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Starmer’s Labour: state but no revolution

CALLS on Labour leader Keir Starmer to give evidence at the Spycops inquiry are a reminder of this former top prosecutor’s close ties to the state.

Starmer is no stranger to the suspicion that this rightly arouses in a labour movement which — as the return of the Shrewsbury pickets to court this week indicates — has been plagued by state persecution over many decades.

Many of Starmer’s actions when director of public prosecutions have been attacked, from initially declining to prosecute the police killer of newspaper vendor Ian Tomlinson, through his pursuit of accelerated processing and sentencing of people arrested during the London riots of 2011. 

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