Thread by @joinaunionpls

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.