THE scenes witnessed outside Westminster Magistrates Court on Wednesday morning were a microcosm of what the United Kingdom has become under this Labour government. Younger readers may be be labouring under the misapprehension that Keir Starmer’s lurch to the right in pursuit of populist favour is the first time that the Labour Party has betrayed its socialist principles. But the truth is that throughout the Troubles Labour Secretaries of State repeatedly outperformed their Tory counterparts when it came to defending the interests of the British establishment at the price of the rights of Irish citizens.