The party’s position has since evolved. Starmer ended up joining British PM Rishi Sunak in calling for a “sustainable” cease-fire, a month on from his party’s split on the issue.
Issuing correction on previous post of mine: you do not have to hand it to Thatcher
Okay, this one is a stretch. But hear us out: in a December article in the Conservative-supporting Daily Telegraph newspaper, Starmer positively gushed about the former Tory PM Margaret Thatcher — the very mention of whom sends shivers down the spines of Britain’s lefties.
In a paragraph that also praised former Labour leaders Tony Blair and Clement Atlee, he said that the iron lady set loose Britain’s “natural entrepreneurialism.” Judge his comments for yourself here.
In interviews following the publication, Starmer sought to make very clear that he didn’t agree with Thatcher’s actions — a qualification, you may notice, he did not bother to include in his article itself.
The u-turn was complete when Starmer, less than a week later, used a speech to Scottish Labour bigwigs in Thatcher-hating Glasgow to attack the former leader for doing “terrible things.”
(Don’t) give the Commons a say on war
When Starmer was running for the Labour leadership in 2020, he pledged to introduce a law that would ensure U.K. governments have to get the consent of the House of Commons before any military interventions.