Sir Keir Starmer gives talk in Wimbledon

Sir Keir Starmer has been the MP for Holborn and St Pancras since 2015, and Shadow Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union since the 6th October 2016. Before he became an MP, he was Director of Public Prosecutions.

On Wednesday 13th November 2019, Sir Keir visited Wimbledon’s Communication Workers Union building.

Sir Keir started by endorsing Jackie Schneider, the local Labour Parliamentary Candidate for the Wimbledon constituency. He wants “the local teacher as the MP”. Sir Keir decided not to “have a great long speech” and instead decided to try and answer any question the public “bowled at [him]”. He believes that politicians should have conversations, where the public feels “at least they answered my question and gave me a decent reply to the point I made”.

He believes that this general election “is a massive moment for the country”. He thinks that the Labour Party’s campaign “has got off to a good start”. He has been campaigning “right across the country with different campaign teams” which “go out two or three times a day” and “are big and enthusiastic”. He believes that the idea of “going to someone’s door, and actually having a conversation with them and listening to what they have to say is really important”. He likes traveling on public transport “partly so people can come up to me and give me their ideas but also, traveling to work has become a mobile advice surgery. Its brilliant!’ He thinks that “the Conservatives have got off to a bad start.” He joked that most people thought “He would say that, wouldn’t he?” He stated two examples; a “funny example” and a “serious example”. The “funny example” was the doctored video of Sir Keir published by the Conservative party, based on his interview on Good Morning Britain. He joked “If someone doctoring a video about me is the worst thing that happens to me while I’m in politics, then I am a very, very lucky person!” The serious example was Jacob Rees-Mogg’s infamous comments on the Grenfell Tower Fire. Jacob Rees-Mogg has been criticised for saying it would have been "common sense" to flee the Grenfell Tower fire, ignoring fire brigade advice. He subsequently apologised. Sir Keir commented “you can apologise for a comment, but you cannot apologise for an attitude.” He believes that these actions “capture the differences between the politics of the Labour Party” and the Conservative Party.

Sir Keir believes that “the only reason we are having an election is because of Brexit.” Sir Keir is Shadow Brexit secretary, shadowing Stephen Barclay. He believes that both sides want Brexit resolved, and this election has to “get Brexit sorted”. He described the Labour Party position on Brexit as “very straightforward”. He challenged himself to describe their policy in ten seconds and three sentences;” We will get a negotiate a better deal and put it against remain in a referendum and that will happen within six months. That’s it.” He wants to put “Brexit back to the public” to get it resolved. Sir Keir believes that he is honest. He stated that “a year or two ago, I wasn’t sure whether that was the way out of it”. He thought that Parliament would be able to resolve Brexit without the need of the second referendum. He admitted he didn’t want a second referendum “from the start” but he now thinks that “there is no other way to resolve Brexit”.

Sir Keir believes that his model deal will be very simple; “It’s a deal that will keep us economically close with the EU and maintains our protection for working people, for the environment and consumer safety standards.” He says he “hasn’t plucked this out of thin air”. He has spoken to businesses and trade unions. The deal will include staying in the single market and customs union. He wants to make it easier for businesses to trade in the future. He stated, “we used to be a very heavy manufacturing country, manufacturing a lot of goods, and Margaret thatcher ‘massively took the axe to that’. And I know that personally because my dad was a toolmaker who worked on the factory floor, and we lived through what the manufacturing sector under Thatcher looked like.” He stated that manufacturing has revived since then. He used Airbus, Toyota, Nissan and Honda as examples of “real success, but they have only been a success because of the way they work.” He used Toyota as an example. “It takes them 19 hours to make a car. It’s a bit of metal to start with, gets put into the shape of a car, gets painted, gets made into a model, goes down onto the production line, and takes 19 hours to go around. At the end of it, the car comes off the production line. Its brilliant to watch! The way they do it now is all the parts arrive while the car is on the production line. The seat for the car, as it comes down the production line, isn’t even in the premises. And when we get 10 hours round, its arrived. Seat goes on, car comes of 9 hours later and the car is ready to export 20 hours later. Its brilliant!” The reason he supports a customs union is because he worries “if we get rid of the customs union, [this method of just in time production] is finished”.

