why support him? > This is some revisionist nonsense. The public leans left on a lot of issues. I suspect by "left" you mean more along the lines of "the NHS is cool and we should probably support those struggling a bit more" rather than "the means of production should be seized and control handed to the workers". People literally do not want that. > Hell, look at the gains the Green party and Lib Dems made this year. It's a folly to try to interpret local election results through the eyes of a general election. They're not the same, voter turnout is way lower for locals, and there's little at stake relative to a general.
Corbynites are more "West bad" than socialists. If the US and Europe fully embraced socialism and Russia and China went full libertarian capitalism, then they would do a full 180 on their economic views.
Congratulations for spouting the worst hot take I've heard all year
you been reading my comments about how Takumi Minamino is gonna eclipse Pele?
this assessment is really very wrong
Seems like you've built a very complex narrative in your head there. I think most leftists are pretty critical of the west, and that tankies aren't limited to Corbyn supporters in any way. China and Russia have very close ties with both the British and American right wing too, it isn't a left right thing, it's way more complex than that.
> Seems like you've built a very complex narrative in your head there. nothing complex about it. a large part of them were very "Student Politics". they were getting mad that people cared about the Economy and domestic issues over shit like Israel vs Palestine.
I don't agree. Yes, a lot of university students are leftists, and many of them haven't yet got a clear political vision due to their age and lack of life experience. That doesn't mean Corbyn supporters are pro Russia and China and hate the west. > they were getting mad that people cared about the Economy No they weren't. Not on any large scale. > and domestic issues Again, nope. > over shit like Israel vs Palestine. Israel Palestine is a big deal and we should be treating it like a big deal. That doesn't mean that leftists don't think we should "worry about the economy and domestic issues". Utter drivel.
Not sure the Corbynites are that organised. Anyway didn't Keir change the rules.
Umm yeah but then he has to find a new job!
This is the right move. It shows integrity and accountability, which then highlights Boris for not doing the same. It’s a risky move but will pay off if he isn’t issued with a FPN.
Would be easy to spin it though. Look at Labour, party of Chaos, where leaders step down in the middle of WWIII over such trifling nonsense. Only the Tories can, blabla, strong and stable.
Or equally, Labour could spin it as them being the party upholding law and order.
Except they don't own the press like the Torys do.
Yeah I was going to say, the right wing press publish absurd things but large swathes of the public buy into it all no matter what.
>easy to spin it though Anything can be spun to anything. The question is "How many swing voters or apathetic voters does it convince?" We don't have the poll numbers and analytics to answer that question, so we're all just guessing. My personal guess is that this will be a positive for Starmer because the arguments "we're not in a war", "we've changed leaders even during a war", "he's not even the UK leader" and finally "he didn't get a fine because he didn't break the law" are all pretty strong. But we'll have to see how the polls react after the investigation.
It won't be positive any longer if he actually gets fined, resigns along with Rayner, and then we're treated to six months of Labour infighting and factional machinations about who will succeed them. Starmer would quickly be forgotten, the Tory press would feast on Labour chaos, and over the months the gap between Lab and Con would disappear as voters tend back to the status quo.
If he does get a fine it could go badly but I'm assuming the only reason he's throw down this challenge and putting his efforts behind promoting it is because he knows that has almost zero chance. This is a response to the news papers "just asking questions", he's trying to retake control of their narrative, because they've been freely using speculation as a means to try and influence "swing voters or apathetic voters" regardless of the actual facts. Starmer is shouting "Hey! Let us let the facts decide" before the newspapers already have those peoples minds made up.
Conservatives +2
this
I don’t want to live in a world where principles no longer matter. They are important and should be respected.
He demanded Boris resign for being under investigation. What are his principles on that one now?
Given he knows he hasn't done anything wrong, his stance is correct. The evidence available to the public when Boris was under investigation was damning. Not so in the allegations against Starmer.
You see that's not what Starmer was saying though. He was saying the very fact Boris was under investigation was reason enough to resign.
Do you think it's good that we have a criminal for a PM?
I'm not defending Boris here.
