A vote for Starmer’s Labour is a vote for national decline

On the doorstep this week, I met Sue. In her 50s and running her own small business, her pebble-dashed semi reminded me of my childhood home. A known floating voter, but instinctively Tory, I ventured. But after I introduced myself as her Conservative candidate, she smiled and simply shook her head politely: “Time for a change. I’m sorry.”

Tempting though it might be to want “change” after 14 years, if that change means disaster, chaos and decline, I’ll pass. For whilst Keir Starmer claims that he has changed the Labour Party, the truth is something quite different.

Be under no illusion: today’s Labour is just as extreme, vacuous and dysfunctional as that of the Corbyn era. Whenever Starmer has been given the opportunity to assert his authority over the more militant elements of his party, he has woefully failed.

Take the non-vote on Gaza in the House of Commons back in February. As I wrote at the time, Keir Starmer sought to avoid having to take a side. In doing so, he undermined Parliament, pressured the Speaker, and played to voters whose sympathies should be confronted rather than appeased.

Or take just this week. Initially resolute in his decision to stop Diane Abbott from standing for Parliament – even Labour’s disciplinary procedures had sanctioned her over her appalling remarks about British Jews. But cowed by pressure exerted by no less than his Deputy, Angela Rayner, he took the knee and gave in. Again.

This weakness extends to pretty much every policy area. “We want to cut migration”, claims Starmer. Well, good luck with that in the face of Labour MPs who, like Rachel Maskell, only recently proclaimed in her seat of York Central that: “We must keep going [with mass migration] until we are at saturation point, because what does it matter that we have to wait another week for a hospital appointment?”

Likewise, when it comes to women’s rights or child safeguarding, you can bet your bottom dollar that Labour’s recent epiphany women cannot, in fact, have a penis (it took Starmer about two years to get to this insight) will become a faint memory. Pretty much every member of the Shadow Cabinet expressed some sort of denial of biological fact about what a woman is. Don’t forget that Labour policy is to make obtaining a Gender Recognition Certificate easier than it is today and ban conversion therapy (which will criminalise parents and professionals trying to talk their children out of gender reassignment). Remember, too, that Scottish Labour supported the SNP’s ill-fated transgender legislation – thankfully now binned by the Scottish Government.

Or on race. You can be sure they will pass the divisive “Race Equality Act” to place more Diversity, Inclusion and Equality drivel in the workplace. And those of us who dare to speak against such madness will most probably face criminal charges, because the law and the criminal justice system will be weaponised against conservatives in pursuit of their virtue-signalling mission. For, as we’ve seen, those who preach tolerance are the most intolerant of debate or discussion.

And lastly, Brexit. Starmer campaigned for a second referendum a mere four and a half years ago. Labour hated Brexit and will, given the first opportunity, take us back to closer union with Europe. A deal with the EU on migration? Done – on condition of joining the EU Customs Union or regulatory harmonisation. And don’t expect a vote or a debate. We’ll wake up one day to the fait accompli. Everything we Brexiteers and Spartans fought for lost, overnight.

So, has Labour changed? Can a leopard change its spots? Don’t believe the lie. Labour spells the open borders, take the knee, Eurocrat, “Britain is racist” brigade on steroids. Change? No thank you, I’ll pass.

Suella Braverman is the former Home Secretary