My years of supporting the Labour Party have come to an end

Here's why

Own goal Sir Keir

That’s it – I’m done. After decades of supporting the Labour Party, including some years working for it full-time, I have reached a point of anger and frustration where I no longer feel able to justify backing a party that is betraying its fundamental principles.

As ever the process of disillusion comes in drip, drip form. We are told to ignore all manner of things that are hard to stomach on grounds that there is a bigger picture to be considered where, despite disagreements, we try to believe that the Good Ship Labour is basically heading in the right direction.

Then comes the moment when you realize that no ship is ever going to get where it should be heading if it is dragged down by deadweight that fundamentally undermines its credibility.

That moment has, lamentably, arrived and reality must be faced. Lingering doubts were pushed over the edge by two issues that are very close to my heart which demonstrate that the Labour government has lost its moral compass and worse, abandoned doing what is right in the ludicrous belief that betraying its own principles will allow it to achieve more important goals.

As I write this I have been looking in horror at Labour’s new campaign highlighting how tough it is being on clamping down on immigration. Reveling in images of immigrants being deported, some of whom were wearing restraints, is not my idea of how a democratic socialist party should behave. Demonizing people who have sought refuge in Britain used to be the preserve of the extreme right and others who pretend that love of country can only be achieved by hatred of others.

Labour’s weasel-like wriggle room in its current campaign is that it is only targeting illegal immigration, conveniently ignoring that practically all routes to legal immigration have been shuttered and that the overwhelming majority of people who have taken great risks to reach these shores, albeit by illicit means, turn out to have a valid claim to be here.

The idiots in government think that they can outflank the rabid racism of the fast growing Reform party and out maneuver the embers of the Conservative Party which clings to an extremist anti-immigration platform for want of anything else to say.

The reality is that by giving credibility to a narrative that associates immigration with criminality only serves to embolden the right wing extremists who have made this narrative their own. Trying to beat racists and xenophobes at their own game is a mug’s game.

So, although well aware that the cause of immigration is unpopular, it seems to me that moral ballast is founded not by clinging to what is most popular but by standing up for what is right. In the case of immigration, which has consistently been proved to have been of net benefit to this country, the role of immigrants should be celebrated not demonized. Not daring to be honest about immigration is bad in principle and highly damaging in practice.

Secondly, and admittedly even less of popular concern but indicative of the way in which the Starmer administration will not even stand up for the British values of liberty and democracy, is its craven attitude to China, the world’s largest dictatorship.

At every turn Britain whimpers when challenged by this global bully which flaunts its claims of the superiority of authoritarian government while disparaging democracy and liberty.

China is currently bullying the British government to allow it to build the biggest embassy in Britain. The security services have flagged up their concerns and there is determined opposition from the local community in East London. Instead of putting telling the PRC that it has gone too far the government flails around trying to dampen opposition.

When Chinese diplomats and the long arm of the Chinese Communist Party have threatened British residents on British soil, the government turned a blind eye.

As Jimmy Lai, Hong Kong’s best known political prisoner, faces life in jail, the UK will not even make strenuous efforts to secure consular access to Mr. Lai, a British citizen.

The laughable excuse for British behaviour is couched in terms of pragmaticism but the reality is that like all bullies the Chinese Communists can smell weakness and will carry on bullying until they are stopped. As they do so they dangle a pot of gold for Britain as long as the Brits remain on their best behaviour. The reality is that there no pot of gold and China accounts for 0.2 per cent of direct foreign investment in the UK.

Why is the government not prepared to assert the superiority of a democracy underpinned by rule of law? Why, when even the far less powerful government of Lithuania, has refused to be intimidated, does Britain cower? Why will the government, currently monkeying around with a so-called reset of relations with China, not learn from, say Australia or indeed the United States, which has kicked back and discovered that the costs of doing so have been minimal because, for all its bluster, Beijing, respects those who stand up to its bullying.

So, if a Labour government thinks it can salvage its political position by demonizing immigrants and is not even willing to defend our democratic way of life, count me out.

My absence from the Labour supporters club will not even cause a blip on the political Richter scale but I strongly suspect that there are many others who, like me, are questioning the point of backing a party that so readily gives up its principles.