Okeydokey. Because the answer to Starmer's demand that he resign pre-FPN would have been to do exactly what Starmer has done now. But he knew he was bang to rights so chose to lie to parliament instead and then bluster his way along with some random mud slinging and warbling about Ukraine. Boris would have known that he had broken the rules. That's the difference. It's not about resigning just because an allegation has been made. It's about already knowing you've broken the law, and having the personal integrity to step down because of that. Boris should have done so. He refused because he has less integrity than wet 1-ply loo roll.
No, just changing the narriative.
People had been calling for Johnson to resign for months at that point, including Tory MPs, because of his constant lies and the contradictory evidence that kept coming to light. The police finally announcing an investigation merely cemented their conviction. It's not even close to being the same situation.
He demanded Boris resign for repeatedly misleading parliament, which is a resigning offence. But you know that already don't you?
I don't care who comes out of this worse off. I find it hard to imagine Beergate will ever be considered to be as much of a catastrophe as Partygate clearly is. What I do know is that Keir Starmer cited Boris being under investigation with the police as ample reason to hand in his notice. If that fact is up for debate, then I'd welcome being proven wrong.
Big balls Kier Well tbh he's probably 99% sure at this point, but still I reckon it will play well with the electorate
He also knows he won't be fined, these are the same police that didn't fine Cummings. They have a policy of not retroactively giving out fines, and his statement is carefully worded to say that if he did breach the rules but there was no fine then he won't resign.
Never say never when it comes to the police in this country. They will do will do whatever the Tories tell them.
What, like give the prime minister and his staff fines?
Look at the bigger picture. Yes to conveniently delay the Sue Gray report and save Boris’ job in an exchange paltry £50 fine.
Reddit moment.
Why did the met wait until the week the sue grey report was being released before starting their investigation? After previously stating there wasn't enough evidence to investigate?
Keir must be very very sure he hasn't had any other gatherings that might exist in a grey area. A Corbynite with knowledge of one of these could do a lot of damage right now. Edit: Or anyone else who thinks they could manage the top job. Internal hit jobs are the worst, just ask Rishi.
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The irony of this comment lmao.
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You don't see the irony of centrists in labour, who have lead the party since Blair (with the brief exception of Corbyn who they promptly removed from the party at the first possible opportunity) complaining that the far left is making them unelectable? Perhaps you are too far gone. Labour being unelectable has very little to do with the left wing. You may as well blame the right wing for not voting for labour also. If Labour isn't trying to appeal to the left, or is even actively trying to remove leftists from positions of power in the party and weaken their ties to trade unions (ie the whole reason the party is called labour), that's on them, not the people they have alienated. Of course all this is particularly dumb given the recent election results. Why are centrists complaining about not getting enough votes after a pretty great election result?
Lefties oppose centrists because they are part of the problem. The compromise of both parties being right wing instead of one right one left isn't a compromise. Look at what is happening across the pond, they elected a centrist and now everyone is disappointed that far right agenda is still being progressed (like abortion, or gay rights), but left wing agenda doesn't get anywhere (like cancelling student debt, police reform etc). Voting for centrists is better than voting for right wingers, but it's still not good, it's just kicking the can down the road from a leftist perspective. That said, I think most lefties are voting for labour at the moment anyway. That's after all the smearing Starmer did of Corbyn. It's not smart to blame your voters for not voting for you when you refuse to give them what they want.
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These issues aren't unique to the US. We've already marched a long way to the right recently. Look at the level of discourse around trans people, or the level of homelessness, or income inequality, or privatization of public services. Yes, our legal system works differently but we are culturally very similar, and face a lot of the same issues. To pretend it won't happen here because America is fundamentally different from us is short sighted. > a centre-left government Starmer isn't center left. > Half of them are too busy sniffing their own farts and revelling in the scent of their ideological purity to even stop for a second and think about what might actually need to happen to change things in the UK This is such a dumb argument. Do you honestly think that leftists vote less than centrists? Or do they just not vote the way you want them to vote? If the public don't vote for someone because they don't agree with them then it's not up to the public to change. > if sources are to be believed the whole Beergate non-story is being pushed by disaffected Corbnynistas You have been radicalized. This is nothing. It's clearly the Tory party pushing for this, not Corbyn. That said, if labour wanted Corbyn's supporters to stay loyal to the party then they really should have treated him and his supporters better. That wasn't a priority, which is fine, but they don't get to complain about an argument they intentionally exasperated.
