Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has landed in hot water after a recently released party report suggested a Labour government should make “woke” payments to former British colonies and apologise “unreservedly” for the negative repercussions of the former Empire, the Daily Mail reported.
“The British state should set up a reparations fund as part of the constitution, which offers financial assistance to communities across the world that can show loss and detriment as a result of the actions of the British state,” the report pointed out.
It also called for the abolition of trade union laws, which would lead to the return of flying pickets and general strikes, the disestablishment of the Church of England, as well as the replacement of the House of Lords with ”the Senate of Nations and Regions”.
“Socialists should seek to reorder the British state and hardwire the constitution in favour of socialist objectives. This must be a central plank of the Labour Party’s vision to transform the UK,” the document went on.
Labour allies have since reportedly opted to distance themselves and Starmer from the proposals, attributing them to his predecessor, Jeremy Corbyn, among others.
“The last leadership were always getting reports like this written in order to keep their friends happy,” one of Starmer’s allies commented last night, adding, “fortunately, that’s not Labour’s approach any more.”
The 234-page paper called Remaking Of The British State: For The Many, Not The Few, precedes a UK-wide constitutional commission, which Sir Keir has already announced.
Separately, the Labour leader has also recently come under growing pressure from senior party figures and activists to hold Boris Johnson accountable for the adverse effects of his Brexit deal on UK businesses.
When Johnson announced the limited free-trade deal with the EU on 24 December, Starmer said in a statement that Labour would accept the deal to avoid any risk of a No Deal scenario. Yet, he insisted it was limited and flawed and that Labour would go to great lengths to expose its pitfalls.
In mid-January, British data analytics firm YouGov published the results of its fresh polls on the voting intentions of the British public. Central in the poll was the question “Who would make the best Prime Minister?”, to which 34 percent answered “Keir Starmer” and only 29 percent Boris Johnson. Around 34 percent of respondents couldn’t produce a clear answer to the question.