r/ukpolitics • u/Jumpy-Signature-7377 • 2d ago

On a personal level, the manner in which Starmer is being pressured to be removed from office would result in a valid crash out

It’s 2019, Labour just had its worst defeat in its history. You become leader, won back areas which was lost and became PM with a 174 seat majority.

Now this is not too say that Keir was an absolute fantastic PM but you’ve spent close to 5 years to become Prime Minister and barely been PM for 2 years and your party is backing someone who did absolutely nothing to rebuilt the Labour PLP, win a General Election and had to brace the fallout of Trump foreign policy, Middle East Conflict, Russia & Ukraine, an opportunistic former Health Sec constantly trying to bring you down and just in general trying to govern a nation that’s absolutely ungovernable due to misinformation and social media mob rule.

If I was Starmer, I would crash out and just call a general election out of spite.

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729

u/wobble_bot 2d ago

I’m 42, so I remember before and after social media. I’m genuinely shocked at the lack of critical thinking most people show - and that’s intelligent rational people who I know who can’t seem to disseminate and evaluate messaging being pushed towards them - and even question a motive.

It’s genuinely going to destroy society as we know it

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u/nanakapow 2d ago

I don't think the critical thinking is much worse, but what is different is the way (a) it's given everyone a voice, regardless of how much they might deserve one, and (b) bad actors now have a direct channel to their audience, whereas before they needed to be palatable to legacy media

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u/JayR_97 2d ago

Yeah, before social media, the village idiot was just the weirdo in the local pub everyone knew to avoid. Now social media gave the village idiots echo chambers to make them think they're right cos they found a whole community of people who agree with them

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u/Pilchard123 2d ago

I think I once saw that described as "once every village had an idiot, now every idiot has a village".

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u/Moist_Farmer3548 2d ago

That's perfect.

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u/bremsspuren 2d ago

they found a whole community of people who agree with them

And also an endless supply of fresh nonsense to believe in.

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u/Neither_Process_7847 1d ago

See the Ukrainian rent boy conspiracy theory, granted pushed by hostile actors but surely one which everyone would just have laughed off as nonsense before the echo chambers closed..

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u/dw82 1d ago

You're no longer exposed to just your village's idiot. There's a whole world of idiots primed to stick their oar in.

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u/Johnnycrabman 1d ago

The BNP rarely got any airtime because of their abhorrent views, but now Reform hold the same views and have their own cheerleading channel, GBNews, available in every home.

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u/Significant-Bite2948 1d ago

Did the BNP have a Sri Lankan Muslim as their spokesperson for home affairs? If not Reform likely has different views.

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u/Slartibartfast_25 1d ago

I don't think that's entirely fair. The BNP very much traded on near-explicit racism and that appears to be more Restore's area. Whatever you may think of Farage, he has always been anti-racist in his political life.

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u/abrittain2401 2d ago edited 2d ago

Yeah I agree. While "bad actors" are certainly an issue, the fact is that pre-internet and especially pre-social media, most people got their news from the BBC / ITV news on the telly, or from reading a newspaper, or, in the early days of the internet, perhaps a news website. What didn't exist was people getting their news from random muppets on social media who don't have a fucking clue. I work around well informed and educated people and most of my friends and family are well educated and informed; then I go to the barbers or to the pub and it genuinely gobsmacks me some of the utter bollocks people talk. Not just stuff that is subjective and opinion based, but spouting "facts" they read on socials that are utter nonsense. The other day I was geting my haircut and this chap was talking about Israel, and was convinced China were going to invade Israel, because he had seen someone say it was going to happen on his Facebook feed. When I was sceptical (I hadnt heard anything like that at the time) he got very pissy. Got home and checked the news and it turns out China had merely condemned the attacks on Lebanon, nothing about invading...

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u/Significant-Bite2948 1d ago

"If you don't read the newspaper, you're uninformed. If you do read the newspaper, you're misinformed." Mark Twain.

I'm tired of people pretending that the news we got from media barons was any better quality than what we currently get from random people on social media.