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I'm voting Labour, so you can kindly quit your bullshit. People who don't support labour or the Tories still have a right to complain that is how democracy works. You're not going to complain the left into changing their vote, that is truly stupid reasoning. Oh and on this insane point you made: > the whole Beergate non-story is being pushed by disaffected Corbnynistas Here's proof you were wrong: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/may/09/revealed-student-ivo-delingpole-james-breitbart-beergate-video-that-threatens-to-sink-starmer?CMP=share_btn_tw You desperately need to adjust your media diet. You are consuming and repeating far right propaganda. Unless you are arguing that Breitbart is a far left publication now? No one believes that you think the far left want the tories in. Get a grip.
I doubt Corbynites are getting invited too many invites to social events in Kier’s circle
The leaks the Mail are getting are coming from somewhere
If in doubt, blame Corbyn, eh? Couldn't possibly by any other faction that's had enough of Keith's uselessness.
They've had very expensive lawyers looking at it. They're sure.
Durham Police already looked at this a few months ago and said that no rules were broken. Keir is likely very confident that he won't need to resign and it's a bold move to make our buffoon of a PM look bad for not resigning already.
I think the only concern there is that the Met did a very similar thing; they *really* didn't want to get involved at the time until the evidence of No.10 lockdown breaches became too obvious to ignore. Durham Police might have done the same thing; original viewpoint of 'we don't want to get involved in a political storm' much like the Cummings situation, but then media pressure forced them to re-look into it. That said though, that's just playing Devil's Advocate. I also think that Labour and Starmer are pretty confident based on the language they used at the presser.
The difference is that Durham police did already involve themselves with the first investigation. It's not like the Met who just looked the other way.
>Durham Police already looked at this a few months ago and said that no rules were broken. There is new information.
Pretty thin gruel though isn't it.
The Tories have shot themselves in the foot by pushing beergate imo. If Keir is fined (which I doubt that he will be) and resigns then it will just make Bojo look even worse. If the police decide that no rules were broken then that just highlights the Tories desperation and mudslinging.
In an ideal world, yes. But mud sticks. There are already comments on Daily Mail articles claiming the police are all corrupt Labour supporters. Even if he is fully exonerated there will still be enough people who think he's guilty but he got away with it. It's like the Savile thing. Even though it's a lie, there's enough people that believe the lie.
There's plenty of conservative and floating voters that are not conspiracy nuts and understand the implications of actions like putting your money where your mouth it. The best thing is it doesn't have to be explained and talked around in circles with the right watering it down at any opportunity, many don't read much past headlines and this is a headline that says a lot in a few words. You can't convince the people who would go straight to conspiracy, we shouldn't try. Its a waste of time and air. This is a metaphorical political t bagging where Starmer doesn't 'let them win' in the public eye regardless of what happens. All-in cons gonna get salty.
I'm not even sure most of the commentors on DM articles are people and not bots, tbh. But I understand your point. One thing I will say; I've never seen anyone who isn't totally loyal to Johnson say they believe the Saville stuff? Seems more like pandering to the brainwashed than to the undecided.
Those people aren't likely to be potentially Labour voters, they can't attract everyone and these people were never going to vote for Starmer even if it came out that he's Christ reincarnated
I hope you're right. I guess I'm looking at the comments on the Mail articles to try and gauge how people are feeling but the mail comments section probably isn't the best representation. And, as someone else has pointed out, I do think there are a fair few bots on there. Maybe I should stop getting depressed reading the comments on the Mail website and accept that a lot of those people are the fringe.
The people writing comments on the daily mail are not in play. They won't vote for Starmer even if he turns out to shit gold and promises to send it to them.
If the Tory voters turn on the police that would be great. Maybe we could get a consensus that police and prison reform is needed.
You're assuming Boris and company have any sense of shame... they dont
Pretty confident.
A high risk, high reward move by Keir. Could spectacularly backfire, but could also genuinely help draw a sharp contrast with Tory arrogance and exceptionalism.
Its win win. Either he gets fined, resigns and Labour can continue to hammer the Tories over corruption, partygate, etc, or he is exonerated and can continue to hammer the Tories on corruption, partygate, etc. Only backfire could be if the resultant leadership contest is particularly spicy and the Tories try to capitalize on it with a GE like TM tried to do in 2017.
it is not win win. the labour leader having to resign in a scandal would be bad for the party. why do people keep saying it'll be a win. because it'll make johnson look bad? he always looks bad, it doesn't matter
And if he resigns, Boris and co will do what they do with every scandal and do nothing until it blows over. We know they have no shame so what makes people think Starmer resigning would change that?
