Labour’s new leader.

Trevor McKeever from South Hornchurch Labour Action Team today writes in the Havering Daily about Keir Starmer, Labour’s new leader.

On Saturday, 4th April the results of the Labour leader and deputy leader contest were announced. The Labour party had two clear winners in Keir Starmer as leader and Angela Rayner as deputy.

My congratulations to all who took part in what I would describe as a good clean contest. It was apparent from the first ballot that Keir Starmer was the frontrunner and the one to beat.

Who is Keir Starmer? Some say that he has had an accelerated rise to fame but Starmer is nobody’s fool. He was educated at St. Edmund’s Hall, Oxford, graduating as a Bachelor of Civil Law. He primarily worked as a human rights defence lawyer and was appointed as a QC in 2002. He became QC of the year in 2007.

In 2014, he was elected as an MP for Holborn and St. Pancras.

Where does he stand as leader, to the right or to the left? I feel he has a tendency to lean both ways as we see him put his shadow cabinet together. This would suggest that he has an open opinion and it is backed up by his first speeches. He has stated that we are living in a time of national emergency. He stresses that he will always act in the country’s best interests to save lives and to protect livelihoods. He has vowed to engage constructively with the government, hold them to account when dealing with the Corona Virus but he will not be involved in political point scoring. Under his leadership Labour has come out to say that the lockdown needs to go further but there also needs to be a ramping up of testing.

These are unprecedented times with enormous challenges ahead. If Starmer can re-engage with communities and build their trust in the party, then he has a good chance of becoming PM at the next election. A diverse mix of the shadow cabinet will only enhance his ability to come to the right conclusions. Out with the old and in with the new some say, but I am pleased to see that Jonathan Ashworth has retained his position as Shadow Health Secretary.

What really disappoints me is that within 24 hours of Keir Starmer becoming leader of the Labour party we are already seeing fake news stories. Let’s call them what they are – blatant lies appearing on social media to slander the new Labour leader.

This kind of behaviour belongs in the gutter along with the people who fabricate them.