He honestly thinks that Boris Johnson’s deal is a “very, very bad deal”. He thinks that it is very bad because “It takes us away from common standards of living”. He believes that “Once you say companies in Britain can undercut companies elsewhere, the areas where things are cut are things such as maternity leave and holiday pay.” He believes that companies will take more benefits away to cut costs to remain competitive. He also believes that the deal is bad because “It puts a border in the Irish Sea”. “The United Kingdom has never had an internal border before. Once you’ve [created a border in the Irish Sea], you’ve not only reopened the united Ireland argument, you’re also going to have Scotland ‘knocking on the door’. If you can put an internal border in the Irish Sea, you can also put a border between England and Scotland. Then your down to England and Wales being the only unit left. So, this dream of the UK being a global power, when your shrinking the country, is just completely incompatible.” He wants to get rid of Boris Johnson’s deal.

Sir Keir also believes that the country is facing other problems than Brexit. He thinks that “we have a housing crisis, we’ve got an NHS crisis, we also have an education crisis” and because of Brexit, “none of that is getting any airspace”. He used his constituency as an example. “In Camden in my constituency, we’ve got a terrible problem at the moment with knife crime, and we’re working really, really hard on it; we have actually got a lot of people working on it and we still have got a problem. It really worries me that we’re not focusing on [knife crime] in Parliament because we’re stuck on Brexit.” He believes that “we need to find a way through” Brexit so we can focus on other important issues instead. He is upset with “10 years of austerity, with cuts to public services”. He ran the Crown Prosecution Service between 2008 and 2013 and felt “what it was like to have thirty percent of your budget taken away”. He believes that you cannot run a public council service with such a large amount of the budget taken away. “You can’t empty the bins as often as you like, you can’t clean the roads as often as you like, you can’t deal with homelessness because you haven’t got the provisions to do so, you can’t put the mental health and social care in place and you end up with primary schools asking parents to donate money to run the school.”

He questioned the achievements of the Conservative governments of the last nine years, asking the audience, “What one good thing has the Conservative government done in the last ten years”. The one response was gay marriage, to which Sir Keir replied, “I agree with that, but that was with cross party support”. Tony Blair’s Labour government paved the way for gay marriage with the Civil Partnership Act 2004.

Sir Keir wants to improve the country, starting with NHS. He wants prescriptions to be free. He also wants to reduce operation waiting times. He also wants affordable housing. He remarked that in his weekly advice surgery’s, “half the cases are always about housing”. Most often, these people “can’t afford to live in the accommodation they’re living in, have a lousy landlord or most often, are in council or social housing, and they’re massively overcrowded.” Sir Keir believes that this has to stop. He believes that the lack of suitable housing is causing some children to fall behind in school. “In Camden, mum and dad usually come to see me, often with two or three kids, sometimes even four, living in a one or two bedroom flat, and I kid you not. And they come once, they come twice, and by the third time they come, there’s a letter from the school saying the kids are failing in school, because they have nowhere to do their homework. They’re in a room with two or three other siblings, and therefore their schoolwork is falling behind.” He remarked “This isn’t just bad housing that you endure for a year or two before you move to another house. You’re setting up the next generation to fail because of the housing policy. Hr wants adequate housing that people can afford.

Sir Keir believes that “we have a real problem” with climate change. “It’s going to do huge damage to our planet, and that’s not so much for us to worry about, but it’s for the next generation and the generation after them [to worry about]. We have got to do something about it. We have got to get rid of petrol and diesel cars. We have to make sure that all new houses are properly insulated and energy efficient, and even more difficulty, we have to find a way to ensure that all existing housing is made energy efficient. It’s a massive thing to have to do – quite exciting!” Labour plans to achieve net zero carbon emissions well before 2050. Sir Keir claims that making homes more energy efficient will also reduce fuel bills.

Sir Keir also answered some questions from members of the general public. I will shortly follow up this article.

The general election is on Thursday the 12th December 2019.

This article was originally published on the 30th of November 2019 at https://www.thisislocallondon.co.uk/youngreporter/18071827.sir-keir-starmer-shadow-brexit-secretary-gives-talk-wimbledon-hussain-zaidi/