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Writer's pictureDan Sillett

Starmer Butchers Labour Conference: The Self-Destructing Silly Sausage



Keir Starmer’s Labour are going to lose the next UK General Election in 2029. I’ve been saying this for weeks and nobody has listened. Now, it’s all I’m hearing.


Less than two months ago, Keir Starmer romped to victory in the 2024 UK General Election, winning a majority of 158 seats – an obliteration not seen since Tony Blair wiped the country red in 1997. This all means Labour Conference should have been a breezy victory lap for the new Prime Minister. Unbelievably, though, the Tottenham Hotspur of politics has bottled an unassailable lead with an absolute disasterclass.


Labour went into conference at Liverpool after a bad week at the office. Keir Starmer has been marred in controversy after accepting £107,345 worth of gifts, including his own corporate box at Arsenal, costing almost £10,000 a match. Chancellor Rachel Reeves was put squarely in the firing line to defend Starmer, but was annihilated by an old Tweet from Deputy Leader Angela Rayner, who had criticised Boris Johnson for taking from working people to pay for new wallpaper in Downing Street in 2021. How is Starmer’s collection of gifted lavish clothes, glasses and football tickets any different? By the way, say what you like about Rishi Sunak, but he never had a corporate box to watch his beloved Southampton.


Oh, and here’s some new news. Starmer also accepted £20,000 of accommodation for his son to study for his GCSEs in peace. Of course, it would’ve been hard for a 16-year-old to study for exams when his house was surrounded by journalists. But it’s hard for 16-year-old carers to study for exams too. And what about those who share rooms with younger siblings, or who can’t afford textbooks, or who suffer from learning difficulties? Where’s their £20,000 plush, private, Churchillian war bunker to study in?


Talk about shooting yourself in the foot – Labour didn’t even have a leg to stand on to walk into their own conference. 


So Labour were already on a knife edge. What Starmer really needed now was unity. Instead, he was met with boos erupting like Mount Vesuvius from a makeshift picket line to protest Labour’s abhorrent Winter Fuel Payment cut that will freeze pensioners into fuel poverty. And instead of using his already very limited political antennae to calm the storm, Starmer decided to poke the bear by delaying the members’ vote on the cut to the graveyard slot of Conference – when Starmer and many other members will have already gone home.


Is this a party which has just won the largest landslide in recent history? Or is this a wilting Labour Party already on its knees and intent on completing its own self-destruction? Tactically moving controversial votes until the last minute to snuff out the anger of internal dissenters looks less like a triumphant new Labour, and more like desperately trying to prolong the dying embers of a flame that was never truly alight.


Unfortunately for Granny Harmer Starmer, things got worse. When the graveyard slot finally arrived, the Labour leadership lost the vote on the Winter Fuel Payment cut. Labour Party members rebelled against Keir Starmer, voting to reverse the cuts and throwing down a colossal gauntlet to split the party in two.


This was an utterly catastrophic end to a calamitous Labour Conference.


Starmer himself was heckled during his own landmark speech as Prime Minister. And hecklers interrupted Chancellor Rachel Reeves’s landmark speech, shouting “I thought we voted for change, Rachel”. What does that tell you about the unity of the Labour Party right now? Rishi Sunak was not heckled by Conservative Party members during his speech at Conference 2023, despite proving to be the beginning of the end for the Conservatives’ 14-year stint in government. The wheels have already fallen off the Starmermobile after a matter of weeks.


And then came the gaffe of all gaffes. The self-destruction of all self-destructions. With the world watching on, Keir Starmer, Labour Prime Minister, called for the ‘return of the sausages’ in Gaza. Bear in mind that the majority of Palestinians in Gaza are Muslim – whose religion bans them from eating pork.


That is unforgivable butchery. Starmer had one job: to call for a ceasefire and the return of the hostages. Instead, he insulted a religion and told the world he had his mind on other things – namely, the all-expenses-paid gourmet barbecue I expect he attended on that fateful night. The way conference was going, I’m surprised Starmer didn’t also call for a cheese wire, rather than a ceasefire.


Labour voters, are you happy with your government? You shouldn’t be. This is a government that has let itself down, let its voters down, and let the country down. Spitting feathers time and time again about austerity and political cronyism, only to fall significantly foul of the exact same political crimes. Enforcing devastating cuts for pensioners and single-person households whilst accepting an entire fortune in gifts, after spending a decade criticising others for doing the same thing, reeks of double hypocrisy.


Keir Starmer is on track to be the wurst (sorry) Labour Prime Minister in history. And with that, there’s only one thing left to say. Will Keir Starmer last longer than a sausage?


Image: Wikimedia Commons/Rwendland

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