The British Labor leader, Keir Starmer, this Thursday tightened one more screw in his strategy to eliminate the presence and even the shadow of his predecessor, the leftist Jeremy Corbyn, from his program and political horizon. The National Executive Committee of the party, the NEC, finally approved a specifically articulated motion to ban the selection of the veteran parliamentarian as a Labor candidate in the next general election, scheduled for the end of 2024. Starmer himself introduced the proposal at the members’ meeting of the Executive, who approved it with 22 votes in favor and twelve against.
Jon Lansman, founder of the grassroots group Momentum which supported Corbyn’s leadership, accused Starmer of acting authoritatively, “as if he were Labour’s Putin”. The coup of the centrist leader, who is moderating the profile and aspirations of the main opposition party, taking advantage of the sinking of the conservatives in the voter intention polls, enraged the socialist faction and the radical militants, who defend the ” democratic right” of the local constituency to select its electoral candidate.
Corbyn has represented Islington North, in north-west London, since 1983. He has won ten consecutive parliamentary elections and won a majority of over 28,000 ballots in 2019, when the Tories swept almost the entire country on the promise of then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson, to execute Brexit. “Starmer has broken his commitment to respect the rights of Labor affiliates and has denigrated the democratic foundations of our party,” denounced the deputy, who had already been expelled from the parliamentary group in 2020.
There is no going back on the NEC’s decision. The statutes do not contemplate the option of appealing against this type of motion, which the centrist leader had been preparing for months. In February, Starmer openly declared that his former political boss would not renew his seat under the Labor banner. Since his election, almost three years ago, the also London MP has focused on purging the stain of anti-Semitism that Corbyn allowed to spread during his leadership and whose harmful significance he continues to ignore. The transformation of the party, as the former lawyer reiterates, is “permanent, fundamental and irrevocable.”
Corbyn still has reserves. “We’re not going anywhere,” he threatened this week. He has the option of defending his seat as an independent, although it would cost him expulsion from the party and risk the membership of Labor volunteers who help campaign for him. Victory would likely be his given his long connection to the district, his dedication to local issues and the electorate’s familiarity with the septuagenarian activist.
Meanwhile, the government of Rishi Sunak will promote the Afghan refugee settlement program with measures that risk their own future in the United Kingdom, according to denounced by the parliamentary opposition and NGOs. Some 8,000 families and individuals, who managed to leave the country after the Taliban takeover in 2021, are still housed in hotels or commercial residences, at an estimated cost of around 1.5 million euros per day.
Sunak has set out to reduce this expense, in addition to the more than five million euros a day that adds up to the hotel bill for refugees who arrive in England by boat through the English Channel. The Illegal Immigration bill, which is being processed in the Westminster Parliament, is aimed precisely at this last group of foreigners, who will be detained on landing, deported to a “safe country” and will never be able to request refuge in the United Kingdom. if the law is approved in its current text. Not even children are spared from the restrictive measures, as confirmed by Sunak before a committee of the Commons. “The goal is not to detain minors, but it’s important that we don’t inadvertently create a policy that encourages people to come with children,” he stated.
The Afghans welcomed through official channels will now have a period of three months to vacate the hotel rooms where they reside. The Government will allocate some 40 million euros to the program for the allocation of flats and the assimilation of this group of refugees. But, as he announced in the Commons, if a housing offer is rejected, “there will be no other”, and the individual or family in question will lose the roof that now protects them.
According to the criteria of The Trust Project