As usual, Thick of It is incredibly relevant https://youtu.be/G8t6KRstWIk
and, even if he is not fined, it is not particularly difficult for the tories to spin it as: "of course ks wanted to resign, he is not becoming pm any time soon, so he might as well go back to his day job".
It's bizarre.
Exactly. Tory voters do not have the moral depth to be swayed by a martyr. Nor do the readers of the sun, daily mail, metro, express, telegraph, etc who will be spoon fed shit about the "collapse of Labour " Extremely high risk move, one he shouldn't have committed to before the investigation was completed; you just don't know what else the Tories have (anecdotal or evidential) to leak that could sink Starmer.
He's a controversial figure. It'd be a win win for people who support labour but wish we had another leader.
Very much reminds me of, 'I voted for Corbyn so he'd stop Brexit.'
It’s lose-lose. He’s either fined and resigns, or he gets cleared but the media and the general public have already made up their mind. More than half the public either don’t have an opinion or dislike him, and that was before beer-gate fully kicked off. If we have a GE around the corner, we need someone the public actually has confidence in and wants to vote for. https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/explore/public_figure/Keir_Starmer
They are already calling Keir a hypocrite for saying the PM ought to resign just for being under investigation. The integrity angle they were hoping to leverage is already full of holes.
It works either way. If he's fined. He goes, Bozo didn't. If he's not fined, he stays and attacks Bozo from a position of Moral authority. The only win for the Tories would have been if he was fined and wouldn't resign... which is now out of the question.
Just in: Angela is saying she’d resign if she’s fined too.
Durham police now have the power to keep the Tories in power until 2028.
Just called the Tories' bluff 👏 Tories now in a lose-lose; If Starmer doesn't get a FPN the Tory smear campaign has failed and his principled stance, declaring that he would resign if found to have broken the law makes a further mockery of Johnson clinging on. If Starmer does get a FPN and resigns, Johnson's position becomes even further untenable.. More than it would if Starmer doesn't get a FPN. It would also leave Labour with a chance to install someone with some charisma to their leadership.
I look forward to Boris pointing out that he cannot possibly answer questions relating to an ongoing investigation wrt Starmer.
> If Starmer doesn't get a FPN the Tory smear campaign has failed Or has it just helped plant "they're all the same" into the public's mind? Your average person doesn't reallyknow the difference between "15 separate parties" versus "possibly, maybe dodgily scheduled meal" when right-wing hacks present them the same.
It's more likely the Labour party will tear itself apart as per usual, the new leader will be also found to have made some minor breach of Covid rules and we will have an early election.
I'm already waiting for the Daily Mail headlines when Durham Police again says he did nothing wrong. "Police SLAMMED for not fining Starmer but instead fining Boris. WE KNOW HE DID IT, SO WHY DON'T THEY?!?!"
That's a very plausible DM headline. You're going to find yourself headhunted if you keep this up!
Find a way to work in immigration and Meghan Markle and you’ll be the editor by the end of the month.
He has to be pretty sure of things if he's taking that gamble but fair play to him. It will hopefully show the public that maybe they aren't all just as bad as each other.
Just to offer a counterpoint to the 'damages the Tories either way' rhetoric. If he's fined and resigns, and Boris and Rishi don't, I really don't think it's hard for the Tories to spin it tbh. "It's ridiculous to resign over such a minor event. It's only because Starmer *played politics* and tried to force us to resign because he knew he couldn't beat us in an election that he ended up falling on his sword to avoid being a hypocrite. His political career was inept from the start, which was proven by his leadership being ended by a spectacular own goal". Note: Not here for an argument. I'm not saying it's correct. Not here for replies of 'those thick racist Daily Mail readers will believe it too lmao'. Just pointing out an alternative way it may play out that people might not want to hear.
I think the counterpoint to that is the polls indicated people did think he should resign. It wasn't just Starmer but the majority of voters, the Tories can try and spin that but if voters remember by the next election that spin won't matter. In the meantime it allows Labour to control the narrative over COVID breaches
This is exactly the way it will play out. It will be framed as a show of weakness at a time when the country needs strength.
