Keir Starmer ‘sidetracked this whole time’ says expert
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Keir Starmer has been “sidetracked” by internal Labour Party faction fighting according to a party insider. The Leader of the Opposition has embarked on the latest bid to relaunch his leadership of the party with a pitch to embrace the legacy of Tony Blair. But the Senior Editor of Labourlist Sienna Rodgers told LBC’s Camilla Tominey that each time Labour attempted to reset Sir Keir’s leadership it “stalls,” with Ms Rodgers putting the blame on “factional infighting.”
Ms Rodgers told LBC: “There have been lots of reports of relaunches that is certainly true
“I think anyone who has spoken…any journalist who has spoken to a leadership source since Keir Starmer was elected will have been told that Keir Starmer has really struggled because of the pandemic.
“He has not been able to meet the public, he hasn’t had any facetime with people.
“You know he has been giving speeches to empty rooms and directed at his living furniture rather than any crowd of people, even his first conference speech wasn’t really a conference speech.
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“So they keep trying to talk about how he is going to reset his leadership and finally it is going to get going.
“And it does seem as if each time it kind of stalls and it doesn’t properly take off.
Ms Tominey jumped in to ask: “Has he got a communications problem?”
“Yes, yes I do think the Labour had a serious communications problem, ” replied Ms Rodgers.
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“You were saying earlier Camilla that it is perhaps a bad thing that people are sort of leaving his top team, his private office.” she continued.
“But I actually think quite of a lot of people think that was a good thing, he was getting a lot of criticism from within the Labour Party, from Labour MPs, from Shadow Cabinet members, from other staffers.”
Ms Rodgers added: “They were firefighting and dealing with the political stuff and the kind of factional infighting within the Labour Party.
“Rather than having the time to look outwards and develop a communications strategy to actually get Keir Starmer out there.
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“So basically the leadership has just been sidetracked this whole time.”
It comes as Sir Keir was warned the Labour Party will ‘haemorrhage’ voters at the next election if the party follows through with plans to re-adopt Blairism.
The opposition leader told the Financial Times last week he wanted Labour activists to be proud of the party’s record under the Blair Government from 1997.
But broadcaster Maajid Nawaz warned: ” You want to avoid a Batley and Spen and the narrow victory you just had there, which I hope lessons were learnt Mr Starmer, but you want to avoid haemorrhaging votes from Muslim communities, ethnic minority communities that are concerned about civil liberties.”
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