In the wake of being hammered at the polls by the British electorate during this week’s local elections, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer vowed to push forward with his unpopular agenda while wrapping himself in the cloak of the Labour establishment in a bid to cling to power.
Amid calls for his resignation coming from nearly every direction after his left-wing Labour Party’s historic losses in the British equivalent to a mid term election, suffering serious losses to Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party, the Greens, and Muslim ‘Gaza’ independents, Starmer announced on Saturday morning that he would be tapping former Prime Minister and ex-Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown to serve as an advisor on “global finance and cooperation”.
“As Britain’s longest-serving Chancellor, Gordon is well placed to work with our international allies to build a stronger Britain and boost our country’s security and resilience,” Starmer said.
Yet, critics were quick to note that Brown’s record as Britain’s top finance chief under the former Labour government of Sir Tony Blair was not without its black marks, with many laying at least partial blame on the Scotsman for paving the way to the 2008 financial crisis with the creation of the Financial Services Authority (FSA). Brown later admitted that it was a “big mistake” and the regulator was abolished in 2013 over its failures.
Brown has also faced heavy criticism over his disastrous decision to sell off large swaths of Britain’s gold reserves. Between 1999 and 2002, the Bank of England, acting on behalf of Brown, sold approximately 395 tonnes of gold for around £1.9 billion ($3.5bn) at the time.
The sale was lambasted as one of the worst financial decisions in history, given that the price of gold has risen significantly since then. Opponents noted that his signalling of the sale likely pushed prices even lower at the time. Westminster gossip site Guido Fawkes calculated that if the sale were made today, the gold would be worth £44.05 billion ($60bn).
Commenting on the appointment of Brown, election winner Nigel Farage remarked: “An unpopular Prime Minister who lost a general election is now seen by Starmer as being the saviour. Labour are doomed.”
Starmer did not finish there, however, with the embattled PM also announcing the appointment of former Labour Party Deputy leader Harriet Harman as his “Adviser on Women and Girls.” Harman, a longtime Labour veteran, is infamous for her previous ties to the Paedophile Information Exchange, which advocated for legalising child sex, during her time at the National Council for Civil Liberties.
The incoming ‘Advisor on Women and Girls’ has also faced previous criticisms for apparently not knowing what a woman is. In a 2022 interview with Sky News, Harman said that “as far as I’m concerned, women are women who are born women, but women are also women who are trans women.”
In response to her appointment, Harry Potter author and women’s advocate JK Rowling said: “Bravo, Keir Starmer, for getting in an Adviser on Women and Girls who thinks the definition of women and girls includes men and boys. That’ll definitely win back people who believe Labour’s a party for smug, lanyard-wearing, luxury-belief-espousing cultural elitists.”
Regardless, it appears that Starmer’s strategy is to bring out as many old guns of the party as possible to his cause in the face of potential leadership challenges, which have been mooted over the past year as the likely outcome following this week’s local elections.
Amid declining support among working-class voters, who have largely jumped ship to Farage’s Reform UK, and the loss of Islamic and young voters to the likes of the Green Party, or independent Muslim voters, Labour lost upwards of 1,400 seats across the country this week. In contrast, Reform picked up over 1,400 seats.
While many, including some from within his own party, are calling on Starmer to resign, the PM has argued that shifting to the right or left with a new prime minister would be the wrong course of action. Instead, he claimed that the only way forward is through, and doubling down on his neo-liberal agenda defined by economic stagnation, high taxes, green policies, and mass migration.
“While we must respond to the message that voters have sent us, that doesn’t mean tacking right or left. It means bringing together a broad political movement, being assertive about our values, bold in our vision and addressing people’s demands. Unifying rather than dividing. That is the right approach for our party and, more importantly, it is the right approach for our country,” Starmer wrote in The Guardian.
“The right lesson is to listen to voters. To represent the majority who want a government that will confront the big challenges they face with real answers. Because that is when the Labour Party is at its best. And that is how we will deliver the change that people are desperate for,” he added.
However, the Prime Minister did not lay out exactly what that vision for change will look like, saying that he will set out a new “path” in the coming days.
The moves were apparently not enough to impress all of his backbenchers, with multiple Labour MPs coming out to demand Starmer’s resignation on Saturday, including former government minister Catherine West, who said that the Prime Minister’s strategy is “not cutting through… unless things change, we risk Nigel Farage becoming Prime Minister.”
“That’s why, with regret and significant sadness, I firmly believe that Keir should outline his intention to resign as Prime Minister and oversee an orderly transition.”