Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer

• FOR the first time in my political history I am uncertain about my voting plans for the upcoming general election.

I am lifelong Labour supporter (apart from a tactical vote in the 1950s) but have serious concerns about where Sir Keir Starmer is taking it.

And the leaflet from the party, urging support for my local candidate Tulip Siddiq, didn’t help.

A Union Jack spread around it made me think of the United Kingdom Independence Party or the National Front, although they would perhaps have had less of the red bits and more of the blue and white.

And Labour’s leading proposals don’t inspire me at all.

1. Deliver economic stability (well, duh, who doesn’t want that?);

2. Cut NHS waiting times (ditto);

3. Launch a new border security control (clang, this is where I go ballistic).

I have always believed that Britain should play a major role in this world; we used to control much of it, so created many of the problems.

But Brexit put paid to that and now it seems British politics is about as far up our own backsides as we can go.

But I am disgusted that Starmer has embraced this Little Englander issue instead of showing understanding of, and sympathy for, these desperate people.

They are fleeing all sorts of atrocities. Some are even in fear of their lives as a result of our actions, such as Afghans who worked for us during our intervention there, but are now being persecuted by the jihadis now in charge there.

Starmer might have had to adjudicate in some problems when he was working as Director of Public Prosecutions so should be aware of the issues.

Of course, we can’t just open our doors to everyone, but these are human beings and should be given humane treatment, as the Liberal Democrats suggest.

Many have legitimate rights to live here, and almost all could play a role in our country’s future (even Nigel Farage acknowledged this, after his crypto-fascist introduction to the issue in his party election broadcast).

But, yet again, a major cause of this problem is the Tory degradation of the civil service and cuts in the specialists needed to review the applications quickly and fairly.

Rwanda is not part of the solution, and neither is Labour under Starmer.

And then: 4. Set up Great British Energy (to generate power from greener resources), requiring major financial investment.

Instead of using public funds, why not take EDF’s chunk of the British supply sector back into public ownership? They claim to be Britain’s biggest generator of zero-carbon electricity, the largest supplier of solar, wind, and tidal power.

After privatisation by the Tories it is now wholly owned by EDF, Électricité de France, the French equivalent of the former CEGB, Central Electricity Generating Board, owned by us. Then at least any profits would end up in our pockets, not subsidising French consumers.

And so on for the other suppliers, of gas, electricity, buses, railways, water, the “Royal” Mail, and the rest.

But I have always said you should vote for the party that comes closest to your ideas and, sadly, Labour still fills that criterion; even the Social Democratic Party has an anti-immigrant plan as its number one priority.

Not only that, they say: “We will withdraw from the 1951 UN refugee convention, the ECHR (European Court of Human Rights) and all other international instruments which deny UK border sovereignty.”

Did we defeat Hitler in vain? How low has our country sunk?

DAVID REED, NW3