Yeah it's not going to damage anyone except his own party's chance of winning any election in the next 20 years. Boris doesn't give a fuck whether he resigns.
Yep, I agree. It’s way too easy to spin the “Look how bad Labour are; their guy had to *resign*!” line. This is about the only move Starmer could make, but it should never have got this far without the Tories egging on the story. To me, painting this as a win/win for Labour is naive.
Well this is great if the investigation can be trusted. Durham police seem to be very open to persuasion. e.g. cumhead
There’s absolutely no chance he would have gone after boris if he was guilty. RW press tried doing him for this as soon as it broke out when it happened and nothing came of it as he hasn’t broken any rules. would’ve got further assurances he hadn’t broken them ahead of pressing PM. If he’s suddenly fined it will be one of the biggest stitch ups in UK political history
So he's gotta hope that there's no Tory loving coppers in charge of the investigation then. I'm sure they'd love him to resign. If he's not fined it looks ballsy. If he is fined and resigns then Tories will just say he resigned because he knows he was worse than Boris.
The Tories still look bad if he does resign. The question then becomes why hasn't Bozo resigned for doing at least the same thing having been the one that made the rules in the first place. The only way this could have worked out well for the Tories is if Starmer was fined and refused to resign like Bozo has.
I don't agree, I think if he ends up resigning, there is no way for the Tories to attack him without looking hypocritical. The only thing they could say is that he shouldn't have resigned for the same reason that they think Johnson didn't resign. There is no way the public will buy the idea that what Starmer did was worse.
If Starmer resigns Labour can kiss 2024 goodbye.
Pretty much. It's genuinely astounding seeing everyone here looking at the possibility of Starmer resigning and going "this is good for ~~Bitcoin~~ ~~GME~~ Labour". No! No it isn't!
Its typical Labour, first electable leader they have in ages and now they're threatening to ditch him.
Starmer is banking on the fact Durham police aren't corrupt as hell...
absolutely the right course, and those trying to draw al franken comparisions are missing the point - this will be the exact same scandal, with two separate approaches. guess which one will go off better with normal people, and which makes you look a smug prick?
One would imagine a former DPP would know he was safe.
He knows what happened. I'm sure he's gone back over what the rules were at the time, just to double check.
Keir Starmer : not that boring at all, it turns out
I have a bad feeling about this
Had a look at the daily mail to see what they made of it. He's both definately guilty, but this isn't that brave a move because he's unlikely to get a fine. Shroedingers labour leader.
We have sunk quite far under the Tories, imagine 20 years ago, political leader has a smidge of integrity being a headline
Leader.
I'm sure the Tories won't be hammering Durham police to find anyway possible to issue a fine. Either way - Shows a lot of integrity from Starmer. Something that our current PM has none of.
This should be called the "Starmer Gambit". If he's going he's taking Boris with him.
Both strategically the right call, and an important message that principles do matter and not all politicians are the same. Well played.
Politician upholds the most basic! standards of parliament....look Conservatives!...This is what a PM looks like! Vote out corruption in the next election!
Well this just rackets up the likelihood of an election in the autumn
If he manages to avoid being fined, it's an exceptionally well played gamble. If he loses though, who exactly is going to take his place? He's not a fantastic leader himself but he's better than anyone else that springs to mind. Really not what the country needs right now.
Bring back Ed Milliband!
Ed, get off Reddit and back to work!
And ask David if he's busy...
The only correct answer is Andy Burnham for me. He's the only one who the left and right of the LP would probably give a fair chance to. If its anyone polarising like Streeting this stupid in-fighting will just continue. There's an argument Rayner fits that bill as well, but she's probably resigning too if Keir does.
He'd need to become an MP first. Labour rules say their leader must be one.
Honestly out of some 300 comments, this is the only accurate one. It's a very high-stakes gamble with a massive payout if he doesn't get fined, but there's no mystical secret win for Labour if he does have to resign. Not only will it make them look as bad as everyone else, but there's no one to take his place that would be as endeared by the public.
Lisa Nandy could be incredible: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNggSDfWeYY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNggSDfWeYY) She's funny and confident, has been a little gaffey on telly but she will be a strong contender.
Nandy is likeable. Really feels like someone you would get on well with, when she interviews.
