Today in Brexitland, April 8, 2023

How bad is Labour’s “Rishi Sunk doesn’t” social media campaign, either morally or strategically?

You must have seen it, but just to recap: A couple of days ago, the Labour Party launched a social media campaign which asked the question: “Do you think adults convinced of sexually assaulting children should go to prison?”, following this up with the statement: “Rishi Sunak doesn’t”. It then has a blurb about how much of this sort of thing has gone on under recent Tory governments and how Labour will crack down on it all once in power.

The blowback has been intense. Left-wing, liberal and centre-left Twitter were all uniformly appalled, calling it a misstep at best, hateful propaganda at worst. The right-wing response has been more muted so far. With this in mind, it’s worth asking: beyond whether or not the campaign was morally defensible (which I will come onto), was it really a strategic misstep? Or do Starmer and his people know what they’re doing here?

The first thing I wish to say is that, while right-wing comments on the Labour campaign have been mixed and fairly muted, the ones that are out there are intensely ridiculous. George Freeman, Conservative MP for Mid Norfolk, said on Twitter yesterday: “This really is a new low in British politics. An official Labour Party advertisement accusing the @Conservatives PM @RishiSunak *personally* of wanting convicted child abusers to escape justice. Appalling. Gutter politics from a Leader Keir Starmer who should know better.”

No, George, you’re full of shit on this one, I’m afraid. This couldn’t possibly represent a new low in British politics. Do you want to know why? It’s because that was already achieved by your last leader, Boris Johnson, when he brought out the Jimmy Saville smear on Starmer, something that was about 20 times worse than Labour’s campaign this week at the very least.