Starmer Chameleon.

It would be fair to say I was a little unwell at the time of the last general election, and the perceived obliteration of Corbynism didn’t really help my mental health. I wrote about this the morning after the election in December 2019, trying to find some hope in the ’defeat of the left’ as the media were framing it. It was of course a nonsense, and the number of people that voted for the unambiguously socialist programme of government proposed by Corbyn was remarkable. That gave me hope.

Today, I feel quite well, in the face of what is being sold by the frustrated on the left as a non choice, between a Kier Starmer led Labour government or more of the same under the conservatives. It is also fairly obvious that we will have a Labour government in place by this time tomorrow (the bookies have a Labour majority at 1/100 at the time of writing) a fait accompli to compound the sense of powerlessness felt by many. But here’s why I think it might be ok.

Kier Starmer will be anything people want him to be. Kier Starmer is not a man of conviction. He is not someone who has strong political feelings. He is not someone who feels that he has a particular kind of duty. Kier Starmer is merely a vessel, the inevitable outcome of a political system that has been hollowed out of any meaning or purpose other than to maintain the status quo, a status quo which no longer knows what it is. Kier Starmer is an algorithm with a single objective — much like capitalism and the relentless pursuit of profit— to take and maintain power for the sake of it.