KEIR Starmer has been condemned over a “problematic” tweet where he described a meeting with the controversial firm BlackRock.
“I'm determined to deliver growth, create wealth and put more money in people’s pockets,” the Prime Minister wrote yesterday.
“This can only be achieved by working in partnership with leading businesses, like BlackRock, to capitalise on the UK’s position as a world leading hub for investment.”
BlackRock is the world’s biggest asset management company and has been criticised for investing in fossil fuel companies, the arms industry, and human rights violations in China.
Just two days ago, it faced a complaint at the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) for allegedly contributing to environmental and human rights abuses around the world through its investments in agribusiness – including accusations of increasing investments in companies that have been implicated in the devastation of the Amazon.
And in June, the UN called on BlackRock to divest from firms arming Israel, warning of "repercussions for complicity in potential atrocity crimes". The investment firm did nothing.
Starmer's meeting was swiftly condemned, including by Labour MP Clive Lewis and Dr Kirsty Hughes – the founder of the Scottish Centre on European Relations.
Hughes said: “Government as only a gung ho inward investment agency without even basic principles for that investment: roll up China, roll up Blackrock – you'll solve all our problems.”
Lewis said the Twitter/X post was “problematic” for a number of reasons.
This post is problematic for a number of reasons. A thread…🧵 1. For those attempting to make sense of Trump’s victory and the rise of the far-right across Europe - look no further than the PMs statement below. Whether you like it or not, the far-right has a set of common… https://t.co/lDpz8B9Ppz
— Clive Lewis MP (@labourlewis) November 21, 2024
“For those attempting to make sense of Trump’s victory and the rise of the far-right across Europe – look no further than the Prime minister’s statement below,” he wrote.
“Whether you like it or not, the far-right has a set of common narratives. We can probably all recite them.
"Something like, ‘the reason you’re in an overpriced, damp rental; your gran lives in squalor; your job is low paid/insecure and your public services are crumbling – is because elites declared war on workers, favoured immigrants and made your life more expensive with their ‘green crap’.
“‘Vote for us and we will deport the immigrants, stop the elites, cut the green crap and declare war on woke, Britain will be great again’.”
The Labour MP then went on to say that Labour’s “story”, just like that of the Democratic Party in the United States, “doesn’t make narrative sense”.
“Rather than explain how 40 years of atomising, neoliberal plunder; the selling-off of and destruction of our public services; the undermining or our democracy, the hollowing out and selling off of our natural resources at the hands of companies like Blackrock and other price-gouging corporations, billionaires & financial institutions, has led us here,” he said.
“Instead we refuse to give a credible explanation for how we got here other than ‘it was Tory chaos’. Problem is, when the political and economic permacrisis continues, that won’t be a viable explanation. By refusing to identify who the culprits for this state of affairs is, we fail to make a convincing narrative story that explains our predicament. Instead we become the defenders of the very elites – the business as usual brigade – that the right claim we are.”
The full post on LinkedIn is even more gushing https://t.co/M580ddF3rn pic.twitter.com/yNLCCQnaNE
— Ethan Shone (@EJShone93) November 22, 2024
Investigative journalist Ethan Shone, meanwhile, said the post on LinkedIn was “even more gushing”.
