Why is the mainstream media surprised that Starmer's Cabinet members, and other members of the government, came out to back him? Not to have done so would have been like Turkey's voting in favour of Christmas. The same is not true for other Labour MP's, or for the Labour Party itself, for whom Starmer and his Blue Labour government are thoroughly toxic. Unless the Labour Party, and the trades unions, which are, ultimately, the determining factor, get rid of Starmer and Blue Labour, it will be reduced to rubble, after the Spring elections, but that is, now, the least of the problems of Starmer and his government.
They are looking at the prospect of criminal investigations and prosecutions, as all of the revelations around Epstein, Maxwell, Mandelson and so on explode on to the public arena. The latest scandal of Starmer and Blue/New Labour appointing paedophiles and friends of paedophiles illustrates the point, but the real criminal activity they are seeking to keep hidden, is the support for war criminals and genocidal regimes, just as, also, the wider political crimes of the creation of totalitarian regimes, and use of ICE against US citizens has been successfully driven from the headlines.
Losing an election is never the end of the world for prominent government ministers. They can come back again, later, and, in the meantime, they are lined up for lucrative jobs in large corporations, and so on, which pay them far more than being an MP or Minister. Just look at the tens of millions pocketed by Blair and his family, since he ceased being Prime Minister. But, facing criminal prosecution is a totally different matter.
The problem that Starmer, and the rest of his Blue/New Labour government face is seen starkly in the events of the last few days. The Leader of Scottish Labour Anas Sarwar, facing annihilation in the forthcoming elections, came out to try to distance himself and Scottish Labour from the unfolding Starmer/Mandelson/Epstein scandal, but, in doing so, only invited questions into his own past associations with Mandelson.
It is, of course, not just, all of those politicians bound up in the New Labour project, and its, Third Way, US equivalent around Clinton, of the 90's, whose associations with Mandelson are now being raked over, but the whole sleazy, self-serving ecosphere that went with it, in the mainstream media. As with Trump's support for the genocidal regime in Israel, and his increasing use of totalitarian methods, those now being accused can rightly point back to the actions of their predecessors. That whataboutery takes ridiculous form, when the likes of Bondi and Patel appear before Congressional committees, and clearly does not offer any defence, but simply focussing on the actions of current governments, without looking at what went before, is, also, simply opportunism. It fails to understand how what went before paved the way for the present.
All of them now face the question of why, during all of the time that this was going on, and that everyone, in those circles, knew about it, did they not speak out? Why, even after the Epstein/Maxwell/Mandelson revelations became public knowledge, did they not use their very powerful public platforms to denounce the appointment of Mandelson, but, instead, continued to invite him on to their TV programmes, write in their newspapers, and to refer to him as their “old friend”? The reason is simple, to have done so would, then, have been to unravel the whole corrupt network of which it was a part, and would, consequently, have exposed them to investigation too. They play the role of courtiers.
Similarly, the attempt to portray this just as some aberration and a consequence of the actions of powerful men is also opportunistic and deflectionary. What about the roles of Maxwell? What about the role of the late Queen, who protected her favourite son, Prince Andrew, for decades, while knowing about these activities? What about the role of Fergie? What this is really about is the decadence of a global oligarchic elite, a tiny number of people so wealthy and powerful that they sit on top even of the global ruling-class, like a scum that has risen to the surface. It is not a question of gender, but of class, as a look at the activities of Catherine the Great illustrates. The "No Kings", movement in the US is more appropriate than its organisers even know.
Lenin, in writing about the utopian nature of the petty-bourgeois ideology of the Narodniks, pointed out that it is impossible to retain the conditions that existed in the society of peasant producers without also having the other social relations of feudal society. The 50% growth of the petty-bourgeoisie over the last 40 years has not just brought with it many of those same reactionary petty-bourgeois ideas, but has also brought with it a return to some of the social relations of pre-bourgeois society, though in a new form. It's important, therefore, to understand that this scum resting on top of the global ruling-class, which seeks to act in the same way that the absolute monarchs and their courtiers did, is neither the same as, and, indeed, is antagonistic to, the interests of the global ruling-class, and even more so of real industrial capital.
Sarwar can probably ride out the criticism of his own association with Mandelson, unless further revelations in that regard emerge. He is, after all, part of that same right-wing, political faction of the Labour Party spawned by Mandelson, and of which, also, Streeting is a part. For Sarwar, the priority was to try to distance Scottish Labour from Starmer and the Westminster government, ahead of the Spring elections, hence his repeated comments, in his speech, about his priority being “his country”, i.e. Scotland. That emphasis is much more important in Scotland than in Wales, but, as I wrote recently, its unlikely that any attempt by Labour candidates to separate themselves from the toxin of Starmer and Blue Labour will save them, at this stage.
Sarwar's speech has been portrayed as being a coup attempt by him and Streeting. That is unlikely. Streeting knows that the one who wields the knife rarely wears the crown. His best hope is that Starmer sacks him from the government, leaving him open to campaign more openly for the leadership after Labour is destroyed in the local elections, and in the by-election in Denton & Gorton. But, Streeting's own attempt to distance himself from Mandelson, by publishing his e-mail conversations with him, has, also, shown the problem for Blue/New Labour and its ecosphere, because, as Owen Jones has set out, in those e-mails, Streeting admits that Israel has been committing war crimes with the knowledge of the British government.
Of course, we all knew that Israel has been guilty of war crimes and genocide, and that the British, US and EU governments were lying through their teeth when they claimed not to know about it, as they all actively supported it, and armed it, whilst denouncing, purging and even gaoling those that acted against it! The desperation of the Zionists and their supporters in New/Blue Labour to remove Corbyn, and to utilise the lie that equates anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism, now, becomes apparent and understandable, not because of any concern over the mildly progressive, social-democratic agenda of Corbyn, which is less radical than that of Wilson in the 1960's, and 70's, but, because of the threat it already posed to the web of lies and connections that ran through the whole project of New Labour, and of which Epstein and Mandelson were central, just as in the 1960's and 70's, Ghislane Maxwell's father, the tycoon and Labour MP, Robert Maxwell, played a similar role, as an agent of Mossad.
For Labour Ministers to have voted down Starmer, at this point, would have been the equivalent of turkeys voting for Christmas, not because of a threat to their jobs, but as a threat to their own liberty and future wealth. It is why Trump's supporters are so keen to ensure by whatever means that they rig the next election so as to not lose, just as Netanyahu has continued the war to avoid an election, and why Zelensky does the same in Ukraine. The mainstream media reported the last PLP meeting as having quashed any coup attempt, but its clear that that is not true. There are 404 Labour MP's, and only 200 people turned up to the PLP meeting, many of them being Labour peers, not MP's. Reports state that even infirm, elderly peers dragged themselves to their feet in repeated ovations to the Glorious Leader, Starmer. This looks like desperation not salvation.
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