starmer is unpopular because he is not meaningfully different than the tories. labour voters want labour policies, not tory policies. mystery solved

the reason the british commentary class are 'aw shucks?'ing about labour's popularity and claiming the hatred for starmer is 'mind boggling' is bcos they agree with starmer's racism, transphobia, assault on disabled ppl, and war crimes... so of course they're left perplexed by his unpopularity.

Frankly embarrassing to believe that the solution to the Labour Party’s polling woes is… …to carry on with exactly the same strategy which is obviously going down like a lead balloon.

Perhaps you need to investigate the depravity of Reeves and Starmer's attachment to neo liberalism, their fealty to the ruling class and their seeming bottomless hatred of the disabled, trans and poor communities. Ffs Duncan FOURTEEN MILLION people live in poverty in the UK.

My whole life, every vote, for Labour. Granted, I wasn’t paying attention to politics pre election and I just voted for Labour out of habit. Now I feel stupid. I feel dumb. I feel conned. Labour has lied and tricked all of us and they expect us to just eat the dirt they are serving up.

Offering the Guardian a more accurate headline.

It’s considerably worse than this though: all these people chose Johnson and hard Brexit as the best option to get back the thing that was most important to them: control of the Labour Party by these horrible people. They fought relentlessly to inflict that upon the public, and all for… this.

I wonder what part of lower bills, tax billionaires they're panicking about most? Cry harder. Join.greenparty.org.uk

So when Rachel Reeves employed HSBC staff to help set fiscal policy. You were outraged by that conflict of interest were you? www.opendemocracy.net/en/labour-hs...

Well said Joe. No-one should support an illegal war and definitely not a genocide. Although you might want to check what your government is up to before throwing out accusations aoav.org.uk/2025/the-mod...

"I don't understand why nobody likes this guy", I say, as said guy nods approvingly at a bunch of fucking racists trying to burn down asylum seekers' shelters while allowing peaceful anti-genocide protestors to starve to death labelled "terrorists"

Your regular reminder that the Fabian Society's original logo was literally a wolf in sheep's clothing.

centrists who dont have any friends who are trans, disabled, racialised or any other minority, think that this is a representative sample and not a reflection of them. they think those people exist in tiny and irrelevant numbers so cannot compute that its not the case. a schoolboy perceptual error

The fantasy is believing that we can carry on with the extremely high levels of inequality that we have now which continues to get worse. If the government wants growth they need to reduce inequality so that the vast majority of people have more money to spend.

been doing some cursory research on @joedromey.bsky.social. he's a nepo baby who has spent his entire life bouncing from one 'think tank' to the next enjoying a free ride his entire life he's been a member of the fabians for less than a year he's never done a single days work in his life

You mean: where might Labour politicians and staff have got the idea they could achieve incredible personal success, just by screaming abuse at their own core supporters while regularly falling over and pretending to be injured? Gee whizz, it sure is a mystery why they’d have formed that impression.

Labour turned their guns on all of their natural supporters, they even vilified and abused their own membership. They did these things to chase the votes of people that already detest them and will never vote for them. They are now wondering why they are so unpopular. So they're also stupid.

In past times I'd say something like "and this guy has the nerve to call himself a social democrat", but these days it's exactly what I'd expect

Liberals are still seething people pointed out Biden enabled genocide a year after he's out of office. They really, truly do not like being confronted with the reality of the Democratic party.

No, the criticism you’re replying to is actually pretty soft.

Starmer is thoroughly detestable: vain, bitter, bigoted, petty, grasping, dishonest, spiteful...he's a perfect shitstorm of a human being.

I don't understand how people like Jamie manage to exist. Starmer has made this year terrifying for a lot of us. Trans eradication, genocide, starving disabled people, demonising refugees and immigrants, there's a long list. Centrist brain rot

Again: “we’ve tried all the versions of crackdowns Thatcherism we find acceptable and none of it works, Britain is ungovernable” is the same thing as saying “Well, I guess it’s time for Farage and fascism”.

I do think it's absolutely undersold that people dislike Starmer *because* his fans appear to be utterly condescending arseholes with zero self-awareness Like yes, all politicians and parties have v annoying and awful supporters, but I'm not sure any are as condescending as Starmer's?

Seriously, are the Reasonable Moderates ok today? They seem to have all woken up to a sort of collective breakdown about the mere thought of left wing things

Same as the wars or austerity really: this is *their project*, a thing they bought into and fought to inflict upon the public. And just like the wars and austerity, they fully understand why it is completely fucked and they *do not want to hear you, the pig-people, explaining how they fucked it*.

keir starmer is a vile bigot who is about to introduce, through @bphillipsonmp.bsky.social, jim crow style segregation laws in this country. in what sense is he a 'smart, dignified, man who is truing to unite'? he's the worst prime minister of my life and the most nakedly bigoted.

