Shaun Lawson Profile picture
Sep 24, 2020 23 tweets 4 min read Read on X
There's two pretty obvious golden rules which Keir Starmer is following. This thread sets out what those two rules are - and why they're both very important (and no: neither rule are as portrayed by many on here at all).
Rule 1: Don't fall into Tory traps.

Because of the support they've gained among working class voters, and because of the culture wars they're desperate to intensify, the Tories wish to portray the Labour leader as follows:
- That he's unpatriotic

- That he won't deliver 'the will of the people'

- That he wants to divide the country at a time of massive national crisis

- That he's just another woolly London liberal

- That Labour haven't changed under him at all
So his positioning, naturally, avoids all those traps and counters the Tory narrative.

Folks: we just lost an election by twelve points. We have our lowest seat numbers since 1935. OF COURSE we have to show we're different now. That's basic, elementary stuff.
How are we showing we're different?

- By being led competently

- By asking serious questions but not dividing the country

- By moving on from Brexit

- And by reaching out on the concerns of all those lost voters (who Starmer's critics seem to think somehow don't exist)
Abstaining on the overseas operation bill actually meets both the 'don't fall into Tory traps' rule - and the second rule, which I'm about to explain.

It means the Tories can't successfully portray us as 'unpatriotic' or 'against the army' (they'll try to, but without success).
And the second rule?

- Don't do gesture politics when there's nothing in it for you. Politics is about making a difference and actually getting things done.

This all goes back to a previous thread of mine, here:

Corbyn rose to the leadership after he opposed the Welfare Reform Bill, while so much of the PLP abstained. The optics for the latter were atrocious... it's just that no, the PLP DID NOT support welfare reform at all.

They abstained because they wanted to amend the bill.
This latest collective abstention? No, Labour don't suddenly support torture or anything like it. It's because Labour want to try and amend the bill - and deal with the torture point in so doing.

Will it succeed? Probably not. That's the reality of an 80-seat Tory majority.
In the face of 80-seat majorities, if the opposition wants to achieve anything at all, it HAS to abstain on bills like these and seek to amend them.

But let's think back to Corbyn. On welfare reform, what did he actually achieve? Nothing whatsoever.
In fact, on very many issues, his leadership achieved nothing whatsoever - because achieving something tangible, something fundamental, only happens by winning government first.

Gesture politics from opposition says to the public that you're opportunistic and you won't listen.
It says to the public that in the face of a massive defeat, and a decade of almost constant defeat, you're just the same as you always were.

And gesture politics, as well as achieving nothing, also antagonise sections of the electorate you can't afford to alienate.
It antagonised working class voters, who've moved en masse to the Tories.

It also antagonised Jews. While achieving nothing, literally nothing, to help Palestine or Middle East peace. So what on Earth was the point?
There's this almost comical assumption on the left that if we just keep shouting into the ether about, for example, Israel/Palestine, this makes a difference.

It doesn't. And since the collapse of the Oslo peace process, it never has. The situation there is worse than ever.
Corbyn, rightly, opposed Tory austerity with all his might. So - did he stop it? Nope. The Tories won yet again - and for all Rishi Sunak's currently trying to bail the country out, he can't keep doing so forever. There's gonna be a huge bill to pay off at some point.
A quite massive part of the reason why Corbyn failed to stop all those things he opposed from actually happening is: the public could not take him seriously as a leader.

It MUST take Starmer seriously as a leader if we're ever to achieve anything at all.
And in the deeply flawed British parliamentary system, effective leadership requires united parliamentary parties... and united parties mean: collective responsibility.

That's why the three MPs have been sacked. It's because they defied the party whip. Simple.
It's not because Labour now 'supports torture' (it quite categorically does not and it never will). It's because they defied a three line whip.

That was their choice. They're perfectly entitled to make it - but they also knew what the consequences would be.
So no: they're not martyrs. And their actions have done precisely zero to stop the Bill coming into force - so again, what was the point?

Of course principles matter. They always matter. But when a point of principle makes literally no difference to the outcome...?
And when a point of principle means the government can use the same narrative about your party which just got it crushed at the last election...?

It requires being much smarter, much shrewder, and picking the battles you can win. Which in this bill, come later.
The Tories, incidentally, are having massive problems coming up with effective attack lines against Starmer. Absurdly, they're trying to portray him as just the same as Corbyn. Which the public will just laugh at - because it's literally unbelievable.
All this is part of the short term aim of getting Labour a hearing.

Medium term aim: show that you're competent and hence, better than the alternative.

