Keir Starmer 'unfit to be PM' until he says supporting Jeremy Corbyn was a mistake, warns Boris | Politics | News

Boris Johnson has warned that Keir Starmer has sowed doubt over Labour's support for Ukraine by endorsing Corbyn as prime minister.

The former prime minister said Jeremy Corbyn would have foiled Western efforts to arm kyiv at the start of the Russian invasion.

And in a bold statement, Mr Johnson said Sir Keir was simply unfit to be Prime Minister until he revoked his support for Corbyn's premiership.

The Labor leader provoked widespread anger and bewilderment when he refused to say whether Mr Corbyn would have been a great prime minister, despite claiming he had changed parties.

Mr Johnson wrote in his column: It shows that we may be just days away from electing a Labor government that simply has no idea how dangerous the world is today and how It is important that Britain is strong against our adversaries.

Keir Starmer sincerely believes that over the past five years Jeremy Corbyn would have made the right decisions as Prime Minister for the security of Britain and the planet.

Really? Does Starmer seriously believe this?

If so, and he hasn't yet distanced himself from his remarks, Starmer has revealed something truly frightening about the putative Labor government he wishes to lead.

Mr Johnson warned that Mr Corbyn's stance on the Ukraine war should be of greater concern to voters when it comes to a Labor government.

He added: Most people think the UK was and is right to support them with weapons. But this is absolutely not, don’t repeat, what Jeremy Corbyn thinks.

I always thought that Corbyn was, consciously or unwittingly, an instrument of Moscow. This was evident to me during the Salisbury poisonings, when he seemed to question the blatant evidence we had and satirically suggest that Russia may not have been responsible for the use of Novichok on the British soil. Despite this, I was surprised by his response to Putin's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Jeremy Corbyn has called for an arms embargo on Ukraine. The arrival of weapons will not bring a solution, he declared on television.

He has said it repeatedly: Britain and other Western powers should not arm Ukraine.

So let's imagine that Starmer succeeded and that Corbyn actually led this country in February 2022.

That would have been Jeremy Corbyn sitting there at those crucial first meetings of the G7, of NATO, of all the key groups of Western powers.

Of course not: the UK, under the leadership of Prime Minister Corbyn, would have tried to veto all of this.

With Corbyn and without the will of the UK, I fear that the Western response would have been very different, and much worse, perhaps even decisively, for the Ukrainian people. And yet this is what Starmer wants.

This is the hideous outcome he endorses, saying he wishes, even now, that Corbyn was the man in charge at the time of the invasion.

We have just 12 days left before what could be a decisive election, in which the British people could decide, out of sheer frustration, to turn sharply to the left, when so many other electorates are turning to the center-right and that Western democracies face such a challenge from autocracies.

Angela Rayner has become the latest Labor MP to struggle to distance herself from the disastrous era of Jeremy Corbyn.

The party's deputy leader could not explain why she was absolutely upset that Mr Corbyn had been suspended.

Ms Rayner admitted she tried to propel Mr Corbyn into Downing Street.

But the former Corbyn supporter claimed she and Sir Keir Starmer fought to make him prime minister because we were fighting for a Labor government.

Asked why Sir Keir had previously supported Mr Corbyn, before distancing himself from his predecessor, Ms Rayner said: Keir is very clear that we were fighting for a Labor government, as was I in 'era.

And I think we all saw what happened after 2019 and what happened when Boris Johnson became Prime Minister of the parties, the illegal behavior, the corruption, the scandal, the chaos as Liz Truss collapses our economy.

We all feel a lot of guilt that we haven't put forward a program that the electorate would vote for and I think that's why Keir feels uneasy.

We have changed the Labor Party since then because we need a Labor Party that serves the British people.

Because we saw what happened during the Tory chaos and we take some responsibility for it because we lost the election.

Asked why she had previously said she was “absolutely gutted” to learn that Mr Corbyn had been suspended from the Labor Party, Ms Rayner added: Since then we have seen that Jeremy Corbyn has not not really acted in a way that would have been consistent with the Labor Party.

He is now opposed to the Labor Party and is therefore no longer a member.

Sir Keir refused on Friday to repeat his claim that Jeremy Corbyn would have been a better prime minister than Boris Johnson.

During a visit to Scotland, the Labor leader said: The choice made in the last election before the voters was not a good choice. There was Boris Johnson, who won and then, three years later, was expelled from Parliament for breaking the rules, there was Jeremy Corbyn who is now expelled from the Labor Party.

Asked again if he thought Mr Corbyn would have been a better Prime Minister, Sir Keir replied: I changed the Labor Party because after that election result we needed to make sure we were a party that proudly said: country first, party second, with a manifesto for change, and that is what we presented to the electorate.

This time there is a real choice between continuing with what we have, the failure of the last 14 years, or starting to rebuild the country with a Labor government.

Sir Keir also said on Friday there would be no negotiations for Scottish independence, even if the SNP won the majority of Scottish seats in the general election.

He accused the SNP of wanting to “send a message” to Westminster while Labor wants to “send a government”.

Starmer was visiting a window factory in Whitburn on Friday.

Asked if there would be independence negotiations if the SNP won a majority of seats in Scotland, he said: “No. What the SNP are saying is that they want to go to Westminster to send a message.

“This is the height of their ambition. To sit on the opposition benches and shout across the aisle.

“I want Scotland to return Labor MPs who will sit at the heart of government if we get a Labor government.

“Bringing the change Scotland desperately needs.

“And I'm very pleased that the heart of our campaign here in Scotland, the heart of our campaign across the country, is wealth creation, growth, employment, security of the jobs of tomorrow.

“Including here in Scotland, where we will install GB Energy, this public company, it will be a game changer for a future generation of jobs.

“This is the choice that presents itself in this election.

“Send a government. Don't send a message.”

On Thursday, Sir Keir insisted he had simply said Jeremy Corbyn would make a great prime minister because he didn't think we would win the election.

However, the public expressed skepticism, repeatedly pressing this issue. The Labor leader was even mocked as he tried to avoid giving a direct answer.

The member of the public who had asked the question about Mr Corbyn said his obfuscation left me with the same question I had about the integrity and trust I had with the clown Boris Johnson.

LBC was asked five times whether he agreed with Sir Keir that Jeremy Corbyn would have made a better Prime Minister than Boris Johnson.

Mr. Kyle refused to answer the question each time.