Starmer backed Corbyn ‘because he did not believe he would win’

Labour leader rallied round predecessor while in shadow cabinet despite thinking Boris Johnson’s Tories would claim victory

Sir Keir Starmer has said that he backed Jeremy Corbyn at the 2019 election because he did not believe he would win.
The Labour leader, who served in Mr Corbyn’s shadow cabinet, said that he was “certain” that his party would lose to Boris Johnson and that was why he supported him.
Asked by Sky News’s Beth Rigby about his support for Labour’s former leader, Sir Keir told the Sky: “I was certain that we would lose the 2019 election.
“I did campaign for Labour, of course I did, I will openly say I campaigned for Labour, I wanted good colleagues to be returned into the Labour Party.”
Asked again about backing his predecessor, he said: “I honestly didn’t think we had a chance at that election”.
It comes after Sir Keir accused the Conservatives of producing a “Jeremy Corbyn-style manifesto” that would “load everything into the wheelbarrow” without it being fully costed.
His remarks came despite him backing Mr Corbyn’s manifestos in both 2017 and 2019.
When running in the Labour leadership contest in 2020, Sir Keir said that he would not “trash” the record of Mr Corbyn, who is now standing against Labour as an independent in Islington North.
At the Sky event in Grimsby on Wednesday night, the Labour leader also admitted that his wife would have preferred that he remained a lawyer rather than working in politics, after his time serving as the director of public prosecutions for five years from 2008.
“My wife was reading adverts in the papers about well-paid lawyers’ jobs and I said: ‘No, I want to serve my country.’”
He added: “She thought it would be far better to continue being a lawyer on a reasonable salary and not have all the challenges that you get as a politician.”
He also revealed that his biggest fear if he were to become prime minister was how it would affect his children.
“My only real fear is the impact it’s going to have on them,” he said, saying that it was why his children had never been named in public or been part of any photoshoots.
“I want them to be able to walk to school and have their own lives, unaffected.”
The Labour leader faced questions about his personality from both Rigby and a member of the audience, who claimed he seemed like a “political robot”.
Sir Keir laughed and then paused for a few seconds, appearing flummoxed by the question, which then was met by laughter from the audience.
He responded: “I came into politics quite late in life, I’d done other things beforehand, but I took the approach I couldn’t make the changes I wanted to by not coming into politics.”
Asked if he thought he had changed, Sir Keir said he was “much clearer in my own mind that the country must come first”.
The Tories quickly leapt on Sir Keir’s delay in responding to the question, sharing the clip on social media with the caption: “ERROR 404 – STARMER DOES NOT COMPUTE.”
Sir Keir clashed with a junior doctor during the Battle For Number 10 programme on Sky News.
Answering a question about the junior doctors’ strike, the Labour leader said: “Well, we won’t be able to do anything unless we win the election. We’ve obviously only been in opposition so far. I have been frustrated, if I’m honest, that these strikes have gone on as long as they have gone on.
“The strikes are very bad for patients. People are very anxious about the strike. I don’t think doctors want to be on strike.”
Sir Keir said: “Instead of arguing about who gets in the room first to negotiate with the doctors, we would roll up our sleeves in a grown-up way, get in the room and settle this dispute so that patients can get the care they need, doctors can get back to work, and the country can move forward, because we can’t go on like this any more.”
Responding to a follow-up question from the junior doctor, Sir Keir said: “Pay, progression, conditions, all of that can be negotiated.
“On the 35 per cent, I don’t think we can afford that as a country because of the damage that’s been done to the economy. I don’t want to pretend to you that we can.”
After the debate, James Cleverly questioned Sir Keir’s “integrity” in his answer about Mr Corbyn’s leadership.
The Home Secretary told Sky News: “Basically his answer was that he was being dishonest with the British people, either then or now, we’re not sure which, but it didn’t matter because he didn’t really think that Jeremy was going to win.
“I think if you’re going to try to put yourself forward as someone of integrity, that answer’s going to be really, really damaging.
“He basically said either he didn’t believe Corbyn should be prime minister, in which case he was lying then, or he did believe it, in which case he’s lying now. But the bottom line is you can’t have it both ways.
“He could not be honest about his relationship with Corbyn … It was incredibly damaging.”