Dear Colleagues,
The result in Gorton and Denton is deeply disappointing.
Instead of a Labour MP who can be a local champion delivering for Gorton and Denton alongside a Labour Government and a Labour mayor, the people of Gorton and Denton now have a representative who is more interested in dividing people than uniting them. We have to learn lessons from that, and we will.
I know this is a tough result for our movement but I still want to thank you for everything you did to support our brilliant candidate Angeliki Stogia. She did a fantastic job and Gorton and Denton deserved to have her as their MP.
We’ve seen the true colours of Zack Polanski’s Greens in this campaign. The Greens were able to capitalise on an endorsement from George Galloway to win over enough voters to push them over the line. Their willingness to welcome Galloway’s divisive, sectarian politics is a sign that the Greens are not the harmless environmentalists they pretend to be, and their position on legalising all drugs shows how unstable this electoral coalition is. It cannot survive a general election campaign.
It hurts, but this is the kind of result that we have often seen parties of government face. In by-elections people can make their voice heard without risking a change of government. I get it: people are rightly impatient to see the change they voted for.
It’s my job to make sure that happens. And I’m working day in, day out to see it through.
Over the coming months, people will feel the benefit of the long-term decisions this government is taking. Look at the good economic news we’ve had in the past week: inflation and borrowing coming down, retail sales and business confidence rising, energy bills falling. And look at the policies that are going to make a difference in people’s lives in the coming months: the landmark Employment Rights Act, money off energy bills, the cruel two-child limit scrapped, more free breakfast clubs opening, Pride in Place funding coming through, NHS waiting lists continuing to fall. It will show what we’ve been saying from the outset of this year: the country is turning a corner. These are all Labour policies, putting Labour values into action - policies no other party would or could deliver.
The Greens may have won here, but they simply do not have the resources, the activist base or the local knowledge to replicate this victory across the country. We’ve seen that before. We’ve seen it with the Lib Dems, who have often won mid-term by-elections against both the Conservatives and Labour, but never been able to come close to winning nationally. We’ve seen it with George Galloway, who won two mid-term by elections but held neither of those seats in a general election.
We will continue to warn of the risk the Greens pose: the risk of extreme policies like legalising all drugs and pulling out of NATO that most voters strongly reject, and the risk of splitting the progressive vote so that Reform come through the middle.
The next election is too important to let that happen. It’s a fight we can win, and we’re going to win it.
Best, Keir
Keir Starmer, Prime Minister and Leader of the Labour Party
the people of Gorton and Denton now have a representative who is more interested in dividing people than uniting them.
It’s very helpful of him to announce, right out of the gate, that he is going to learn all the wrong lessons from this.
If he were the competent politician that he claims to be, he would eat his humble pie and admit that a lot of this is his fault; and work with the Greens to fight reform rather than suggesting that it’s the Greens responsibility to just give up.
Got to love the policies he picks on.
legalising all drugs and pulling out of NATO
Drug legalisation just makes sense. It kills the black market which funds global criminal organisations, let’s the government set regulations on safety of supply and allows for people to be treated for their addictions properly.
Pulling out of NATO is in reference to Trump and how the US isn’t a reliable ally. It is not about breaking relationships with Europe or CANZUK.
There are certainly things you could argue against the Greens on, but these are stupid.
Also, it’s a lie: the greens position is not to legalize all drugs, but to have an evidence based approach.
Maybe they could hire the guy who originally did the drug classifications for the government and then they fired because they didn’t like the answers.
I think I know who you are talking about. Was it when Theresa May was head of the Home office?
The idea of saying “those lefties are trying to divide us!” is the most Kier Starmerish thing Kier Starmer has ever Kier Starmered.
YOU are not the party of inclusive and progressive politics any longer. Gorton and Denton have shown that, in the old heartland of industrial Britain and former labour stronghold, people would rather vote for the Greens because they no longer see Labour as the political force it once was.
Breathtaking arrogance
That’s about what I thought. Take absolutely no responsibility whatsoever for the truly awful decisions that have actually made people’s lives objectively worse, ignore your own MPs that are telling you that your hardline policies on immigration are putting your traditional voters off, focus only on the few positive things they’ve done and completely ignore the fact that most people don’t know about any of them, because labour are the absolute worst at public engagement, as in they don’t do any at all.
I’m so sick of this amateur hour politics, it’s been going on since Cameron and no one seems interested in actually doing the job anymore they just want to play at the culture wars.
The Greens won in part because they promised to be actual politicians and to actually attempt to fix things rather than rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. The ship is sinking and the politicians are blaming each other for sailing us into the iceberg.
The Greens won… because they promised… to actually attempt to fix things
Dangerous lunatics!
That’s the wonderful thing about politics. We get to decide, they now have 4 years to turn things around we don’t have to guess. We get to know 100% if their promises or anything other than marsh gas.
