Starmer should heed Gordon Brown's warning and stop appeasing the extreme-right

The timing of Gordon Brown's editorial about countering rather than appeasing the extreme-right is extraordinary given Keir Starmer's weekend trip to Italy to suck up to the neo-fascist Georgia Meloni

The timing of Gordon Brown’s Guardian article warning of the dangers of the extreme-right is extraordinary given Keir Starmer’s weekend trip to Italy to suck up to their neo-fascist Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, in which he praised and legitimised her; promised her British cash for her anti-immigration agenda; and pledged to "learn" from her anti-immigrant policies.

Here are a few quotes fro Gordon Brown’s editorial:

"The spectre haunting Europe is not communism … but far-right extremism. And not much is left of the cordon sanitaire to keep out the far right. Europe now has seven governments with hard-right parties in control or in coalition."

"[In] Italy … step by step, the far-right prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, is accused of taking control of the press and the judiciary."

"Nationalist demagogues are good at exploiting grievances, but bad at eradicating them."

"Sooner rather than later, the far-right poison will have to be countered with a progressive agenda focused on what matters to people most: jobs, standards of living, fairness and bridging the morally indefensible gap between rich and poor."

"As long as the so-called moderates continue to play with fire – believing that by keeping their opponent close, they can eventually tame the beast – they will continue to lose."

Gordon Brown made many mistakes during his time in government (from lumbering the country with rip off PFI economic alchemy schemes to his support for Blair’s illegal and indefensible invasion and occupation of Iraq) but in this instance he’s absolutely right about the dangerous resurgence of the extreme-right in European politics.

The problem of course is that Keir Starmer has been busy doing the exact polar opposite of what Brown is advising.

He’s not just been sucking up to Giorgia Meloni, he’s promised her British public cash for her anti-immigrant agenda, and he’s stated that he’s intent on "learning" from her anti-immigration tactics.

Gordon Brown is clear in his conviction that progressives need to present a viable alternative to the extreme-right by creating real solutions to the issues like poverty, failing public services, wage stagnation, injustice, and inequality, while Keir Starmer clearly believes in legitimising the extreme-right and imitating their divisive rhetoric and extremist policies.

The contrast between Brown’s heartfelt warning and Starmer’s actions couldn’t be clearer, and it’s illustrative of Labour’s wild lurch to the right under Starmer’s leadership.

Starmer has surrounded himself with the most radical right-wing faction of the Labour Party; a bunch of pro-privatisation, austerity-obsessed, economic illiteracy peddling Thatcherites who are intent on utilising the divisive rhetoric of the extreme-right, rather than providing a progressive alternative to it.

Starmer has spent the last four years using the Labour left as his personal punching bag, so most genuine socialists are already well aware of what kind of man he is, but this glaring ideological rift with a "progressive centrist" figure like Brown should be a massive wake up call to the so-called "centre-left".

Starmer has moved Labour so far to the radical hard-right that senior figures from the Blair government now seem to be radical leftists in comparison.

And if Starmer doesn’t heed Brown’s warnings soon; stop colluding with the extreme-right; and begin offering real solutions to improve the material conditions of ordinary British people’s lives, he’s in danger of being the man who goes down in history for having handed power to an extreme-right coalition of the Tories and Faragists at the next general election.

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