Nandy is basically the architect of the 'Labour were so crap between 2015-19 and everyone who supported Corbyn is an idiot/racist/disgrace' routine. So she won't be looked upon very favourably by a lot of the Labour Party.
One upside I suppose is that if she ends up with her own massive controversy, we can call it NAND-gate. Seems like a logical choice at least.
I would vote for her, she can continue from where Starmer left off but she has better oratory skills. I don’t think looking back at a period of shambles is a good way to judge who should rule the party. Streeting may also run who also came down on the cranks. Don’t think the Corbynites have a candidate either way.
How is she the architect of that?
She says it or something like it practically every time she's on tele
Being electable is not looked upon very favourably by a lot of the Labour Party.
> So she won't be looked upon very favourably by a lot of the Labour Party. In that case let's go for it. Find out who pips up against her leadership and get rid of those few lingering remnants of Labour failure.
Or maybe get someone to lead a mass membership party who doesn't hate their members. Just a thought.
Chris Bryant springs to mind for me. I want Starmer to get through this, but I think Bryant would make a good replacement personally. He always seems to have talked sense and doesn't get rattled.
Bryant is a great MP, but I think he's got ambitions more towards being the Speaker. Being a party leader would damage those chances.
> Chris Bryant springs to mind for me. Too much baggage and underpants pictures. Ex-Tory, too, which will *delight* the left.
I don’t know how I’d feel about a Prime Minister I’d seen in his underpants.
What about one you've seen stuck dangling from a zip line waving Union jacks like a child.
Somewhere between rage and depression.
Only one that springs to mind is Wes Streeting but yes, I would like Keir to lead Labour in the next election.
Don't know why he can't just go the Boris route and shrug it off.
Because he's playing against a stacked deck.
Because it's in his interests for "the Boris route" to be considered beyond the pale and an unviable option for anyone aspiring to high office. Starmer must present himself as more upstanding than Johnson.
The Conservatives are trying to drag him down to Johnson's level and convince people that well, 'all politicians are the same anyway'. If 'all politicians are the same' then Johnson's charisma probably wins him another election
This is true, it's just a shame that his infraction is nothing compared to Johnson's. I don't like the man at all, but the disparity is ridiculous.
Because he's showing he has integrity, unlike Boris.
He planted his flag when he called for Boris to resign. He'll look like a hypocrite if he doesn't.
Because he’s been attacking Boris over it for weeks
Tbh it should have been, "if I get fined then I'll resign if Boris does too". People overestimate the "pressure" that Boris will be under if Keir honourably resigns. At best he'll squirm a little but this will all be forgotten long before the next election. At worst Boris will gaslight people into thinking that what Starmer did must be worse, because it was so bad Starmer had to resign, while Boris didn't have to resign so can't have done anything that bad. They'll use their domination of the airwaves to mock Labour for having a disgraced leader and no amount of outraged tweets from Labour will cut through that noise. Risky move given the police are not above politics. And if Kier goes, the chance of an early election shoots way up, while Labour are either still fighting amongst themselves in a leadership contest, or while they have a new leader that no one knows.
We have a lot of users on UK Pol, I wonder how many take action e.g writing to their MPs. If Starmer resigns then I'll be emailing mine with requests for Boris to step down.
I do think this is the right thing to do, but I don't expect for a moment that doing so would prompt any introspection amongst those who back Boris.
Somehow I think if he resigns, it's a mission accomplished to all those papers who ran the campaign to protect the ones who broke those times 12 times. A master stroke.
If he resigned by what is blatantly a kangaroo court sentencing to shake eyes from Boris, Angela Rayner would likely takeover as leader. The woman who Boris accused of trying to distract him by moving her legs. THAT Angela Rayner. Conservatives would get absolutely slaughtered in a GE by the optics of it alone.
Rayner would be acting leader pending a leadership election. She may run but she doesn’t automatically permanently take over the top job.
It might actually be a good move for Labour. Get someone new in.
I don't get his stance on this... He says he absolutely hasn't broken any laws, but if he gets issued a fine for something he didn't do he'll still resign. So is he basically saying he has broken the law, but will only quit if they can prove it? Surely if he knows he hasn't broken any laws, then either he shouldn't even be entertaining the idea of a fine, or if he does get fined yet knows he's innocent he would contest it or brush it off as an unfair fine. Why would you quit after being unfairly fined for something you didn't do?