Labour were given that time and they chose to dick around with it.
I’m glad someone could muster the enthusiasm to double check, because that’s exactly what thirty years of voting for Democrats trained me to expect.
TLDR:
Have we really strayed so far from our working class roots?
No, it’s the people who are wrong!
if i’d still never heard of gorton & denton i’d guess it was some terrible odd couple cartoon cop partnership, gorton a stickler for the rules and denton the fiery young maverick
in any case a decent result and predictable cope from starmer with [citation needed] applying all over. if only gorgeous george had done the decent thing we mightn’t be in such a pickle
Even when I was in the area I kept calling it Grolton & Hovris and no-one seemed to notice.
Good economic news we’ve had this week? You mean youth unemployment at a 5 year high? Stagnating wages? Rough sleeping at a record levels?
My man is living on a different planet
I think he means that the economy has grown by a tiny percentage point. Which yes it has but that has more to do with the EU striking trades deals and opening up the market to UK businesses than it does Labour.
i’m sure digging in and supporting america’s terrorist attack on iran will right the ship.
Their willingness to welcome Galloway’s divisive, sectarian politics is a sign that the Greens are not the harmless environmentalists they pretend to be
I didn’t realise the greens were this based.
I haven’t really been paying attention to the greens until recently and I didn’t even know that George Galloway was associated with them. So if his arguement is people are only interested in them because of Galloway that’s incorrect.
People are interested in them because they’re an actually progressive party. Ever since your party collapsed they were the obvious vote for people who felt unrepresented by labour. But labour themselves seem to be utterly shocked by this
He’s not really associated with them, the workers party (that he leads) withdrew and endorsed her so they didn’t split the vote.
You all might hate me for this, but I think Keir is right about the NATO point. I think the UK should remain in NATO for now, and the UK should keep its nuclear weapons for now. Russia, a country with nuclear weapons, poses a big threat to the security of Europe and the UK. I think Britain’s nukes will help to keep the UK safe for the time being. Also China could pose a major military threat in the future. Even the US could potentially pose some form of threat to the UK; look at Trump’s strong dislike of European nations and the independence of those nations.
Here’s something interesting. He’s lying.
Obviously the green party don’t want to legalise all drugs that’s an insane position to take. Paul they said was that they would legalise some of the low harm drugs like marijuana which has been tried in many countries around the world including the US and is having positive results.
NATO barely exists anymore, with the US being ruled by Trump and the republicans in general being the way they are the US is no longer a valuable ally. Hell they actively start wars where previously there was peace, so what do we get out of remaining in ally?
I’m not too bothered by drug policies. I’m just wondering about defence policies. I looked up Green Party policy on defence, and to be fair it doesn’t say they would pull out of NATO. It says “we would work within NATO”. However, it does say “elected Greens will… immediately begin the process of dismantling our nuclear weapons”. I don’t think that’s a good policy when the UK and its European allies are threatened by nuclear-armed Russia, and maybe in the future by nuclear-armed China.
You said the US is no longer a great ally, and yeah that might be true. Perhaps Europe should either form their own defence union, or kick the US out of NATO. Until such events though, I think it makes sense to stay in NATO. It means we get defence cooperation with many European allies and Canada, even if the US doesn’t want to help.
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bootlicking spittle
Go kick rocks.
What I said in the comment you first responded to is that NATO membership, and British nuclear weapons, can help keep the UK safe. I don’t think I’m licking any boots when I’m talking about the security of my own country, the UK. I certainly don’t think the UK should lick the boots of the US. That’s why I think the Tories and Reform have been a bit ridiculous recently when they’ve said the UK should have helped the US with their attacks on Iran.
NATO membership makes us unsafe. We’re closer to war with every US enemy because of our membership of this club. You can’t think NATO is anything but a destabilising element in world geopolitics when its main military force is constantly invading, bombing and funding fascist death squads in the global south.
Likewise, nuclear arms only keep us “safe” because the US are psychopathic nut jobs who’ve actually used the bomb before. Nobody else wants them, but keeps them because the US have an itchy trigger finger and are desperate to do regime change when things don’t go their way. Global disarmament of nukes is the safest global option, and the main entities preventing that right now are the US and its NATO allies.
Link to source please, I want to share
It appears to originate from Tom Scotson’s Xitter account.
Is he reliable? I feel like I know his name
Former Daily Mail columnist and currently writes for an outlet owned by a Tory peer, so probably not.
The letter itself seems to be real, ITV reference it.
I’m sure the letter is real because it’s the kind of thing that stammer would write. I just love the fact that we don’t have a primary source for it.
He didn’t think maybe it would be good idea to write to the membership and explain himself? Nah, better to just write a secret email that will 100% get leaked because that’s the way to handle public relations.
