The Ruthless Government of Keir Starmer

Foreign Policy ^ | August 22, 2024 | John Kampfner

[MinorityRepublican]

During recent riots in the United Kingdom, it was not lost on on the British public—or on the new Starmer government—that when riots last occurred in Britain in 2011, then-Mayor of London Boris Johnson didn’t come back from his vacation. True, Johnson wasn’t in charge of the country, only a city—albeit a capital of 8 million people at the time—but the man nonetheless seemingly had other things on his mind.

The Johnson era, during which Johnson clowned his way from mayor to foreign secretary to prime minister via the disaster that was Brexit, is one the new Labour government is working at hyper-speed to leave behind.

It is less than two months after British Prime Minister Keir Starmer won his decisive election victory on July 4, but the subsequent manner and style of governance in the United Kingdom could not be more different from previous administrations.

Starmer has demonstrated a professionalism that was absent during the years of mayhem that followed the 2016 Brexit referendum, as Britain lurched from the floundering Theresa May, via the buffoonery of Johnson, to the brief calamity that was Liz Truss, to the fin de siècle Rishi Sunak.

Starmer has been resolute on Ukraine (allowing most but not all U.K.-made heavy weaponry to be deployed for Ukraine’s incursion into the Kursk region of Russia). He has instructed his ministers to develop ambitious policy on priority areas (such as loosening planning restrictions and boosting renewable energy). He has taken on his own party’s left wing (banishing a group of Labour ministers of parliament for trying to increase child welfare payments). And he has been tough on the Tory legacy (attacking the former administration at every turn).

Most of all, he has wielded an iron grip on the machinery of government.

[ckilmer]

foreign policy likes it that starmer is subjugating the british people.

[Bonemaker]

They have democrats in England?

[Billthedrill]

Conservative media outlets were left chomping at the bit for an opening to criticize the new government.

I'd say a blatant two-tier justice system is more than an "opening". It's a real problem.

[captmar-vell]

The moment back in March when that demonic Obama creature made a show out of arriving at 10 Downing Street, I knew he was sending a message to someone (I suspect the CCP) and that our friends in the UK were about to experience something very bad coming to their front doors.

I didn’t have to wait long to see that evil show up.

The spirit of anti-Christ is rising up and any freedom of expression and sharing of information that is not filtered through WEF approved channels must be shutdown.

This is not a battle against flesh and blood.