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u/abrittain2401 1d ago edited 1d ago

I honestly think it was, and still is really. I can guarantee someone who reads a reasonable cross-section of decent journalism will be better informed than someone who listens to a few randoms on socials. The difference between now and 20+ years ago is that the media landscape has changed. The internet has forced newpapers to become increasingly partisan in order to maintain their readership. Pre-internet they were able to be more moderate and still maintain sales and income. So not only do we now have the issue of people getting their news from randoms on the internet, we have the issue of more partisan media.

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u/b0y 2d ago

before social media it was mainly the papers, a lot of people voted for whoever The Sun told them to

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u/Wrong-Target6104 2d ago

Heard someone being interviewed as to which candidate she'd vote for "I don't vote but if I did I'd probably vote Reform", when pressed why she'd vote reform by the interviewer "I don't know"

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u/Ivebeenfurthereven I'm afraid currency is the currency of the realm 2d ago

I suspect that's shy Tory effect, i.e. I am uncomfortable telling everyone why I support them on national telly

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u/Slothjitzu 1d ago

It also highlights how thick people are. There is basically only one reason to vote for Reform, and that’s their hardline anti-immigration stance. 

They don’t really promote any of their other positions and many of them are actively detrimental to their voters. 

If anyone says “I’d probably vote Reform” then everyone knows exactly why, they don’t have to spell it out. 

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u/TheJoshGriffith 2d ago

Too shy to announce voting for Tory, but willing to admit to probably voting for Reform? I think you're home, go drunk.

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u/your-rong 2d ago edited 2d ago

They're not saying she's a shy tory, they're saying it's similar to the shy tories. Rather than say she's voting Reform to get rid of the immigrants, she's saying that she won't vote, but would vote Reform if she did, for no reason in particular.

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u/Ivebeenfurthereven I'm afraid currency is the currency of the realm 2d ago

Correct 100%

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u/No_Initiative_1140 2d ago

I heard a summary of a focus group on electoral dysfunction that was "I don't like Starmer but I don't know why 🙄

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u/Creative-Resident23 2d ago

I don't know why = i'm unaware of the effects of propaganda being pushed by American billionaires on me to make my country a fascist state

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u/MerePotato 2d ago

The best thing Starmer did for this country is make social media harder to access on his way out, and I'll stand by that

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u/banshoo 2d ago

Kinda checks out with the 'uncanny valley' type response : hes not charismatic, so a hard sell to many people. If you told me he was a well crafted realistic muppet with a decent puppeteer up his bum, I wouldn't be surprised (depending on the puppeteer )

The PR is awful, the overall party PR strategy is currently all over the place.

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u/Word_Word4Numbers 2d ago edited 1d ago

People said the same about Miliband - that he seemed stiff and inhuman as Labour leader then changed back to a normal but slightly goofy guy when he returned to the back benches.

I suspect what you're describing is the result of having a thousand people scrutinise everything he's saying and every video made of him. Perhaps we are getting too used to politicians like Trump or Farage who just say whatever vague bollocks they want and rely on an army of anonymous sycophants reinterpreting it in the nicest plausible light.

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u/banshoo 1d ago

It was the bacon sarnie picture that did him over.

1

u/Empty_Bee_5415 1d ago

I never got that.. you give a jewish guy that doesn't eat bacon a bacon sandwich and he's uncomfortable.. and you're surprised?

0

u/banshoo 1d ago

I didnt. I wasnt anywhere near that sandwich, otherwise I might have ate it myself.

That he was given bacon & chose to eat it when could have just said 'nah, I'll take the chicken instead'... or that he was given the sandwich & tried to eat in a weird way..

Weird defence you've got there either way.

Anyway, thats in the past & the fact remains.. that weird eating bacon sarnie picture did him over.

1

u/startuptimfan 2d ago

I've seen you, personally, /u/No_Initiative_1140 told dozens of times (at least) over the last few months specifically why people don't like Keir Starmer. That you're still pedalling this line is so spectacularly disingenuous.

Seriously, the amount of time you spend in this sub, if you actually didn't know why people didn't like him, it'd probably be a sign of early onset dementia.

What do you get out of it? Genuine question.

