Keir Starmer Accuses Tories Of Woke ‘McCartyism’ In ‘Desperate’ Institutional Culture War
Labour leader Keir Starmer blasted the “desperate” Conservative government for pursuing the “politics of preservation” over “commitment to service” in its sensationalist culture war campaigns on the National Trust and the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI).
The comments came in Starmer’s speech on Monday, addressing a civil society summit in London.
“The Tories seem set on sabotaging civil society to save their own skins,” Starmer said. “They got themselves so tangled up in culture wars of their own making, that instead of working with the Royal National Lifeboat Institution – an organisation the late queen was patron of for 70 years – to find real solutions to stop the small boats, their rhetoric has helped demonise them.”
He continued: “Instead of working with the National Trust so more people can learn about – and celebrate – our culture and our history, they’ve managed to demean their work. In its desperation to cling on to power, at all costs, the Tory party is trying to find woke agendas in the very civic institutions they once regarded with respect.”
In recent years, the RNLI and National Trust have unexpectedly found themselves in the crosshairs of Conservative criticism. The RNLI faced backlash in 2019 for funding anti-drowning initiatives overseas, and again in 2021 when now-GB News host Nigel Farage, former UKIP leader, accused it of aiding illegal immigration. The National Trust is embroiled in an internal conflict over rewilding and the portrayal of its properties’ colonial links.
“It’s desperate. It’s divisive. It’s damaging,” the opposition leader said. “It comes to something when the Tories are at war with the National Trust. That’s what happens when politics of self-preservation prevail over commitment to service.”
“Waging a war on the proud spirit of service in this country isn’t leadership,” Starmer said.
