Starmer Smashed in Blackburn

Former Ambassador, Human Rights Activist

The leadership of genocide enthusiast Keir Starmer – who is still supporting arms sales to Israel and the “Israeli right to self defence”, who still refuses to acknowledge one single Israeli war crime – cost the Labour Party dear in Blackburn in the local elections.

The result means I am very likely to win the parliamentary seat.

The Blackburn Independent Councillors, who resigned from Labour over Gaza and invited me to stand as their parliamentary candidate, were re-elected and took new seats. They did not gain control of the council only because this was an election for just one third of Blackburn with Darwen’s council seats. The council has annual elections by thirds.

The parliamentary seat is no longer contiguous with the council area, with Darwen now excluded. The result inside my parliamentary seat was an even more convincing win for the Independents.

I put Muntazir Patel’s stunning result in Shear Brow and Corporation Park first, because this is where the cover photo of my book “Zionism is Bullshit” was shot.

When I stood against the war criminal Jack Straw in Blackburn in 2005, his Labour/BAE fixer Lord Ahmed Patel ensured I was excluded from the mosques and community events there, so I stood outside in the street on a Friday canvassing. That is the cover shot. Muntazir has now swept the area against Labour.

I am sure we can win. I am going to be very honest. When I accepted the joint offer from the Independent Councillors and the Workers Party of Great Britain to fight the seat, I did not then think we could really win. I accepted on the basis that, if we gave Labour a hard fight in Blackburn, they would be forced to divert resources they could otherwise concentrate on attacking George Galloway in nearby Rochdale.

So my strategy was to help George get re-elected by tieing up Labour and by adding to the feeling of a real new working class movement across the North West and elsewhere in England.

I say this without shame.

Under the first past the post system, on average less than 100 seats change hands at a UK parliamentary election. That means in only at most 150 seats are there two candidates who might realistically win. In the other 500 seats there is normally only one candidate likely to win, and the six or so other candidates know they are fighting a losing battle.

So out of about 5,000 candidates in a British parliamentary election, only 800 normally are going to win or to come a close second. Others are standing to advance their arguments and to give voters a choice. Of course few candidates ever admit they do not expect to win.

I now do expect to win. We now know that the revolt against Starmer – accelerated by Gaza, but also about his leading the Labour Party so far to the right they are in all crucial policies indistinguishable from the Tories – is very real.

Starmer is the chosen one of the Establishment, and the media are bigging up his mild gains in the local council elections. But in fact Labour achieved only 35% of the vote nationally in England and Wales, which is of their worst results and below the average result Labour obtained in national local goverment and general elections under Corbyn.

I shall be one of a number of candidates standing to give voters a genuine choice of more left wing policies at home and an end to perpetual war and support for zionism abroad. Those candidates will include Jeremy Corbyn, George Galloway, Andrew Feinstein, Peter Ford, Monty Panesar and others. The informal alliance is growing and bonds are being knit. I hope by election day all voters in England will be offered a left wing, anti-war choice for their vote.

The media and political parties are doing their best to hide the desire for such a choice. But at the English local elections 37% of those who voted, did not vote either Labour or Tory. That is huge. The narrative being spun that those who did not bother to vote are actually enthusiastic Labour or Tory supporters and this will change in a general election with a higher turnout, does not stand up to ten seconds serious consideration.

I look forward to having the chance to tell a number of very hard truths in the House of Commons, and to help offer real opposition to the Blue and Red conservative parties. But I need now to take very seriously indeed the role of representing, supporting and improving the lives of all the people of Blackburn. I shall therefore shortly be moving to live full time in the constituency.

I have a lot to give, but also a very great deal to learn from Blackburn people.  I approach that with determination and humility.

I judge that the public revulsion at the genocide in Gaza has now made it very difficult for the police to continue to hound me over my support for Palestine, and of course mad Suella Braverman is no longer Home Secretary. Two very brief test visits did not see me arrested again, so I shall now return from exile to run for Parliament. It is a risk I need to take.

When I stood in Blackburn in 2005 against Jack Straw, against the Iraq War and the excesses of the “War on Terror”, many scores of readers of this blog turned up in the town to campaign for me.

We will need you all again, now alongside solid and enthusiastic local support – and this time we are going to win!

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