Scottish Labour councillor attacks 'miserable coward' Keir Starmer

This week the Labour chief indicated that while he previously wanted to scrap the limit – brought in by the Conservative government – this is now no longer party policy.

Under the Tory welfare rule, means-tested benefits are restricted only to the first two children in a household – unless a claimant can prove a further child was conceived due to rape.

Some Labour MSPs have spoken out about Starmer’s latest U-turn, with Monica Lennon warning that colleagues are “scared of deselection” if they raise concerns.

The former Scottish Labour leadership candidate slammed the benefit cap and attached rape clause as “abhorrent” and called for her party’s policies to be “progressive and humane”.

Charities, including the Poverty Alliance, urged Starmer to rethink the approach to the “unjust” system.

Now a left-wing Scottish Labour councillor, who previously challenged Jackie Baillie for the party’s deputy leadership role, has issued an extraordinary attack on Starmer.

“Throwing kids into poverty to pander to some mythical focus group isn’t leadership,” the Cardonald councillor wrote. “It’s the act of a miserable coward.”

The councillor has often been vocally critical of Starmer’s leadership approach, and faced disciplinary action in 2020 after refusing to back Labour's budget proposals at Glasgow City Councillor level. 

Kerr and Scottish Labour have been approached for comment.

Speaking to The National, SNP president Michael Russell (above) said the comment was an indication of the broad feeling towards Starmer among many Labour members.

“Keir is a huge disappointment to everyone, including his people,” the former constitution minister said.

“I’m not sure, if he’s a huge disappointment, it’s a good qualification for being a prime minister.”

Russell said the furore around the two-child cap has shown the problems in the set up between Scottish Labour and the UK party.

“[The two-child cap] has been universally condemned but when Starmer says ‘no, we’re not going to get rid it’, Sarwar has to immediately jump to and change his position,” he pointed out. “Monica Lennon put it pretty well this week. Sometimes you have to say something.”

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Russell, who worked alongside Starmer during the Brexit process, claimed his own experiences showed the Labour chief will do whatever it takes to win power.

“I know he does not believe in Brexit,” he said. “No ifs, or buts about it. But if he’s prepared to walk away from that because he thinks it’ll get him the big job … what else won’t he do?”

He added: “What will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his own soul? And that’s exactly what we are seeing with Keir Starmer. He will give up anything to be prime minister and what he will discover is if he becomes prime minister, it hasn’t been worth it. He won’t be able to do anything.

“You can’t win as a Tory and govern as Labour. It’s impossible. And that’s what he’s trying to do.”

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Elsewhere on Friday, Sarwar (above, with Rachel Reeves) denied that Labour MSPs are afraid to speak out against Starmer’s policies.

Sarwar said there were no examples of candidates being deselected for their opposition to policy.

He told journalists: “Point me to one deselection, point me to one risk of deselection or one incident in Scotland, that would suggest what has been suggested in that tweet is true.

“It’s simply not true. The only difference that I think there is, is before we didn’t have a Labour party that wanted to win. You’ve now got a Labour party that’s serious about winning and I’m never going to apologise for that.”

During the same appearance, Labour shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves said the decision not to immediately propose scrapping the two-child benefit cap as a policy is because the party do not want to “make any promises that we can’t keep”.