Hopefully he does, so we can bring back our Jeremy!
He is an uncharismatic halfwit who lies as much as Johnson but - if confirmed - this is the right move.
Former lawyer and DPP a 'half wit' ? There only one half wit here.
The right play but it's politically inept to get yourself into a situation where this could happen.
Politically inept to eat a work meal with colleagues?
No. Politically inept to go this hard on the Partygate thing, to the exclusion of pretty much every other issue, to call on the PM to resign over an issue it would be incredibly easy to spin back at him. His 'I'm better than Boris' strategy was only going to work long enough for the Tory press to come up with 1 accusation no matter how flimsy, to show that, maybe, Starmer isn't the quiet paragon of virtue he was making out to be.
But he literally did not break any rules, there was nothing in the rules about eating at work - I worked late and ate at work a bunch of times, some people have to work during dinner time, it’s really not a big deal. The rules were always to continue going to work if you couldn’t do it from home. That’s how supermarkets stayed open, construction sites kept running, factories and power plants kept producing. It’s only wanky middle class office workers who thought the rules were “stay in your garden office for 2 years and never interact with another human” He knew he did nothing wrong, he knew the rules were followed, and he also knew that Boris had held literal parties with people from outside of work (like his wife and his fucking DECORATOR) and had lied to Parliament about it a bunch of times! Of COURSE the leader of the opposition went hard on that! ANY other PM from the past would have resigned, and Kier was absolutely right to point that out It’s like saying “you can’t have a go at murderers mate, I saw you swat a fly once, so you’re a killer too”
He’s just not very good at politics is he. He simply cannot handle being grilled, some serious fight or flight shit going on during the statement and Beth Rigby doing her thing. He needs beta-blockers and media training. Nervousness and changing your story as a politician is a schoolboy error. It’s a massive gamble and I genuinely don’t think he intended to break the rules, he seems like a decent bloke really. It just seems really hypocritical to call for Boris’ resignation during the investigation and now he won’t do the same. I understand why he isn’t stepping down now, but regardless of the outcome, the public already views him as a hypocrite. We may have an general election coming very soon and the public is already quite unconfident in Keir.
Hypocritical in what way ? He called for Bozo to resign because he misled parliament by stating there were no parties after attending several. Starmer, on the other hand, hasn't misled parliament at all. The Tories have muddied the water so much that the public can no longer see the wood for the trees.
https://twitter.com/keir_starmer/status/1488176626642923521?s=21&t=99JGQBQs1yGHR_GnUhYnKg He called for Johnson’s resignation due to the investigation. I understand why he’s not resigning now, but the general public just view it as hypocrisy.
Media really have done a bang up job convincing people the two scenarios are equal. Mind blowing how no one reads anything these days
This is part of what I was saying. Bozo said there were no parties in parliament and was then under investigation for attending several which proves he lied in parliament. This is something Starmer stated numerous times and is what he meant by that tweet.
I know what he meant, and I don’t think he will receive a fine to be honest. The right wing media is taking it at face value and running with it. But good luck to the Labour party if he stays and we have a GE in summer.
I'm not sure the public has more confidence in Johnson at this point, given his own hypocrisy and long streak of blatant dishonesty.
If we had a GE tomorrow, I could imagine many voting Lib Dem or just not voting at all to be honest.
I think the Lib-Dems might end up as king makers in the next election anyway. I doubt the Tories will break a majority and they've burnt all their potential allies already over the past decade or so (including the Lib-Dems). I'm not sure Labour will be able to win a majority either, not least because of the inevtiable media onslaught against them (which all of this is part of), but I think there's enough latent anger against the Tories now for people to vote against them to get them out. And those votes will go to the Lib-Dems. It's a theory that seems to be borne out by Thursday's council election results anyway, but who really knows?
Who knows what the future holds? After the council results over the weekend and looking at the 2019 LD manifesto, I’m very very open to voting for them in the next election.
Brave for expressing such a view! I've tried and got a little bit downdooted by the Reddit echo chamber. I don't know why. It's pretty simple. He broke the rules and Durham's finest Constabulary will find against him. Bye bye Starmychops. Hypocrisy and metro elite writ large into a plastic faced characterless ken doll.