PRECISELY 10 years ago, on the day after British voters rejected the idea of remaining in the EU, Conservative prime minister David Cameron resigned. Since then, five of his successors have followed suit. Only one of them, Rishi Sunak, stepped down after an electoral defeat.

On Monday, the fifth person in that dismal list announced his exit with a lump in his throat while a band played Beethoven’s Ode to Joy in the background. Keir Starmer stands out for two reasons: he is (at least ostensibly) not a Tory, and his resignation comes less than two years after he won a huge parliamentary majority. Mainstream media generally neglects to mention, though, that the Labour Party’s landslide was based on one-third of the vote, or that Starmer’s popularity ratings, unimpressive in the first place, took a dive as soon as he entered No. 10 Downing Street.

By then, he had already betrayed the party he purportedly represented by winning leadership through false pretences, and then purging its left wing, including his predecessor, Jeremy Corbyn. Starmer further sullied his reputation as a former human rights lawyer by defending Israel’s genocidal tendencies while he was still leader of the opposition. That has been followed during his........

© Dawn