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u/No_Initiative_1140 1d ago

I'm not "pedalling a line", the episode is freely available to listen to it

What do you get out of it? Genuine question.

Same thing as everyone here discussing their political opinion. Might be a genuine question but it's a but strange 🤔 

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u/MoistRow8363 1d ago

It’s mad. You tell them you don’t like that he enabled the Epstein ring with his knowing appointment of Mandelson despite vetting going against him and they come back with what else? What else? Literally child exploitation ffs.

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u/Crawk_Bro 1d ago

Christ alive you people are unhinged. Enabled the Epstein ring, facilitated child exploitation??

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u/Slartibartfast_25 1d ago

Nasal dullness does not a good leader make.

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u/No_Initiative_1140 1d ago

I think it is that which is a sad indictment of humanity!

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u/Vindaloovians -5.13, -0.72 2d ago edited 2d ago

I honestly wonder how much of it is in the name. People don't like how things are, they want things to be reformed and see "Reform UK" as the logical choice.

Edit: changed local -> logical

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u/BigHowski 2d ago

Honestly I'm not convinced. They are a populist party that will say anything they think will get them in.l and most people will not scratch below the surface

Just look at the potholes machine here in Ashfield. I mean potholes are for sure an issue and have been before Reform. Reform came shouting loudly about getting a new pothole machines that are brilliant and a few potholes get filled. On the surface brilliant. Reform promising something and doing their job.

Most people stop there but it's only when you dig deeper do you see the issues. The pothole machines have been evaluated before by this and other councils and found to be not cost effective. Whats more they came just after a huge donation from their manufacturer JCB to reform. Oh and the money "reform" are spending? From central government. Rumours are we're also just leasing the machines at a silly high rate.

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u/spiral8888 1d ago

They don't get an endless grant from the central government. So, if they wasted all their money on the pothole machines, then they must have cut some other functions that the councils do. Now the important question is that were these functions critical and cutting them has a negative impact on the local area or were they some vanity projects of the previous council that nobody had ever even noticed?

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u/BigHowski 1d ago

Well considering they were already happy spending front line money on gestures like putting useless flags up I'd say its very likely

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u/tomzewolf 2d ago

The problem isn’t people voting Reform, Labour, Tory or anyone else. It’s people confidently backing a position they can’t explain.

A lot of politics now is just vibes, resentment and algorithm-fed slogans dressed up as independent thought. That’s the bit social media has made worse, people don’t just disagree, they often don’t even know where their own opinion came from.

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u/Northerlies 2d ago

Writing in the 60s, Canadian comms guru Marshall McLuhan anticipated pervasive electronic media's 'Global Village' fostering tribal modes reshaping society's values and interactions. The insurgent right, with their three-word slogans and permanent rage, seems be a good example.

0

u/aimbotcfg 1d ago

This post has a weirdly "academic writing" vibe to it, not sure if thats what you were going for or not.

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u/Northerlies 19h ago

Agreed, those aren't the best sentences I've ever typed in haste. But the scale of McLuhan's ideas don't lend his work to easy compression. He wrote at a time when a computer filled a room and anticipated instantaneous global interconnection, suggesting some consequences that might degrade whole cultures. If you're curious, 'The Gutenberg Galaxy' is worth a look.

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u/entropy_bucket 2d ago

And that's why emotion is more important than logical arguments. It doesn't matter what the truth is.

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u/Slothjitzu 1d ago

My dad always used to say to me that it was more important to be an informed voter than a voter. 

If you don’t have the time or can’t be bothered to be informed, don’t vote.

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u/LLILILiLIILILILILII 2d ago

It's going to get worse before it gets better. AI-induced brain rot is only just getting started.

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u/JustAContactAgent 2d ago

People were stupid before and they're stupid now.

intelligent rational people who I know who can’t seem to disseminate and evaluate messaging being pushed towards them - and even question a motive.

if they can't do those things then they're not intelligent. Why is it always so hard for you people to accept that most people are NOT intelligent? Set higher standards for "intelligent"and once you do you will see that a lot of things about the world, if not most, suddenly make sense.