Long term aim: once you've done that, THEN announce the policies - and show why they're better too.
We're currently kinda between the short and medium term aims. The longer term one comes later. That's just sensible, responsive politics. For all those crying foul, my reply is:

"Your way of doing politics got us crushed. Remember that line about the definition of insanity?"

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More from @shaunjlawson

May 29
THREAD: Sangita Myska, James O'Brien and LBC.

When I was a kid, such was the sheer quality of the news coverage on British television, I thought journalists told the truth. And were motivated by exactly that: holding truth to power, essential to any flourishing democracy.
I watched Newsnight and Channel 4 News avidly. I read the Sunday Times news review every weekend.

And the BBC's coverage of conflict in the Middle East, through fearless reporters like Jeremy Bowen, Orla Guerin and John Simpson, was consistently outstanding.
Back then, there were next to no fears on British journalism's part of being denounced as 'antisemitic' for telling the truth about Israel's conduct.

Media whitewashing went on all the time quite disgracefully in the US - but not in the UK or across Europe.
Read 30 tweets
Apr 18
THREAD: The Supreme Court, trans rights, and the left.

Many times over the last 4 or 5 years, I've warned again and again about the ludicrous rabbit hole of its own making which the contemporary left was disappearing down over trans rights and women's rights.
A rabbit hole which would inevitably be exploited by the far right for its own appalling ends. As is currently happening, to the horror of so many looking on, in the United States and elsewhere.

I had hoped the Supreme Court's clarification would help the UK left see sense.
The Labour Party, thankfully, gradually has: bit by bit.

But the online left, very left wing Labour MPs, the Greens, large swathes of the SNP and of the US Democrats haven't at all. It's all too plain that hardly any of them have learnt anything.

I do understand why.
Read 66 tweets
Mar 23
I was talking with my aunt about this yesterday. We talked for over 8 hours (not only about this!) - that's a lifetime record for me!

I was very shocked at just how low wages were and how high bills were. She really DID scrimp and save massively. So did plenty of others.
That's not to say I'm in any way oblivious to the insane levels of inequality and unfairness now. I told her it was harder to buy a house now than at any time since the nineteenth century.

But very many boomers DIDN'T "have it easy". Not at all. Especially single ones.
- If someone failed the utterly appalling, disgraceful 11 plus, that consigned them to a massively harder life than the few who didn't

- Yes, university was free. But most people DIDN'T GO TO UNIVERSITY

- Wages were pathetic and there was NO minimum wage at all
Read 41 tweets
Feb 25
THREAD: Mr Starmer goes to Washington.

There's already been plenty of complaints on here that the Prime Minister is 'sucking up to Trump'.

No folks. He's trying to maintain the most incredibly fine balancing act. And so is Macron by the way.

Both of them have to do that.
Macron has more leeway for several reasons.

1. He's known Trump for much, much longer. He's one of very few world leaders who's been in office almost as long as when Trump first became President.

2. He has no more elections to fight, so can be a little freer in what he says.
3. The long, long tradition of Gaullism in French foreign policy means that France usually sides with the US - but is more independent and critical in how it conducts itself.

Yet despite that, and the images yesterday of Macron challenging Trump, he also did the following.
Read 49 tweets
Feb 4
So, Reform are ahead now, if only just. What are their prospects?

1. No, there won't be a deal between them and the Tories any time soon. Reform's next goal is to wipe the Tories out altogether and replace them.

2. They will have a MAJOR problem breaking through 30%.
I fully expect them to stay ahead of the Tories throughout the rest of the Parliament.

But actually looking like a credible party of government to enough voters is another thing entirely.

Remember: they and Farage are Marmite. Huge numbers hate him and are scared of them.
Remember: they're not even a democratically accountable party yet.

Remember: without Farage, they have no-one else. And they're gonna have all sorts of problems preventing overt racists standing for them.
Read 21 tweets
Jan 28
UNPOPULAR OPINION (among the left and probably many of my followers): the modern liberal left, of whom I've always been a card carrying member, got it VERY wrong on mass immigration.

And all because it didn't try to remake society after Thatcher wrecked it and the working class.
What the UK has been crying out for for many decades now has been huge investment across the country.

When Johnson spoke of 'levelling up', he was more than onto something. He'd hit the nail on the head. But because the Tories are a bunch of shysters and crooks, nothing happened
Britain's has been a quite ludicrously unbalanced, unsustainable economy for as long as I can remember now.

Skewed completely towards property, financial services, speculators and billionaire leeches. And quite unbelievably skewed towards south-east England too.
Read 53 tweets

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