Labour's Honeymoon Is Over

It has left the PM with the unfortunate nickname ‘two-tier Keir’.

Stuart Mitchell/@IncMonocle

The wave of public disorder following the Southport stabbing spree which claimed the lives of three little girls, threatens to rip England apart at the seams.

More than 90 arrests were made yesterday, with unrest across cities such as Hull, Liverpool, Bristol, Manchester, Stoke-on-Trent, and Blackpool.

Over the course of the week, there have been flare-ups in towns such as Hartlepool in County Durham and Aldershot in Hampshire. 

The Labour Government is a new one – and it is safe to say that the honeymoon period for Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and his party has come to a crashing halt.

The problem is that it is a government which doesn’t benefit from much public goodwill. It may have a large parliamentary majority, but this was won on a vote share below 34% - on a turnout that didn’t even reach 60%. 

YouGov polling before the General Election showed that among those who intended to vote for Labour, the majority either wanted the Tories out or felt the country needed a change.

Just 5% said that it was because of Labour’s policies. 

One of the most serious accusations being thrown at the Labour Party is that it has been responsible for adopting a model of what I call ‘two-tier governance’.

It has left the PM with the unfortunate nickname ‘two-tier Keir’. He has – quite rightly – provided robust condemnation of the far-right violence and thuggery which has been on show during the recent wave of public disorder.

But this is also the man that took the knee just a couple of days after 27 Met police officers were injured in a Black Lives Matter demonstration in London (labelled as ‘largely peaceful anti-racism protests’ by the BBC). It was also a full week after 77-year-old retired police captain David Dorn was shot dead during riots in St. Louis, Missouri, following the police murder of George Floyd which sparked BLM protests across the world.

The Home Secretary Yvette Cooper struck a robust and assertive tone following the Southport riots on Tuesday night, which saw 53 police officers injured and attacks on a local mosque – she was correct to do so.

But this certainly wasn’t the case after the Harehills riots, where West Yorkshire police essentially retreated from the disorder following the removal of children from a Romani family by social services. Police officers were pelted with missiles with one of their cars being flipped over.

Meanwhile, in Southport, the Merseyside riot police deployed stood their ground (with Greater Manchester Police, Cheshire Police, Lancashire Police and North Wales Police providing mutual aid and support).

Neither has the Home Secretary expressed much in the way of solidarity with the police officers hospitalised following a violent fracas at Manchester Airport (with a female officer suffering a broken nose).

When one takes all of this into account, can the Labour Government truly be trusted to take a fair approach to matters of law and order in modern Britain?

Is it capable, indeed willing, to manage national crises in the spirit of impartiality?

After all, this is a political party which remains largely in thrall to identity politics – even under Starmer’s so-called ‘moderate’ leadership. 

Law-abiding Britons with a strong sense of fairness crave moral political leadership – a Government that truly understands the value of having unbiased systems of governance which rest on the principle of impartiality. This is especially important in the sphere of policing.

As it stands, we are a world away from this – and that will fill many with both sorrow and dread.