radiofree.asia

Desperate Labour drafting MPs to canvass London

Labour

With the local elections looming, the serious parties are mobilising their supporters to hit the streets and engage with the public. Labour, meanwhile, are panicking, because Starmer encouraged the party’s grassroots to “leave”:

Labour — Shaking off the fleas

In the post above, HuffPost’s Kevin Schofield wrote:

NEW: With the elections on May 7 less than a month away, Labour chair Anna Turley has written to 2024 intake MPs urging them to campaign in London when they return to Westminster next week.

She says: “Every London council seat is up for election in May. I know you’re all doing great work across the country but let’s use our time in the big smoke to help our Labour family there.”

An MP says: “Things must be bad.”

So, Labour are asking MPs to ignore their constituency work for a month so they can prop up the party’s failing London operation. Fair enough, it’s when they’re in Westminster, but it’s still time they could spend responding to constituents or making plans.

If you’re wondering what happened to all the Labour activists and door knockers – well – a lot of them left after Starmer said this:

As the BBC reported on 7 April:

Six million voters, more than 1,800 councillors across 32 boroughs. The simple numbers behind what could be one of London’s most complicated elections.

On 7 May every council in the capital will go to the polls to decide who will run their authorities over the next four years.

And no longer, it seems, can Labour, the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats be confident that they alone will be running town halls.

The rise of Reform UK on the right and the Green Party on the left are presenting real and new challenges.

In other words, Starmer has fucked up so badly that he’s ended the political norms which have persisted for a century.

To be fair, he did have a lot of help from the Labour and Tory MPs who worked tirelessly to convince the public that the two-party system just doesn’t work.

The BBC continued:

After 7 May it’s possible five or even six parties will be in charge of various councils in London.

The previous red blanket, with Labour currently running 21 boroughs, becoming more of a patchwork quilt.

It will go lower

Beyond the local elections, Labour are also at risk of losing most of their MPs in the capital:

The way things are going, the above map could prove optimistic.

After all, if Starmer has proven one thing, it’s that he can always become more unpopular.

Featured image via The Canary

By Willem Moore

This post was originally published on Canary.