STEPHEN GLOVER: Good for Sir Keir Starmer for taking such a robust line on Israel. But sadly his party’s STILL full of rancour
Let’s give praise where it is due. Sir Keir Starmer has behaved courageously in defending Israel since Hamas launched its horrific pogrom nearly five weeks ago.
Almost immediately he upheld, in the most forthright terms, Israel’s right to retaliate. The sometimes havering Labour leader has displayed a moral conviction that one does not always expect of him.
Four days after Hamas’s murderous onslaught, he even suggested in a radio interview that Israel had the right to cut off power and water from civilians in Gaza, which made him sound more militant than the Government. Admittedly he later backtracked by saying Israel must observe international law, as indeed it must.
Nonetheless, despite the resignation of around 50 Labour councillors and growing pressure from his own front bench, Sir Keir has resisted calls for a ceasefire. In a speech last week, he rightly argued that such a move ‘would leave Hamas with the infrastructure and the capability to carry out the sort of attack we saw on October 7’.
Why is Sir Keir making this stand at the expense of party unity, which was further undermined yesterday by the resignation of Imran Hussain, the first Labour frontbencher to step down over the issue?
Sir Keir Starmer has behaved courageously in defending Israel since Hamas launched its horrific pogrom nearly five weeks ago
Hard-Left Labour MP Andy McDonald (pictured) last week posted a video on social media in which he made reference to the phrase ‘from the river to the sea’
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A cynical interpretation might be that he is trying to set out his stall as a centrist leader before next year’s elections. He wants to persuade former Tory voters that they can trust him, and that — unlike his predecessor, Jeremy Corbyn — he is no extremist.
Motives are seldom entirely pure in politics. If the Labour leader is championing Israel’s right to defend itself partly for reasons of political calculation, at least he is doing the right thing.
Moreover, I’ve little doubt that he is sincere. His wife, Victoria, is Jewish, and she has relatives in Israel. This has given Sir Keir an insight into that country’s predicament, and almost certainly a degree of sympathy.
So, yes, I’ve been heartened by the robust line he has taken. Good for Sir Keir! If only one could say the same thing about his party. It is as though the veil that the Labour leader has painstakingly created over the past three and a half years has been ripped away. His claim to have reasserted control has been shown to be false.
Needless to say, there’s nothing extremist about arguing for a ceasefire. Plenty of decent people both inside and outside the Labour Party believe there should be one. I think they’re mistaken, but it is a perfectly reasonable point of view.
What is objectionable is the lack of moral censure about the barbarism of Hamas on the part of at least some Labour rebels, and their tendency to judge Israel especially harshly. The anti-Semitism that Sir Keir claimed to have removed from his party appears in some cases never to have gone away.
Probably most egregious were the remarks of hard-Left Labour MP Andy McDonald, who last week posted a video on social media in which he made reference to the phrase ‘from the river to the sea’, which is viewed by many as anti-Semitic. He says his words were intended as a plea for peace but has rightly been deprived of the Labour whip.
I dare say McDonald will join the pro-Palestine march in London on Saturday. Jeremy Corbyn and his comrade-in-arms, Labour MP John McDonnell, are also expected to attend. They are evidently untroubled that the demonstration should be taking place on Armistice Day, and that Hamas sympathisers are likely to be on the march.
Tens of thousands of pro-Palestine demonstrators gathered in Trafalgar Square demanding an immediate ceasefire of the Israel and Hamas war on November 4
Let’s not forget that Corbyn in 2009 described members of Hamas and Hezbollah as his ‘friends’. He may have been expelled from Labour following a row over anti-Semitism, but he remains indelibly associated with the party he served for so many years.
Not many Labour MPs are as outspoken as Messrs McDonald, Corbyn and McDonnell, of course. But there are many of them in constituencies with large Muslim populations who, fearful of losing majorities that are sometimes slender, are pandering to sectarian politics. Surely Labour’s policy towards Israel and Hamas shouldn’t be dictated by a minority of the electorate.
The truth is that much of the Left remains viscerally opposed to the state of Israel and is also tainted by anti-Semitism. This is a relatively new phenomenon. Former Left-wing Labour firebrands such as Tony Benn, Michael Foot and Aneurin Bevan were in their day strong supporters of Israel.
There is criticism in the New Statesman magazine of the modern Left’s attitudes to that country by Jon Lansman, the Jewish founder of the Momentum, which rallied behind Jeremy Corbyn when he was Labour leader. It is somewhat surprising to hear him talking such good sense.
While admitting that he is ‘horrified by the extent of civilian deaths in Gaza’, Lansman ‘finds it difficult to relate to how much of the Left responded… There isn’t an understanding, or there isn’t much sympathy, for the feeling in Israel that they need to prevent such an attack again… There isn’t an understanding that there could be a just military response to horrific events.’
To his credit, Sir Keir does understand — at least for now. My worry is that he will cave in to pressure. Mysteriously, last week he removed his remembrance poppy before making a video attacking Islamophobia suffered by British Muslims, despite wearing one hours beforehand. Labour denies any ulterior motive.
Here is a man who was recently in favour of the following things but has turned against them: Jeremy Corbyn, gender self-identification, the nationalisation of many utilities, abolishing university tuition fees, increasing income tax for the richest 5 per cent of earners, and much else. Let’s hope he doesn’t change his mind on Israel and Gaza.
Even if he sticks to his guns, which I obviously hope he does, the Labour Party remains more Corbynista than Sir Keir has claimed. Nor is he able to control it as he would like us to believe he can.
If Labour wins the election, will its Left-wing MPs accept the moderate policies Sir Keir now endorses? Or will they harry the leadership, and try to push it in a more Left-wing direction on matters ranging from tax to gender issues? Their power to disrupt will increase if the parliamentary party enjoys only a small Commons majority, and is consequently reliant on their support.
It is of course absurd to imagine that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his Right-wing administration care one jot whether or not Sir Keir calls for a ceasefire. They will be similarly unmoved by the march in London this weekend. The Israeli government doesn’t mind what Labour, or even Britain, thinks. It is remorselessly pursuing its own strategy.
In a strange way, though, the events in Israel and Gaza are shining a fierce light on our own country. The Labour leader’s pretence that he has purged his party of its Corbynista elements is in the process of being shattered.
We only await to learn whether, for once in his life, Sir Keir Starmer will stick with his stated convictions — or desert them for the sake of a quiet and easy life.
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