Probably; iirc, the dickhead that's in charge now used to be an actual leftist, so it's probably an "I got lots of quiet government funding/encouragement in order to convince me to erode the left"
He was perhaps a soc-dem as a student at best. Incoming effort post for just some of the reasons Starmer gets the wall even long before he became a Labour MP...
He went to a posh grammar school, met and got cosy with the elite including future conservative American columnists, and became a lawyer. He apparently called himself a socialist, but the first bit of actual organisation he seemed to do was as a member of the Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyers, where he tried to get them to drop the socialist part and "NGOify" the org.
He was a human rights lawyer, but pretty much always as a way to justify the abuses of the state. He used to like to tout that he's represent abused IRA prisoners (he doesn't even say that anymore), but his success in Northern Ireland that got him noticed was helping to acquit Lee Clegg, a British soldier who murdered an unarmed Catholic woman in the street which was big news at the time, as well as to write policy and legal arguments to allow things like the use of water cannons and rubber bullets against Catholics who protested Loyalist parades even peacefully.
After that he became the British intelligence services' useful lawyer and promoted to the Director of Public Prosecutions. He refused to prosecute the MI5 agents who tortured Binyam Mohamed and there's records of him having dinner and drinks with the head of intelligence services around that time, which never usually would happen (or at least not publicly) . It's probably worth noting here that last year he threatened Labour MPs not to vote against legislation that would prevent soldiers and intelligence officers being prosecuted for torture or war crimes, as well as a bill that allowed immunity for 'intelligence assets' (so not even spooks, just informants or whatever) for crimes up to and including rape and murder.
He continued to refuse to prosecute the worst state abusers, including doing the same for the Home Office thugs that killed Jimmy Mubenga, the police officers who gunned down Charles De Menezes on the tube because he looked foreign and therefore might be a terrorist, and the undercover spy cops who infiltrated leftist and environmental movements going as far as to sleep with (rape) and have children with activists before entrapping them.
He ran 24hr opening for courts and sentencing during the riots that processed suspects before their lawyers could find where they were and consistently sought maximums and draconian sentences for rioters, looters (including a women who stole rice and nappies because she was broke and a guy that took a bottle of water), and so called 'benefit cheats'.
He was mates with Eric Holder, Obama's Attorney General, and quickly got the Crown Prosecution Service to start doing their dirty work for them, following their lead on the legal aspect of foreign policy and working hand in glove for extraditions they wanted.
He was about to hand over Gary McKinnon, an autistic computer programmer who hacked into US government websites looking for proof of aliens but never even shared any information. The US wanted to give him 70 years in prison. McKinnon was suicidal and needed mental health support. Starmer didn't give a shit, he'd already "pledged McKinnon to Holder". This apparent human rights lawyer had to be overruled by Theresa fucking May of all people who denied the extradition on the basis it would violate McKinnon's human rights. Starmer was apparently furious.
He got his way with plenty of others though, including Babar Ahmad and Talha Ahsan, 'Taliban conspirators' who were held for years in Britain without charges in a situation most legal rights groups deemed to be illegal before being extradited to the US for a lifetime spent in supermax prisons. And of course he oversaw and set the policy in the early days of the legal shitshow and American-demanded extradition promise of none other than Julian Assange.
All somehow worse then I had thought, having never done a deep dive. It's funny he's friends with an Obama pal because it feels almost Obama-esque in the appropriating leftwing language while trying to drive people right
Yeah, very much so except he only adopted it for the three weeks or so of his leadership election and dropped it instantly.
Yeah, his whole career is to be an establishment asset ghoul, destroying what was left of the Labour Party is just the latest chapter. Most of this is stuff I've picked up over the years following those issues, but there's a new book (I haven't read yet but am thinking of buying) called The Starmer Project that's supposed to be very good and appropriately critical.
Probably; iirc, the dickhead that's in charge now used to be an actual leftist, so it's probably an "I got lots of quiet government funding/encouragement in order to convince me to erode the left"
He was perhaps a soc-dem as a student at best. Incoming effort post for just some of the reasons Starmer gets the wall even long before he became a Labour MP...
He went to a posh grammar school, met and got cosy with the elite including future conservative American columnists, and became a lawyer. He apparently called himself a socialist, but the first bit of actual organisation he seemed to do was as a member of the Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyers, where he tried to get them to drop the socialist part and "NGOify" the org.
He was a human rights lawyer, but pretty much always as a way to justify the abuses of the state. He used to like to tout that he's represent abused IRA prisoners (he doesn't even say that anymore), but his success in Northern Ireland that got him noticed was helping to acquit Lee Clegg, a British soldier who murdered an unarmed Catholic woman in the street which was big news at the time, as well as to write policy and legal arguments to allow things like the use of water cannons and rubber bullets against Catholics who protested Loyalist parades even peacefully.
After that he became the British intelligence services' useful lawyer and promoted to the Director of Public Prosecutions. He refused to prosecute the MI5 agents who tortured Binyam Mohamed and there's records of him having dinner and drinks with the head of intelligence services around that time, which never usually would happen (or at least not publicly) . It's probably worth noting here that last year he threatened Labour MPs not to vote against legislation that would prevent soldiers and intelligence officers being prosecuted for torture or war crimes, as well as a bill that allowed immunity for 'intelligence assets' (so not even spooks, just informants or whatever) for crimes up to and including rape and murder.
He continued to refuse to prosecute the worst state abusers, including doing the same for the Home Office thugs that killed Jimmy Mubenga, the police officers who gunned down Charles De Menezes on the tube because he looked foreign and therefore might be a terrorist, and the undercover spy cops who infiltrated leftist and environmental movements going as far as to sleep with (rape) and have children with activists before entrapping them.
He ran 24hr opening for courts and sentencing during the riots that processed suspects before their lawyers could find where they were and consistently sought maximums and draconian sentences for rioters, looters (including a women who stole rice and nappies because she was broke and a guy that took a bottle of water), and so called 'benefit cheats'.
He was mates with Eric Holder, Obama's Attorney General, and quickly got the Crown Prosecution Service to start doing their dirty work for them, following their lead on the legal aspect of foreign policy and working hand in glove for extraditions they wanted.
He was about to hand over Gary McKinnon, an autistic computer programmer who hacked into US government websites looking for proof of aliens but never even shared any information. The US wanted to give him 70 years in prison. McKinnon was suicidal and needed mental health support. Starmer didn't give a shit, he'd already "pledged McKinnon to Holder". This apparent human rights lawyer had to be overruled by Theresa fucking May of all people who denied the extradition on the basis it would violate McKinnon's human rights. Starmer was apparently furious.
He got his way with plenty of others though, including Babar Ahmad and Talha Ahsan, 'Taliban conspirators' who were held for years in Britain without charges in a situation most legal rights groups deemed to be illegal before being extradited to the US for a lifetime spent in supermax prisons. And of course he oversaw and set the policy in the early days of the legal shitshow and American-demanded extradition promise of none other than Julian Assange.
All somehow worse then I had thought, having never done a deep dive. It's funny he's friends with an Obama pal because it feels almost Obama-esque in the appropriating leftwing language while trying to drive people right
Yeah, very much so except he only adopted it for the three weeks or so of his leadership election and dropped it instantly.
Yeah, his whole career is to be an establishment asset ghoul, destroying what was left of the Labour Party is just the latest chapter. Most of this is stuff I've picked up over the years following those issues, but there's a new book (I haven't read yet but am thinking of buying) called The Starmer Project that's supposed to be very good and appropriately critical.
Trot*