The plan is to lock the cabin door to keep the passengers out and then fly the plane into the mountain, hoping that when the wreckage slides to a stop, you will still be in the pilot’s seat.

Since the lads are again all having great difficulty understanding why they & their brand of political economy is so universally loathed, no better example can be found for them to ponder than this thread yday where they are all smugly chortling away to one another about the pig people at the unions

BREAKING: Head of the 'Sabotage the left' club doesn't like left-wing movement.

If you keep telling social liberals to fuck off to impress the Times, don't act all surprised when they actually fuck off.

Also, despite everything, there's still quite a lot of people in the UK - if not, apparently, in the commentariat class - who have genuine moral objections to genocide, racism, transphobia, attacks on disabled and elderly people, appeasement of fascists, and/or the existence of Wes Streeting

The Galaxy Brained Sensibles are having such trouble getting why Starmer is universally loathed cos he's a *cipher for them & their politics* Bt cos they're so convinced abt how marvellous they are they're unable to acknowledge people don't actually like their economics of despair & politics of lies

well, for one thing, like most of the KHive you're a weird white person who has convinced himself that by attaching his ego to a single Black person he can be cleansed of his sins you are not Martin Luther King Jr's. Cool White Friend, Postwhite Pat. you are the dad from Get Out's larval phase.

I think part of this is that all the pundits said, in their podcasts, which they put out in public where people could hear them, "these guys are just lying to get elected." But when *they* said it, it was smart and savvy politics by their mates, so they're confused it hasn't worked out well.

“The idea that squeezing a tiny elite of billionaires will pay for everything is fantasy and we do need to expose that.” Good job no one’s ever actually said that - including me. So why is Labour again repeatedly lying to avoid taxing the super-rich? www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

Where could people possibly get the idea that Keir Starmer is a relentless liar who will say whatever it takes to get power?

Is it hard to understand ? Starmer suffers the same problems that led to to 'Pasokification' across Europe, claiming to offer 'change' but doing continuity centrism instead , and because he did so by lying +attacking his own party , doesn't even have a base of his own to counterbalance attacks

I notice how - whether it’s war, austerity or this particular shitshow - nobody ever asks the people who correctly predicted they would be disastrous why they got it spot on, while the smart politics understanders repeatedly fucked it. Could this be because nobody wants to know the actual answers?

There is no mystery here: vaguely left wing people don’t like being mocked, kicked and insulted; the permanent reactionary spite voter (now Reform) does not respect people they already despise sucking up to them and fawning over them, and nobody likes the project, full stop.

Doing this after fifteen years of brutally enforced misery and vandalism of the public realm is not an excuse, by the way! It wouldn’t be an excuse even if you were innocent of deliberately greasing the skids during the years of vandalism, which these people are not.

If you crawl for years on your stomach to people who hate you, begging for their indulgence, while relentlessly insulting and deliberately offending people who might be inclined to support you - while offering almost nobody anything they want - then you are going to be deeply unpopular.

Staggering how many people who clearly think themselves deeply intelligent and sensible are so completely baffled by something so obvious. If you can't understand why Starmer and co are so hated, you need to stop discussing politics and go do something easier, because this is really basic stuff.

Again, one of the detestable things about Starmerism is its total inability to understand itself. These people are a cargo cult of Blairism, they follow the forms and rituals but neither understand the mechanisms by which they worked, nor have any idea why they aren't.

Christ are you brain dead? Every media outlet in the country spent the last five years gooning over Starmer. They’re hated because they’re authoritarian bigots.

yes. they are objectively worse. talk to minorities. talk to the most vulnerable in our society. starmer's labour are worse, worse, worse. so much worse.

Starmer had disabled family. He brutally slashed welfare for disabled people and he’s terrified the vulnerable. I should know, I have family who despise this disgusting party because of that. A woman who was given an end of year honour returned it because of that. Do you understand?

A friend who utterly betrays you is always hated more than someone who’s always been an enemy. For people on the left - particularly with immigrant family, friends and colleagues - this feels like a complete betrayal.

Don’t know about other people but I started hating Starmer with a passion when he said Israel had the right to cut water and power from Gaza.

The Fabian Society has stood and watched the Labour Party vandalise our country with attacks on migrants, marginalised and vulnerable people. The only fantasy is voting Labour and thinking you are doing good. If you vote Labour you are harming our country.