How are we going to refer to Starmer’s approach and its followers?

by Kevin Meagher

So, after the rapture of his victory on Saturday with a 56% share of the vote, followers of Labour’s new leader can be forgiven for indulging in a bout of Starmerama, but how are we to describe his credo and what are we going to call his disciples?

This mania for suffixing ‘ism’ and ‘ite’ to the names of political leaders or factions started in the 1950s with the Bevanites and the Gaitskellites – the Crip(p)s and the Bloods of post-war Labour politics.

You can’t imagine Clement Attlee going in for such nonsense and there were never really any Wilsonites either, although, like Peter Mandelson, things were done in a Wilsonian way. (And it’s not meant to be complementary).

Of course, we had Thatcherism and Thatcherites. Fair enough, given it was a distinct ideology and had a set of adherents. As were the Bennites at the opposite end of the spectrum.

So, not to be outdone and given it was then de rigeur in British politics by then, we had Blairism and Blairites.

We didn’t really have Brownism, but there were certainly Brownites.

During his five years at the helm, we had neither Milibandism, nor Milibandites. He was too much the intellectual gadfly, never settling on a coherent approach above and beyond ‘moving on from New Labour.’

Of course, there was Corbynism and Corbynites. Lots of them.

So, are we entering a bright new dawn of Starmerism? Or perhaps it will be Keirism?

Starmerite sounds like a household adhesive.

And Starmite doesn’t work because it could mean you either love him or hate him.

How to sum-up his approach?

Well, if the job of Opposition Leader is to benefit from the multifarious failings of the government of the day, then there’s only one term for his approach: Steer karma.

Kevin Meagher is associate editor of Uncut


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5 Responses to “How are we going to refer to Starmer’s approach and its followers?”

  1. John P Reid says:

    This is right
    Since Jack Kennedy in 1960 took politics from The Eisenhower/McMillan one of the people’ leading the Country like a religious leader
    People but into Heroes, maybe in the days of winter of Discontent of 1978 or homelessness in the 80’s people needed Thatcherism to stop the first or a blsir to get rid of the Tories
    Then after New labour collapsed the left bought into thinking wevneeed to be more left wing and Ed miliband thought He’d win
    And when that didn’t happen people took over labour spent endless money and had Adhoc motions ignoring the rules that resulted in anti sentient ignoring Grooming gangs and burnt themselves out

    Now I’ve seen neo liberals cheering as Starmers taken over thinking somehow We could win by going for new labours plan to get middle class votes
    I’ve heard of people no fans of corbyn quitting now, because the euphoria of Starmer winning is just showing the liberals are ignoring why labour lost Scotland and the Red Wall
    And they haven’t seen their definite their plans they won’t get the working class back
    Although Conference this year will be good I understand many females who won’t accept self identifying As a view will take one last all out stand saying expel us is you won’t let us speak and won’t let us accept that we’re making a stand against bullying transgenders

  2. Alf says:

    New Labour Revanchism?

  3. Vern says:

    A stop-gap.

  4. John P Reid says:

    Alf Starm Troopers

  5. Anne says:

    These politicians mentioned were people of their time – dealing with the issues of their day. Starmer seems to be avoiding the ‘isms.’ It is however intriguing to hear the phrases politicians use such as ‘the fact of the matter’ or ‘going forward’ or the Chancellor’s frequently used phrase which is ‘at pace.’ Usually when these phrases are used the true meaning is anything but that which is implied.

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