Ex-Labour minister accuses Starmer of ‘moral cowardice’ over leadership

‘Cynical’ Labour leader tried to ‘appease mob’ by kicking Jeremy Corbyn out the party, says Chris Mullin

Keir Starmer has said only Jeremy Corbyn is to blame for his exclusion from Labour (Getty)

Sir Keir Starmer has been accused of “moral cowardice” over the expulsion of Jeremy Corbyn in a devastating personal attack by another senior Labour figure.

Former Labour minister Chris Mullin claims Sir Keir’s decision to expel Corbyn from the party over an antisemitism row was “cynical” bid to “appease the mob”.

Some of Corbyn’s critics were “not fit to tie his shoelaces,” says Mullin.

EXCLUSIVE: CHRIS MULLIN DIARIES

Chris Mullin, who was a Labour MP for more than 20 years and a minister under Tony Blair, has won plaudits for the first three instalments of his political diaries, described as “wickedly indiscreet” and “a treat to be savoured”. The Independent is exclusively serialising the fourth volume.

In a separate provocative jibe, Mullin describes Starmer’s decision to appear alongside the union flag in Labour videos as “fatherlandism” and “phoney patriotism”.

The term “fatherland” refers to a person’s native country – but is most closely associated with Hitler’s Germany.

The claims are contained in Mullin’s latest memoir, Didn’t You Use To Be Chris Mullin?, which is being serialised exclusively in The Independent.

The diarist, novelist, and former MP, 75, played a key role in freeing the Birmingham Six, Irish men wrongly convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment for the 1974 Birmingham pub bombs.

Mullin, who served in Tony Blair’s government, says he is so disgusted by Starmer’s treatment of Corbyn that he has considered leaving Labour.

He praises Corbyn for showing “dignity” in the face of the “extraordinary quantity of shite” thrown at him while leader.

Chris Mullin was Labour MP for Sunderland South until 2010 (PA)

On Starmer’s decision not to readmit Corbyn to the Labour Party, Mullin says: “It may appease the mob, but it is an act of moral cowardice.”

He says he backs Corbyn’s claim that allegations of antisemitism in the Labour Party are exaggerated.

“It upsets me to see him cynically thrown to the wolves. For the first time in more than 50 years, having stuck with the Labour Party through thick and thin, I begin to wonder if I still belong in it.”

Mullin says Corbyn “and his blinkered supporters” bore much of the blame for Labour’s defeat in the 2019 election. But he goes on: “Jeremy has behaved with dignity throughout, despite the extraordinary quantity of shite that has rained down upon him, much of it from people unworthy to tie his shoelaces.”

Mullin also pours scorn on Starmer’s decision to use a union flag backdrop in an official party video in a bid to appeal to voters in Labour’s working-class heartlands.

“Keir Starmer in front of a union jack (ugh), which I gather is known in PR circles as ‘fatherlandism’. Why can’t we leave phoney patriotism to the Tories?”

The term is thought to have been coined by Corbynite Labour MP Clive Lewis in 2021 after it emerged that Starmer planned to focus on patriotism to win back voters.

Mr Lewis said then: “It’s not patriotic, it’s fatherlandism – there is a better way to build social cohesion than moving down the track of the nativist right.”

Mullin also says MPs are making fools of voters by working a two-day week at the Commons.

He says a modern MP’s typical Westminster working week starts around midday on Monday – and ends the same time on Wednesday.

He writes: “For the rest of the week the chamber is almost dead. If MPs don’t take parliament seriously, why should anyone else?”

Mullin also reveals he was once stalked by a woman activist who wrote obscene messages and stayed in his spare room.

And he controversially criticises Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children for returning £2m to charity sponsors after claims that waitresses were sexually harassed by businessmen who attended an event.

“I know I shall get into trouble for even thinking this aloud,” writes Mullin, “but what sort of world are we living in when the interests of chronically sick and deprived children are swept aside in a tide of feminist outrage?”

It is a reference to the notorious Presidents Club event in Mayfair in 2016 where secret film exposed sexual impropriety at a lavish charity event attended by senior figures from business and politics.

Mullin also takes potshots at a number of fellow Labour politicians.

He calls former Labour prime minister Gordon Brown “weird” and accuses him of “volcanic rages and chronic indecision”.

And he brands former Labour MP Owen Smith, who unsuccessfully tried to depose Mr Corbyn, a “shyster”.