People often reference Starmer's involvement with the McLibel case to showcase his left-wing credentials, but it's worth noting that the person who helped write the leaflet which the libel case concerned itself with was a spycop infiltrator named Bob Lambert.

#Spycops
In other words, Starmer's great moral achievement is tinged with a striking tension: namely that years later, when he chose to whip to abstain on the #Spcops Bill, he effectively declared a callous indifference for the activists he previously defended.
This pattern crops up again, most strikingly in regards to the campaign for justice for Stephen Lawrence's family. Starmer was instrumental in the legal campaign, but crucially, as we now know, the political campaign was infiltrated by #spycops.
Crucially, it was public knowledge that the campaign had been infiltrated well before Starmer whipped to abstain on the #Spycops Bill.

All of this reveals a personal callousness & slipperyness in his character which I find distasteful.
This is a man who is willing to contaminate previous achievements, willing to effectively personally betray people he has previously worked with all for theoretical political gains (and crucially gains that never appeared - the abstentions were meant to bring him Tory votes!)
It is not just that Starmer has crap politics, or is bad at political strategy, lacks vision, doesn't understand how to build a coalition, it's also that he's a sleazy cynical character with no deep sense of loyalty to previous personal associations.
When he whipped to abstain on the #Spycops Bill he effectively told the entire left "I am indifferent to what happens to you should cops spy, abuse, and rape you". Crucially he also effectively said this to people he had worked with previously. This says a lot about him.
I know bringing this up seems random as #spycops hasn't appeared in the news, I'm only writing it all because I do think it's important occasionally to rebalance things. We often like to think of Starmer as simply useless. I think as a political character he's worse than that.
It's also useful to bring up when the right pearl clutch about the left not getting on board with Starmer. The left had some good will for him and that basically deteriorated after abstentions on #Spycops and Overseas Operations Bill.

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More from @joinaunionpls

7 Jul
David Lammy's repeated insistence on using Churchill - a man who had striking miners shot ("fill their bellies with lead") - in numerous speeches of his as a symbol of human rights & civil liberties, is continually repellent.
Of course it's perfectly true that the tradition of political liberty has been suffused with revolting hypocrites and vultures - but it is the task for people nominally on the left, to try to craft a solid narrative about freedom. Use better symbols and figures!
Oh who am I kidding? This is just the Labour Party, I guess. 😩
Read 4 tweets
7 Jul
This is a good point fwiw. A lot of the terminology around this ("libertarian" etc) conceals the fact that our opponents actually quite like the state! It's just that they want to use the state to orient it in a way that benefits a particular class interest.
The mainstream left-right divide has *never* really been a debate about whether one is pro or anti state but always about how one wishes to use it.

When people on the right of this divide accuse say a keynsian of being a mad statist, they're correct but also hypocritical!
The people who actually do have serious qualms about the nature of the state are always excluded.

This is crucial!
Read 4 tweets
6 Jul
almost at 1'000! Image
almost a *proper* poster!
At last! Power! Real power! Image
Read 4 tweets
6 Jul
🚨EVICTION ALERT🚨

1️⃣@WRNewcastle are trying to evict a tenant from a property during a pandemic! 🦠
2️⃣They have harassed their tenant & not fixed a *broken carbon monoxide alarm* 😱
3️⃣The ombudsman said they had caused "aggravation, distress, and inconvenience to their tenant!
The tenants demands are:

✊ To be compensated for the mistreatment
✊ For his eviction notice to be rescinded
✊ To be relocated to another unit while repairs take place
Please help the campaign to get these demands by:

🚩Emailing the estate agent to let them know what you think! acornuk.good.do/northeast/emai…
🚩Tweet at them/on their posts: @WRNewcastle
Read 5 tweets
6 Jul
Ish. A lot of the failures of preventing to stop it imo are more placed within the strategic orientation of the movement itself.

A lot of the mobilising efforts were for organising one off (but country wide) "days of action".

That model isn't good enough.

#killthebill
The notion that the Bill could have been stopped by sporadic days of action is ludicrous. The orientation should have been towards consistent direct action/civil disobedience: sitting on train-tracks for days on end etc etc.

#killthebill #pcscbill
I emphasise the train-tracks point as an example of the kind of thing that was required. Generally speaking the tactics deployed by the movement were marches, rallies, and often actual sit-ins.

#killthebill #pcscbill
Read 6 tweets
6 Jul
I'd go much further though into saying something a bit more provocative - namely that it's not just that the "rule of law" (in its idealised form) doesn't exist, it's that they actively hate the idea of it and would never want it actually enforced.
This is provocative only insofar as it detours away from a lot of rhetoric where politicians clutch pearls about the rule of law as an inherent "British value".

But crucially this is a PR ruse. They hate the idea - naturally so! If implemented it would threaten their power!
In other words it's much deeper than simply wanting to dodge punishment or consequence - I think it's an active dislike, synthesised with an incredibly deep hypocrisy, and a rapacious lust for power.
Read 9 tweets

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