Why does Labour hate its voters?

Has any political project so despised it’s own electorate before? I’ll wait.

The end of this work week was marked by millionaire QC Sir Keir Starmer pandering to this country’s hatred of young people, throwing one of the most economically precarious groups, and Labour’s most solid group of voters, under the bus. It raises a broader question, why does Labour hate its own voters so much these days? It seems to spend most of the time apologising for and disavowing its own voters as out of touch or racist for supporting Labour under the previous leader. Let’s look at a few recent examples of this.

We saw it directed at Muslim voters, a group of voter’s who have overwhelmingly backed Labour for years in good times and bad, in the Batley and Spen byelection. These voters simply asked for some minimal representation in parliament on issues such as Palestine and Kashmir, and a toucher line from the leadership on islamophobia in the party, after feeling taken for granted under this new incarnation of Labour (one example being Starmer boycotting a gathering because someone was boycotting dates grow in Israel, a totally harmless form of protest), and after their votes literally helped Labour cling on in various red wall seats at the last election. The response from Labour was knee jerk dog whistle racism from senior staffers about the so called bigotry and backwardness of British Muslims, followed by triumphalist celebrations after just clinging on to a Labour seat, basically saying off the record something along the lines of “we’ve made a new coalition, we don’t need these people”, which is a message heard loud and clear by Muslim voters and can cost Labour a number of seats at the next election if they aren’t careful.

We famously saw it directed at Labour Leave voters, with Keir Starmer’s wing of the party denouncing Brexit as a political ambition of backwards racists, and working night and day to get a People’s Vote accepted as Labour policy, which acted as the biggest middle finger to these voters imaginable, cost Labour 60 seats, and allowed the very same Starmer to turn around, talk down to these people by waving giant flags about, and disavow the elements of Labour policy (radical economic policy) that were popular with these voters, and which the Tories have acknowledged by shifting left on intervening in the economy.

We’ve seen it directed at ethnic minority voters with Starmer’s “moment” dismissal of the reckoning over racial injustice, we’ve seen it directed at renters by having a pathetically weak policy for tenants during COVID, and having a private landlord overseeing that brief, and we’ve seen the middle finger brandished at progressives by abandoning a commitment to trans rights, and refusing to stand up and oppose massive crackdowns on civil liberties, now only doing so at the very last minute and with no teeth.

Now, the newest middle finger to those that loyally vote Labour has been to young people, with Starmer kicking off his national self flagellation tour by sitting with some people who proceeded to lay into the nation’s young as lazy do-nothings who have it too good to be true, all while chuckling alone before only offering the most tepid of pushbacks, essentially saying “most all young people aren’t like this, some might be”. There is a cultish hatred of the young in this country, and a basic test for any Labour leader (or political leader) in this country is if they can stand up to it; Starmer can’t, so no wonder Labour is shedding the swing voters of tomorrow on mass to apathy or to the Greens.

What those people said was utterly ludicrous; young people have sacrificed more during COVID than anyone else, and all to protect those older and better off than themselves from a virus that for the most part isn’t a threat to their lives. Their mental health, their education, their social lives at such a crucial juncture in their lives, all put on hold for the good of society and they get spat in the face for their trouble by these nasty, nasty people, as Sir Keir, knight of the realm and QC, nervously laughs along and offers “not all young people” tepid pushback against that nasty reactionary sentiment. Besides all this, a tour of going around the country with TV cameras and finding people that don’t like you isn’t the winning tactic Starmer seems to think it is!

Hearing those in the dominant faction of the Labour party speak, it is often with dismissal and contempt for Labour’s own voters, dismissal of the concerns of the young, of Muslims, of renters, of the economically precarious, as voters Labour can afford to loose. They’re about to find out that line of thinking will see them collapse yet further come the next election, and they’ll deserve it.