Can you believe a word Sir Shifty Keir Starmer says? He once backed his old mate Corbyn to be ‘great PM’
“READ my lips,” Labour leader Keir Starmer told The Sun on Sunday as he vowed to slash the tidal wave of mass immigration.
His words might suggest that when a man like Sir Keir makes a promise, it is as good as done.
A knight of the realm’s word is his bond. To suggest otherwise is tantamount to calling him a liar.
But these are the same lips that uttered the immortal words: “I think Jeremy would be a great PM.”
They are the same lips that promised to re-run the Brexit referendum, reform the House of Lords, abolish tuition fees, splurge £28billion a year on green “crap” and countless other vows that turned out to be passing fancies.
Last week he added another. In an interview with LBC radio’s Nick Ferrari, he insisted a probe into Diane Abbott’s 2023 anti-Jewish slur was still “ongoing”, when in fact it had wrapped up by Christmas.
He must surely have known, even if Diane was kept in the dark, that she had been readmitted to the Labour Party but barred from standing again after almost four decades as MP for Hackney, East London.
The furtive fib blew up in his face with spectacular effect.
Britain’s first black female MP, now 70 and eager for retirement, was back in a flash as an evergreen socialist icon.
Far from being a slightly scatterbrained has-been, she has been raised overnight by Starmer to untouchable Queen of left-wing solidarity and patron saint of anti-racism to which her leader can only bend the knee.
The row about her humiliating treatment cast a cloud over Starmer’s dream of an election landslide, with deputy Labour leader Angela Rayner fuelling the flames.
After 24 hours in the wilderness Diane was given the all-clear to stand again.
If she does so, she is likely to be joined in the Commons by ex-lover Jeremy Corbyn, sacked by Starmer but fighting as an independent for his socialist Islington stronghold in North London.
Thanks to this avoidable blunder, the hard left are now back with a bang and ready to make life hell for Labour’s wannbe PM who buckles under the slightest pressure.
How long now will his honourable support for Israel survive a revolt by traditionally Labour-backing Muslim communities inflamed by leftie pro-Hamas firebrand George Galloway?
This is where telling fibs can land an ambitious but unscrupulous politician.
Sir Shifty has ducked and dived, backflipped and somersaulted on every single stance he embraced to win the Labour leadership as Corbyn self-immolated in 2019.
Now the issue is mass immigration, which hit 685,000 last year and is running as the hottest issue for voters of all parties — including Sun readers.
Ducked and dived
And it was to our readers who Starmer made his pitch yesterday.
“Read my lips — if you trust me with the keys to Number 10 I will make you this promise. I will control our borders and make sure British businesses are helped to hire Brits first.”
Nobody was fooled.
“Pie in the sky,” thundered our editorial.
“To be successful in reducing legal immigration a Labour government would have to commit to welfare reform and stopping illegal immigration — neither of which they have a credible plan for.”
To me, this sounded like “liar, liar, pants on fire!”
Starmer is a leftie human rights lawyer and avowed socialist whose only clear promise on immigration is to scrap flights to Rwanda, even if they proved successful.
Declaring amnesty
He would fast-track visas for tens of thousands of illegals already on British soil, effectively declaring an amnesty and a welcome signal to thousands more.
To honour his promise, Starmer would need to take on not just employers who rely on cheap labour, but the left-wing public sector Blob which decides who comes and goes.
It was US President George Bush Snr who first used the words aped by Starmer.
“Read my lips — no new taxes,” he told voters in his 1988 campaign for the White House. He broke his promise two years later, prompting the old wisecrack: “How can you tell when a politician is lying?”
Answer: “When his lips move.”
Two barking geriatrics
THE stage is now set for the first White House battle between a convicted felon and an incumbent President accused of persistent lying.
Donald Trump, 78 later this month, remains favourite to win a rematch against Joe Biden, 81, despite his conviction on 34 counts of covering up hush money to porn star Stormy Daniels.
Whoever wins, this bout between two barking geriatrics will make the so-called “world’s policeman” a laughing stock on the global stage.
And encourage powerful enemies in Russia, China and Iran.