Dear Prime Minister,
The video you released on Friday, condemning the organisers of the “Unite the Kingdom” march, has fuelled the very division you claim you want to heal in our nation.
Because while you were right to condemn the organisers and some of the speakers for horrific things they’ve said in the past, and one must also acknowledge that Saturday's event did not proceed entirely without incident (there have been 20 arrests at the time of writing), you didn't attempt even once to speak to the people who were attending the march.
Why didn’t you tell them you understand their concerns, that you may disagree, but you’re listening?
There is a contingent of people in the United Kingdom who feel like they’ve been left behind by mediocre, human-rights-obsessed, emotionless leaders like yourself, Mr Starmer.
They’re angry that for thirty years they’ve voted for successive governments who’ve made it a manifesto commitment to bring immigration down and improve their lives. And that hasn’t happened.
They’re angry that the jobs and industries they used to work in no longer exist. They’re angry that the situation has been made worse by many from other countries, who have had good intentions and wanted better lives, who have come to Britain and filled the jobs in sectors that do still exist, they’d have once worked in.
They’re sick of their country not having enough resources or public services to sustain a population which has grown by millions in a really short time, and every time they’ve voted for governments who’ve made the promise that it would
It hasn’t been solved.
They feel like their communities have changed beyond recognition. They feel like wealth and money have passed them by.
They were told Brexit was finally going to fix their problems. But the promises made ten years ago haven’t materialised; in fact, for many of them, they feel worse off.
They’re sick of situations they see as grossly unfair. People who arrive on small boats may make up a very small proportion of those who come to the UK, but they demonstrate a far bigger problem, which goes to the heart of the British psyche - a lack of fairness.
You see, they’re working hard and paying taxes, and are incensed when people arrive and get things given to them by the state, which they’re paying for. And they feel like they’re at the back of the queue.
They’re sick of being lectured on hate and division when they see it coming from others who are seemingly ignored or allowed to get away with it.
For years, when they’ve tried to speak up, they’ve been looked down upon, sneered at and called racist or divisive. It’s making them angry.
When they’ve tried to express patriotism, it’s seen as something sinister or embarrassing. They can’t understand why they’re made to feel like that, when other people and other cultures are seemingly celebrated all the time.
Dear PM, the tragic irony of chasing far-right ghosts is that you become the very thing you seek to destroy | Getty Images
They’re sick of crimes committed by people who aren’t from Britain. They can’t get their heads around how this has been allowed to happen.
How the safety of people who are living here already has been compromised for people who have come from other places.
Of course, the UK has its fair share of British-born criminals, and they’re a huge problem - so they can’t understand why this problem is being added to needlessly.
The lanyard-wearing class which you represent can recite to them figures, and statistics til you are blue in the face about the benefits of immigration; GDP figures, crime statistics from British nationals versus those from abroad; extra resources which might be finding their way to their communities, but this is too little too late.
In fact, you’re actually making the problem worse.
Because far from listening to these people, far from actually talking to them to try and solve the problems they’re facing, all too often what you actually do is smear them as far-right extremists.
Friday’s video implied this. But where was your video on the other marches taking place in London week after week? Where was your message condemning “division” after the countless arrests at those marches?
I agree that Tommy Robinson is not the answer to Britain's problems. But if you’re so worried about the division he’s creating, why are you driving people to him by constantly smearing them as far-right extremists? What have they got to lose if you’re calling them far-right already?
Don’t you understand that not only are you making this phrase meaningless, but all you’re doing is reaffirming the fact that you’re just not listening.
You can’t even mention St George’s day without bringing up the far-right. It’s like your default Star-Bot setting. You really have to stop and have a conversation with people.
Or are you so worried about your position, so obsessed with power at all costs, you’re no longer talking to the nation as a whole, instead just preaching platitudes to your own party to keep them happy in a desperate attempt to remain relevant?
It’s not just you, of course. Sadiq Khan constantly throws around ‘far right’ as his response to anyone who disagrees with him.
Wes Streeting, in his resignation letter this week, used the same playbook, smearing anyone who voted for Reform, implying they’re a ‘threat’ to our ‘values and ideals’
The range of people on the march - old and young, male and female, of different ethnicities, different cultures - could well have once been Labour voters.
But they’ve all been woefully failed by successive leaders, and now failed for a second time by your smearing them all. Don’t you want them to maybe vote for your party again one day?
They certainly won’t at present, because you demonstrate that absolutely nothing will change. And it’s this that might turn to the very fringes you claim you want them to avoid.
There are so many times in Britain when we come together with a shared culture, a shared set of beliefs, shared pride, when we are at our best.
The football, or the coronation, are two examples. Leaders like you are very happy to capitalise on the patriotism shown at those events, by the very people you smear when they try to show it any other time.
So here’s an idea, Keir. Talk to them. Listen to them. Engage with them. Stop smearing them. Stop throwing around terms like far-right at any opportunity you can.
Stop just talking into your echo chamber of Labour luvvies and be a leader who engages with the whole of Britain, not just those who agree with you.
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