STARMER’S government is splitting apart, as Labour MPs turn on the prime minister, accusing him of creating a ‘toxic culture’, after the latest development in the ongoing crisis, over the appointment of Peter Mandelson as UK ambassador to the USA.
If Starmer hoped that his appearance in the House of Commons on Monday, where he blamed everyone else for not telling him that Mandelson had failed the security vetting, would calm down Labour MPs, then he was badly mistaken.
The following day, the man whose job was sacrificed by Starmer to save his own political skin, Ollie Robbins, appeared before the foreign affairs select committee, and effectively skewered Starmer’s claim that he new nothing, saw nothing, and was completely in the dark over Mandelson’s failure to pass the vetting, required for a senior diplomat.
Robbins, sacked from his post as senior civil servant in the foreign office, revealed that the prime minister’s office had exerted ‘constant pressure’ on his office to clear Mandelson and get him ‘out to Washington quickly’, despite warnings from vetting officials.
Robbins clearly suggested that Starmer’s close circle of ‘advisors’ were even pressing for Mandelson to be appointed without any security vetting.
The crisis engulfing Starmer has caused a massive crisis within the governing Labour Party with Labour MPs openly expressing their disgust at the sleaze revealed.
Speaking in the Commons, Imran Hussain, Labour MP for Bradford East, said: ‘At the heart of this is a toxic and dismissive culture at No 10. At some point we can not get away from it.’
He added: ‘That divisiveness has led us to this place. This is not a small administrative breach, it is a matter of national security.’
Ian Byrne, Labour MP for Liverpool West Derby, said that Mandelson’s appointment ‘reflects a wider direction under the Prime Minister’ and that a ‘toxic culture’ had been allowed to ‘take hold of No 10 and the governing of our country’.
Another unnamed Labour MP told the Telegraph paper that Starmer was a ‘dead man walking’, saying ‘How long can this zombie administration continue,’ adding: ‘It’s over for him. He can’t come back from this. Someone needs to put an arm around him and say: it’s over.’
The regeneration of the Labour Party will require more than a gentle arm around Starmer to usher him out of office, it will require the working class to take action to bring down Starmer along with the entire Labour government.
Millions of workers and young people across the country have turned their backs in disgust against a Labour government that has shown itself to be as politically corrupt, and drowning in sleaze, as previous Tory governments.
The working class voted overwhelmingly to get rid of the Tories in 2024, electing a Labour government with an overwhelming majority that Starmer pledged would be a government for business and working people.
In fact what they got was a continuation of the Tory party policies, with Starmer ripping up all election pledges on the grounds that bankrupt British capitalism simply couldn’t afford to make concessions, and that workers must accept sacrifices to keep the bankers and bosses in profit.
The Labour Party has degenerated to the point where it is indistinguishable from the Tories. It even attempts to outdo Nigel Farage’s Reform party in its hostility to migrant workers.
The working class, through its trade unions, built the Labour Party 126 years ago, to fight for its rights against the ruling capitalist class.
Today, the Labour Party serves only the interests of capitalism, and the time has come to bring down the Starmer government and replace it, not with any Labour government, but with a Workers Government.
The TUC must immediately convene an emergency conference to organise the full strength of the working class in a general strike to kick out the Starmer regime and go forward to a real workers government and socialism.
A workers government will nationalise the banks and major industries placing them under the ownership of the working class, for the benefit of the working class.
Join the WRP and Young Socialists to build up the revolutionary party required to lead the much needed British socialist revolution to its victory!