It’s sparked anger amongst many supporters and party MPs.
Keir Starmer has written an article in The Sun, despite having promised not to speak to the paper during his 2020 Labour leadership campaign.
In the op-ed, the Labour leader called the current situation in the UK a “worrying time for working people,” blaming the current fuel crisis on Downing Street and the “Prime Minister’s incompetence.”
But he has sparked anger amongst some members of his party, MPs and supporters, after appearing to change his stance on the right-wing tabloid.
Speaking at a hustings in Liverpool last year, Starmer criticised parts of the media for their vilification of Labour leaders, singling out The Sun in particular for it’s treatment of Jeremy Corbyn.
He said at the time: “I certainly won’t be giving any interviews to The Sun during the course of this campaign.”
For some, his piece in Sunday’s edition of the paper is another example of his “dishonesty.”
Here’s Keir Starmer saying he wouldn’t speak to the Sun while seeking the Labour leadership. Now he is writing Op-eds for them.
Where a politician writes for is ultimately their call, but this illustrates a major point: Starmer is as dishonest as Johnson pic.twitter.com/cDVP56BPof
— Aaron Bastani (@AaronBastani) October 2, 2021
It comes after Sir Keir said last week that he was willing to break some of the pledges he made to the party during his leadership campaign.
He told the BBC: “I stand by the principles and the values behind the pledges I made to our members, but the most important pledge I made was that I would turn it into a party that would be fit for government, capable of winning a General Election, I’m not going to be deflected from that.”
Following the publication of the op-ed in The Sun, Labour MP Zarah Sultana tweeted that writing for the publication was “deeply insulting to the people of Liverpool” and was a “recipe for disaster.”
Writing for The S*n is deeply insulting to the people of Liverpool — one of Labour’s strongest bases of support — & the football community as a whole.
Trying to win back voters lost to the Tories by alienating a group of core working-class supporters is a recipe for disaster.
— Zarah Sultana MP (@zarahsultana) October 2, 2021
It rounds off a tricky week for Keir Starmer and Labour, after an eventful party conference which saw a number of controversies and Starmer heckled during his speech.
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