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I think you are painting a picture here based upon a very negative interpretation.
Another perspective might be that Starmer can’t afford to expose anything that the fervently right wing press in this country would pick up and run with.
Corbyn era anti-semitism furore would be a lifeline to the Tories and their courtesans in the press to hammer Labour with.
Is it fair? No. Is the single most important thing to focus on for the team at Labour “how to win”? Within reasonable moral boundaries, yes.
Starmer has very much learned the lesson here- he’s echoing the Tory line on for example tax, Brexit and so on, which means the RWNJ’s are running on “Rayner- we fucking hate her”, and Sunak is bringing out banger after banger with National Service, quadruple lock for pensioners and only the children of the 1% get to go to Uni.
Dammit-
Is it a bit of both / the same thing.
He's keen to make sure his party is as governable as possible - including shoring up his work on overcoming the antisemitism issue.
I do think having a strong left wing faction could get messy quickly in the new parliament - and like you say - the media will be more than happy to help whip this up (inset Brasseye "war" gif).
There are lots of areas the left of the party will want their government to go further on - but all the indications are that it's going to be a slow process of turning the ship around - built mainly on doing politics in a grown up way.
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If Smarmer can govern as a caring conservative...it's probably the best we can hope for. Copy Blair and govern for three terms. He might even get some of the press to support him. Shitting on a few good Labour MPs might be a price worth paying, for all of us.
OTOH he's a lying fascist. Just another Rees Mogg, with better hair. Owen Jones told me to write this.
Scrabble
nick_h.
Is it not just Starmer just trying to get his party as centrist as possible?
He's bricking it that a big majority will empower the left, and put him in the same situation as the Tories after Boris got them their 80+ majority. Different factions will feel they can rebel - because votes will get through anyway - but it will undermine him and the press will lap it up.
He's trying to get the party as streamlined as possible around a bang dead centre policy position - to try and avoid the messyness of a big majority with a broad range of views.
Clearly all this blocking/suspending of the prominent left leaning Labour candidates is going to piss a lot of people off - but will it make for more effective government? I could really do with our governing party not tearing itself to shreds and instead focus on trying to make things a bit better all round.
Centrist dad out.