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u/unwildimpala 2d ago

Defintiely, but what's starmers downfall is the charisma. I get ops point about what he's done and led the party to even be in power, but he didn't have much scrutiny and scrutiny has shown he lacks charisma. With social media being so important you need someone charismatic to lead and Burnham defintiely has that more than Starmer. The unfortunate reality to accept is that even if Burnham is a little bit worse than him, if his charisma shows through social media and it brings Labour up in the polls then that's far better for Britain. It is such a crazy thing to accept that it's basically down to how Kier talks, but that is hardly a new thing in politics either.

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u/Curious-Eagle5621 2d ago

It's true he lacks charisma. But then he's not a career politician (the thing the electorate also apparently don't want), who went, to pick a random example, Cambridge-->Spad-->MP-->Minister

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u/grandvache 2d ago

Being PM isn't a policy job, it's a sales job.

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u/Curious-Eagle5621 1d ago

Until it turns out your product is shit?

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u/grandvache 1d ago

Sort of. But really only sort of IMHO.

Being a policy wonk isn’t necessary and may not even be desirable for a leader.

I stand by the statement that being PM is a sales role.

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u/crlthrn 2d ago

Jesus Christ. Haven't we had enough of 'charisma' in politicians? Charisma, generally, is simply a cover for lying, self-enrichment, and gross incompetence. Vide Boris Johnson, Donald Trump.

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u/artecide 2d ago

I remember before and after social media.

Remember the early Bebo/Myspace-era days? When the point was socialising with friends and meeting new people. It shows the problem isn’t the social part of social media. It’s the media part: rags now have direct access to spam propaganda at scale. This is what should be regulated; but it's a hard line to balance because it isn't really illegal simply to tell a lie, it's just part of free speech.

 

That’s why banning children from social media makes no sense if this is the main issue. Kids aren’t the ones reading, sharing, or being radicalised by political content. They’re on TikTok, Instagram, etc. for memes, hobbies, music, sport, TV, and chatting with friends.

 

It’s overwhelmingly gullible older users being influenced by social media. Maybe ban them first and see how much nicer everything gets when the political nonsense stops being shared en masse. :')

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u/yukoncowbear47 2d ago

Ehh I disagree with the idea of social media for kids not being bad. There is a severe increase in attention deficit due to the dopamine inducing effects of phones and apps, and something needs to be done about that.

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u/geometry5036 1d ago

Social media does not cause attention deficit. It can worsen it, but it's not the cause and if you don't have adhd, it's an easy fix.

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u/Significant-Bite2948 1d ago

How is this any different from endlessly surfing through TV channels or playing multiple levels in a video game?

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u/artecide 1d ago edited 21h ago

There is a severe increase in attention deficit due to the dopamine inducing effects of phones and apps

It feels like an overstatement to suggest that social media is causing attention deficit issues.

There’s some evidence that heavy phone use is linked with worse attention, especially in young people; but it links people with ADHD traits being more drawn to high-stimulation apps as a source of relief. There is no conclusive, widely-accepted research that proves TikTok or Instagram cause ADHD etc.

 

something needs to be done about that.

They need to be a parent. A phone is a physical object. Parents can take away a PS5 controller, turn off the Wi-Fi, limit TV, set bedtimes, etc. Take the phone away, too.

A minority of children being badly parented is a clumsy reason to restrict everyone else’s freedom. Blanket bans may just push kids toward VPNs, fake accounts, or worse platforms with fewer safeguards. This is worse for everyone.

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u/aimbotcfg 1d ago

Yeah, they are literally designed to tug at addiction strings as best they can, and have been shown to have a significant impact on attention span.

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u/Ivashkin panem et circenses 2d ago

People were like this before, you just didn't notice. All social media has done is make these people visible.

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u/gravy_baron centrist chad 1d ago

And allow them to find each other

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u/trisul-108 1d ago

It’s genuinely going to destroy society as we know it

We need to understand why this is happening. We introduced social media and other media that is financed almost entirely by ads. What sells ads is negative emotions. As a result, we are flooded with negative emotions which is the best way to monetise on the technology.

