Jonathan Cook: Starmer’s in the Loop, not Duped

From Jimmy Savile to Peter Mandelson, Keir Starmer has followed a trajectory of career-enhancing ignorance. He knows far more than he lets on. It’s the reason, after all, why he was knighted.

By Jonathan Cook
Jonathan-Cook.net

Sir Keir Starmer must be the most ignorant man ever to have entered high office.

Here are a few highlights:

* As Director of Public Prosecutions, Starmer was apparently never consulted on his office’s decision, in late 2009, not to prosecute prolific, and highly connected, paedophile Jimmy Savile, despite Savile being one of the most famous figures in Britain.

Starmer claims he didn’t even know that his own Crown Prosecution Service had opened a file on Savile, a friend to the then Prince, now King, Charles. It will never be possible to confirm or dispute Starmer’s account because all the CPS files related to the case were destroyed — under Starmer’s watch.

* Again as DPP, Starmer was supposedly not informed that the CPS was insisting through 2010 and 2011 that Sweden press on with sexual assault allegations against Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, despite a lack of evidence.

Assange had deeply embarrassed the U.K. and U.S. by exposing their war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan. Starmer’s officials again secretly destroyed the email trail between the CPS and Sweden that would likely have illuminated his role in the affair.

* As Labour leader, Starmer apparently had no knowledge of the fraudulent activities being carried out by Labour Together, the shadowy think tank that brought him to power, including its covert campaign to smear journalists who tried to expose its criminal acts.

* As prime minister, Starmer claims to have had no idea of the depth of the ties between Peter Mandelson and serial paedophile Jeffrey Epstein, even though Mandelson was the most influential figure in the Labour party backing his bid to become leader. In return, Starmer would promote Mandelson in late 2025 as ambassador to the U.S.

* Starmer said this week that he was kept in the dark that Mandelson had, in fact, failed vetting by the British security services for the post of ambassador. That requires that we believe his own Foreign Office, which overruled the security services’ decision, did so without consulting with him.

This is one long trajectory of career-enhancing ignorance and incompetence. Does any of it sound even vaguely plausible?

There are lots of clues as to what might really be going on.

Such as a spate of secret flights to Washington by Starmer in 2011, when he was DPP, to meet top U.S. law officials that, against protocol, went unrecorded. 

What was discussed will never be known because all CPS files related to the flights were, once again, destroyed. However, the meetings are likely to have included discussions, later acted on, to seek Assange’s extradition to the U.S. for political crimes so he could be disappeared into one of its super-max jails.

Or Starmer’s decision in 2017, as a shadow cabinet minister, to secretly join the shadowy, C.I.A.-linked Trilateral Commission without telling the Labour party’s then leader, Jeremy Corbyn.

Notably, Lord Mandelson has also enjoyed the rare “privilege” of being invited to join the Commission.

The Trilateral Commission was set up in the 1970s to deal with the supposed problem of ‘an excess of democracy’: voters were becoming less passive (over Vietnam then, the Gaza genocide now) and had to be returned to passivity.

Starmer is a member of the Trilateral Commission. pic.twitter.com/gT3ZJGkSEV

— Jonathan Cook (@Jonathan_K_Cook) June 18, 2024

Or Starmer’s failure to declare to Labour members that his campaign to become Labour leader had been underwritten by prominent pro-Israel lobbyist Trevor Chinn.

Secrecy and destruction of records have been a consistent pattern under Starmer.

Chinn was also the key funder of the Labour Together think-tank, which failed to declare its funding – and main donors – in violation of Electoral Commission rules, most likely to prevent Labour members knowing that its activities were being bankrolled, and the party captured, by billionaires like Chinn.

Starmer is far more in the loop than he lets on. After all, that is precisely why he is Sir Keir Starmer. For nearly two decades, his job has been to do exactly what the British establishment has demanded of him.

Jonathan Cook is an award-winning British journalist. He was based in Nazareth, Israel, for 20 years. He returned to the U.K. in 2021. He is the author of three books on the Israel-Palestine conflict: Blood and Religion: The Unmasking of the Jewish State (2006), Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East (2008) and Disappearing Palestine: Israel’s Experiments in Human Despair (2008). If you appreciate his articles, please consider offering your financial support.