(from last week) Starmer rules out even informal post-election deal with Lib Dems

[muriel_volestrangler]

(I completely missed this last week; maybe it was the hot weather pushing everything else out of the news, or from my brain. Seems important, however)

Labour leader rejects possibility of any arrangement and accuses Boris Johnson of having ‘checked out’

Keir Starmer has ruled out even an informal post-election deal with Liberal Democrats, following a similar pledge about the Scottish National party, as Labour seeks to close down Conservative accusations about a possible coalition.

Interviewed by Bloomberg, the Labour leader said his party would not go into coalition with “anyone”, including the Lib Dems, who under current polling could win a series of Conservative-held seats in the next election.

Asked whether this commitment also covered a more informal deal such as confidence and supply, under which Lib Dems could commit to supporting a minority Labour government without a formal coalition, Starmer replied: “I’m ruling out any arrangement.”

In a speech earlier this month, Starmer confirmed that Labour would never do a formal or informal deal with the SNP, as he sought to tackle future Conservative attacks about a “coalition of chaos”.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/jul/18/starmer-rules-out-even-informal-post-election-deal-with-lib-dems

The Bloomberg article: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-07-18/starmer-says-uk-needs-reboot-not-tory-fantasy-tax-promises

[Emrys]

1. As mentioned, he also, predictably, ruled out any sort of arrangement at all with the SNP,

which is likely to continue to be the third-largest party in parliament. This stance has been reinforced by other party spokes:

Here's Labour's leader of its Scottish branch last year:

Link to tweet

Times Radio
@TimesRadio

"No ifs, no buts, no deals with the SNP."

Anas Sarwar, leader of the Scottish Labour Party, says Sir Keir Starmer will not make a deal with the SNP to get into number 10.

@MattChorley | @AnasSarwar

[Twitter video]

Here's Siobhan McDonagh MP a few weeks ago:

Link to tweet

𝚘𝚌𝚑𝚒𝚕 𝚠𝚊𝚛𝚛𝚒𝚘𝚛 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿
@ochilwarrior

Siobhain McDonagh let’s the cat out the bag. Anas Sarwar pretends to despise Tories when in fact he’s collaborating with them to lock out the SNP #PoliticsLive #Indyref2023 #LabourLies

[Twitter video]

Nevertheless, more pragmatic Scottish Labour councillors have entered some power sharing deals with the SNP (and also with the Tories, by the way).

This contrasts starkly with the opinions of Labour's most functional leader of the moment, Welsh First Minister Mark Drakeford:

Link to tweet

Europe for Scotland
@ScotlandEurope
"The SNP won an election on the basis that they would seek another referendum. How can that be denied to the Scottish people?"

Welsh First Minister @MarkDrakeford, a Unionist, says what all democrats must agree with. You can respect the Union but you must respect democracy more

[Twitter video]

As a Scottish voter, you may be able imagine how this feels - my Westminster vote is apparently worse than second-class, and Starmer and his crew don't give a fig for my opinions, I'll just have to lump whatever he or any other future government decide to do. There is no way I'll ever vote Labour again, let alone revitalize my long-ago membership. The only way to have my vote respected at a national level is to vote for independence if and when I get the chance. Existing Scottish Labour members and voters may go the same way:

Scottish Labour faces referendum dilemma as polling shows a third of [Labour] voters support IndyRef2
EXCLUSIVE: Leaked internal polling shows Labour is more divided on IndyRef2 than the SNP and the Tories.
https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/politics/scottish-labour-faces-referendum-dilemma-26099335

Other polls have shown support among Scottish Labour voters for a second independence referendum as high as 40%.

This may all be redundant anyway. Given the scale of the revolt Starmer's experiencing among his backbenchers, how completely out of touch his recent stances on other issues have been, and his utter lack of anything resembling charisma or leadership, he may not keep his post much longer.

[muriel_volestrangler]

2. It seems likely to cause chaos of its own, despite his claims

Here's a highly plausible scenario: the Tories get the most seats in the Commons, but not enough, even with any DUP they might be able to have "unofficially", to have a majority of parties that take their seats (I assume Sinn Fein won't do the latter, still). Labour+SNP, plus, maybe, Lib Dems, and even Plaid Cymru and the Green(s), or Alliance and SDLP, would be able to form a majority, under a supply and confidence agreement.

But if Labour rules that out with any party, what right would Labour have to be the government instead of the Tories? So we'd get a minority Tory government, that would be likely to be defeated by the fairly similarly voting bunch listed above, on a variety of votes. This would be that 'chaos', with, I expect, a new election not long after, to try and get a different result.

[Emrys]

3. Yup.

Even with an outright majority, the ideal of the Westminster system is that through debate, a degree of cross-party concensus emerges. That may seem naive nowadays, but otherwise, why on earth bother with the ritual of debates? Indeed, why bother having more than one party?

I can understand Labour running scared of the old "coalition of chaos" jibes from the right-wing media (well, most of the media, really), but ceding that ground so readily and early is just spineless, and if a Labour government is going to be worth anything at all other than being a change of faces from the Tories, it's going to encounter opposition from the same quarters for many of its initiatives. Starmer's already abandoned any prospect of addressing the problems of freedom of movement and trade with the EU with barely a whimper. Industrial action is seemingly now a no-no unless it's useless tokenism. What's left to make Labour a more attractive proposition than the Tories, other than the personnel?

My patience with Labour had been sorely tested over the years already, but right now I think the best thing that can happen is that a credible rival to Starmer emerges soon and they go through whatever grisly leadership contest results while the Tories are in similar disarray.

Otherwise, we'll see the same old pattern: Labour veers right to satisfy the noisy vested interests, doesn't get elected anyway, and the ratchet effect on the Overton Window means that any future leader will have an uphill battle dragging the party to the left, or at least back to within the bounds of sanity.

All this while heads are being turned by the leadership of the RMT, who aren't shy of a fight and are arguing in terms any Labour leadership should - at least one which seriously wants to get elected in the current climate and faced with the misery that lies ahead of all of us over the winter and beyond.

[T_i_B]

4. Not realistic from Starmer

A better strategy for dealing with Tory platitudes about a possible "coalition of chaos" would be simply to point out all the instability and uncertainty caused by the Tories time in office.

Having a range of politicians wanting to work together is preferable to the sectarianism, tribalism and obsession with ideological purity we get from the Tories.

[LeftishBrit]

5. i don't know why they always say they won't have pacts with other parties

Didn't do any good to Miliband, and not likely to do so for Starmer.

Probably they think they'd be admitting in advance that they may not get an overall majority.