The best man for the job?

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This is one of those blog posts which I need to start by reminding you that this is a personal blog, and that anything I say here is simply my own personal opinion, which has no relationship to any of the positions I hold – or have ever held – within our movement.

Owing to work I needed to do to prepare for our Constituency Labour Party (CLP) nominating meeting on Saturday, I missed an opportunity to attend a meeting addressed by Kier Starmer in Hove earlier this evening.

I am sorry to have missed this meeting, not so much because I am particularly tempted to give Mr Starmer my first preference when it comes to voting for Leader of our Party, but because there appear to be a non-negligible number of members (including some who shared my strong support for Jeremy Corbyn) who are thinking of doing just that.

It does strike me as a little odd just how many people who (in other circumstances perhaps) might agree that it’s time we caught up with the Tories and the Liberals by electing our first female Leader (having a choice of three eligible candidates) have been so easily convinced that Mr Starmer is “the best man for the job.” 

UNISON (the Union with a million women members) hastily nailed its colours to Mr Starmer’s mast without any widespread consultation with its majority female membership (unlike what was done in 2016).

Mr Starmer is sold to us as the most “electable” of the four candidates for Leader, although this is an unconvincing pitch if made for him or any of the candidates (since whatever they have done in the past, none of them have yet faced the hostile scrutiny which can be anticipated for any Labour Leader who promises to promote public ownership – as all four candidates have).

I think that what it really means to say that many people see Mr Starmer as “electable” and “the best man for the job” is that he looks – to them – like a candidate for Prime Minister.

What are they seeing?

I do think that they are seeing him as a man (rather than a woman). It’s hard to “see” a female Labour Prime Minister when there has never been one – and I wish that the Party nationally had put even as much effort into briefing our members about unconscious bias ahead of this Leadership election as we did locally before the selection of Council candidates.

But Mr Starmer is not just any man. He is a barrister (a job that trains people to speak convincingly whether or not they believe in what they are saying) – and he was such a successful barrister that he became a fully-fledged member of the “great and the good”. Not only was he appointed as Director of Public Prosecutions (and then knighted), but he was chosen to be a member of the Trilateral Commission (a self-selecting group of the liberal Atlanticist international establishment).

To me, accepting an offer of membership of the Trilateral Commission says something about Mr Starmer’s judgment which is at least as damaging as his decision to resign during the “chicken coup” of 2016 (when members of the Shadow Cabinet organised a series of resignations with a view to “breaking” our then Leader, Jeremy Corbyn). For whatever reason, Mr Starmer is a man who welcomes being invited into the ranks of the “great and good.” When asked to choose between loyalty to a principled socialist and commitment to the status quo, Mr Starmer chose the latter.

I fear – in any possible future Leader of our Party – that misplaced deference to “social superiors” of which Ramsay MacDonald was accused. However, it seems that many of my fellow Party members look at a clean-cut, well-groomed, well-spoken man, apparently respected by powerful people and see – in that vision – a potential Leader for our Party.

Those who look at Kier Starmer and see “the best man for the job” of leading our Party have internalised the belief that our Leader must look like one of “them” (rather than one of “us”), must be accepted by “them” and therefore – although they don’t want to admit this to themselves – must be one of “them”.

The fact is that, of the four candidates for Leader of our Party, Kier might well be the best “man” for the job – but there might be three better candidates for Leader.