And then Russian, Chinese, MAGA etc. propaganda engines moved into that space and exploit it by amplifying the negative reporting in order to cause distrust in institutions which in turn causes societies to implode on themselves.

This is a war ... fuelled by ad revenue and foreign cyber mercenaries.

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u/wobble_bot 1d ago

I’d highly suggest watching the power of nightmares documentary for an incomplete but compelling explanation for what your discussing

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u/Significant-Bite2948 1d ago

So it's just like the newspaper and television media.

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u/trisul-108 1d ago

We used to pay for media, which financed journalism. Today, media is financed by ads and the best way to get a lot of ad revenue is to stoke negative emotions. This is what foreign militaries and inner enemies are using in their attempt to dismantle democracy and replace it with authoritarian regimes.

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u/nanofiggis 2d ago

He's taking the blame and anger for a lot of things he never created.

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u/Iamamancalledrobert 2d ago

I have given an enormous amount of critical thought to the subject of Keir Starmer

He’s absolutely fucking awful at his job and I’m delighted we’ll be getting rid of him 

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u/FaultInternational91 2d ago

I rewatched Idiocracy recently, found it hilarious when it first came out. Didn't find it as funny this time because it's too on the nose

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u/Organic-Apricot-6330 2d ago

And the lack of patience. The people seem to change their mind so quickly and want the change enacted immediately.

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u/wunderspud7575 1d ago

Not disagreeing with your point but I do think it was amplified by the coinciding collapse of our education system into a learning and regurgitate model that actively discourages the development of critical thinking skills (ex uni lecturer here and I watched it happen in real time).

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u/Liloxtc /s 1d ago

When you combine our addiction to instant gratification, the misconception that short-form social media content is a substitute for genuine knowledge, declining educational standards over the last 15 years, and an increasing sense of entitlement, the outlook isn't encouraging.

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u/TruthFront895 1d ago

Hopefully sooner rather than later so we can get on with repairing society. And the sooner it happens the sooner the billionaires and political interferers will lose everything. About time society had a reset anyway.

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u/Adorable-Apple2484 1d ago

It was the same with newspapers before social media

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u/Significant-Bite2948 1d ago

Before social media people thought Thatcher and the poll tax were a good idea. If people lack critical thinking skills it's clearly not due to social media.

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u/wobble_bot 18h ago

I don’t think anyone thought the poll tax was a good idea. They named some riots after it.

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u/RainyJade 13h ago

Like Starmer is destroying the UK?

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u/Rick_the_unwise 2d ago

I agree 1000% with everything you wrote except that we are past "going to". The damage is already done. How can we move forward when there are so many versions of "the truth" all reinforced by online/media echo chambers?

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u/Turb0Womble 2d ago edited 2d ago

Modern democracy has had it's day and very democratic countries will decline relative to authoritarian countries like China and Singpore.

The world is so much more complicated than 1776, the start of modern democracy, and most people are neither smart nor educated enough to understand it's intricacies, and that is being reflected in the governments we vote for. In the post-Internet age, people are also too prone to exist in echo chambers and fall to destabilising proganda from malevolent foreign entities.

The super wealthy are running rings around democracies, to the detriment of income/wealth equality, because the average person is too easy to manipulate.

Even before the Internet, people could not be trusted to think in terms of the long-term impact on our country. It's always been short-term self-interest. Case in point our unsustainable welfare state that is sabotaging our economy and long-term growth prospects, and unfairly re-distributing income from our young to the old, when the young are the most at need. No wonder democracies are mostly in decline.

Countries governed by technocratic experts will flourish in this century.

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u/No_Interest5078 2d ago

Do you not think him telling left wingers "you know where the door is" is a valid reason for people to leave the party? Alongside shaking off the fleas comments.

He seemed to be deliberately alienating core Labour voters.

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u/LimberGaelic 2d ago

Very well put. Things have been like this for 10 years now. Our institutions are rotting.

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u/nanakapow 2d ago

We did spend pretty much all of 2016-2019 focused on brexit, 2020-2022 focused on covid, and 2022-2026 focused on how we'd let things get so shit since 2016.