Brexit, unions and Blair: These are what we must fear most from Starmer's reign

Can Labour be Trusted?

The short answer to that is probably no they can’t.

Ask yourself a simple question. Labour swept to a massive landslide victory but what made that possible? Why did they win? You could also ask yourself what it was that people were actually voting for given the glaring lack of actual manifesto-articulated policy?

A combination of majority Tory aversion, low voter turnout, and general voter apathy would perhaps be reasonable broadly defined reasons for what we have as a government for the next five years if we’re being brutally honest.

Labour concentrated their efforts largely on demonising the woeful Tories. Regardless of what your political stripe might be, that’s entirely appropriate to be fair. The Tories have been appalling, squandering their hard-earned political capital from 2019, treating not only their grassroots like dirt but the electorate with such brazen contempt too. They never seem able, much less learn, to listen.

Sadly, although unsurprisingly, the same is true of Labour as we have already begun to see, and they haven’t even been in office a week yet.

Prime Minister (as he is now) Keir Starmer has wasted no time in firing up his agenda.

Much to the relief of migrants waiting at their Calais launchpads, Rwanda got binned. In its place is a mishmash of policy gobbledegook about going after the gangs and returning those back to their countries of origin who didn’t qualify to remain in the UK.

Just a thought, but how’s that going to work unless you’re able to properly identify them? Don’t you think that might be a huge part of the problem?

And then there’s the EU. The new Foreign Secretary wasted no time either running up his airmiles by jetting around EU capitals sternly telling all who cared to listen “to put the Brexit years behind us” and that it was time to “re-establish good and cordial relations with the EU”.

We wouldn’t be rejoining the single market or the customs union though, but we would certainly pursue closer relations on defence and security etc. Translation anyone? Yes, I thought so too.

Closer ties and eventually rejoining the EU is the ultimate goal, wouldn’t you say?

Politicians never seem to give a clear or concise answer, do they? Still don’t get it? Closer ties, cooperation on a range of policy, and, oh well, wouldn’t it make sense to re-formalise our relationship and rejoin?

Don’t for one second think that Lammy or any of them for that matter have given up on being back in the embrace of Brussels, the warning signs are all there, the word salad has started to dish up.

Perhaps most pathetic of all is the spectacle of Anneliese Dodds, newly appointed as Minister for Women and Equalities.

It ought to raise some concern that in an interview on BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour in 2022, Ms Dodds said there are “different definitions legally around what a woman actually is”. Asked again, she said: “I think it does depend on what the context is.”

What “context” can there possibly be other than biological reality?

Until just a few weeks ago our new PM found himself incapable (or was it unwilling?) to precisely define a woman. Once he had the election in the bag, so to speak, then he had no problem, did he?

Here's the thing that ought to be setting off alarm bells: Last time Blair, ably assisted by Mandelson and Brown along with the frightful Alastair Campbell, at least had some policy substance to offer. Whether you agreed with it or not is of course an entirely different matter. But after ten years of Blair followed by a further three of Gordon Brown the damage had been done with irreversible changes set in place, and we continue to pay the price today.

Now we’ve got this lot for the next five years. Less than a week in and Blair is already becoming very visible again, most notably on blabbering about a fifty billion pound tax raid or a 1.9% of GDP across the board tax increase to fund shortfalls in the NHS and other profligacy so typical of Labour governments. Net Zero by 2030 and eviscerating the fossil fuel industry will shut off a huge source of tax revenue that will have to be covered.

“We’re ready to deliver”, Starmer declares with a straight face. But what he DOESN’T SAY is how. The devil is always in the detail though, with the new chancellor already alluding to “difficult decisions”.

Watch out coz you’re all set for a bite on the bum and then some!

Get a load of this one too. A civil servant at the Department for Transport is now also quoted in the media as advocating a pay-by-mile scheme once electric cars have engulfed our existence and the fossil fuel levies start to dry up. Surprise, anyone?

Finally, let’s also remember who funds the Labour Party. The unions always want something for their buck, you can count on it. Much has been made of Angie Rayner now being the most powerful woman (yes, SHE is) in the country.

What, do you suppose, made that possible? Being a rip-roaring leftie Angie is a darling of the union barons, comrades in arms as it were.

The left has NOT gone away, they’re still very much alive and kicking. Momentum has been quietly biding its time and will reappear at some point, guaranteed.

A question to which an answer would also be handy is how long will Sir Keir Starmer then last in post once Momentum “wake up” and make their move?

Time will tell, of course, but the signs don’t spell good fortune for the future. With an inflated Labour majority that most people actually neither voted for nor really what foretells in the brewing storm ahead.