If we are trying to decipher what a Labour government will mean for British policy towards Israel, and the impact of such policy here in the UK, it probably makes sense to look at the most recent opportunity for Labour politicians to demonstrate where they stand. In that context, one could make a plausible case that the most important support by any British politician of Israel’s right to self-defence after the massacre of October 7 – and thus of its having spent the past eight months hunting down Hamas in Gaza – has come from Sir Keir Starmer.
At the start of the Gaza war, few would have expected the Leader of the Labour Party to have been so resolute in his backing of the Israeli case for military action. Most obviously that’s because until Sir Keir became leader in 2020, Labour was led by a man who described members of Hamas and Hezbollah as his “friends”. But it goes deeper than Jeremy Corbyn. Many Labour members parrot the dreary “progressive” mantra that Israel itself is an illegitimate colonialist enterprise and that Israel’s enemies are, by definition, friends. A Venn diagram between Labour supporters and attendees at the now fortnightly hate marches through London would have a big overlap.
But Sir Keir has stood firm and resolute, refusing to buckle in the face of pressure from these people – in the face, too, of a concerted attempt by some Muslims to divide politics along sectarian lines and to create a Muslim bloc vote to oppose Labour over Gaza on 4 July.
This steadfastness by Sir Keir is encouraging. Unfortunately, however, almost all other evidence points in the opposite direction.
Labour’s manifesto promise to recognise a Palestinian state may not be new – in 2014 the then Labour leader, Ed Miliband, voted in favour in a Commons motion on the issue – but after October 7 it is, at best, crass. The manifesto says recognition will be “a contribution to a renewed peace process”. In reality, however, recognition before there has been any form of peace agreement with Israel is nothing other than a reward for Hamas’ terror – and has already been proclaimed as that by Hamas after Spain, Ireland and Norway moved to recognition last month, with the organisation saying it shows its terror works.
Labour’s policy is not that of a serious player in the Middle East, where the action revolves around Saudi Arabia and the Abraham Accords, and where Saudi recognition of Israel would be a far more potent lever towards a broader settlement – including a Palestinian state.Whilst Sir Keir seems to grasp the need for a certain coolness towards many in his party, the man who seems set to be foreign secretary has taken the opposite approach. David Lammy’s reaction to the overtly political application last month by the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court for an arrest warrant against Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu for war crimes alongside the leader of Hamas – drawing an equivalence between the two – was to back it with what came across to me almost as glee. He appeared to relish the idea of Britain handing over decisions to a deeply political international forum. Given the fetishisation of human rights law on the left, when combined with Labour’s fears over Muslim support, this is surely a more likely pointer to Labour’s stance in government than Sir Keir’s previous backing of Israel’s right to defend itself.There are similar pointers elsewhere. One of the casualties of the early election was the Economic Activity of Public Bodies (Overseas Matters) Bill – better known as the BDS Bill, which sought to prevent public bodies from implementing Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions policies when deciding procurement and investment. Labour fought it tooth and nail, despite BDS being fundamentally anti-Semitic, with campaigners singling out the world’s only Jewish state – and only the Jewish state – for boycott.Worryingly, too, the manifesto commits Labour to “reverse the Conservatives’ decision to downgrade the monitoring of antisemitic and Islamophobic hate” – a reference to the important decision taken by Suella Braverman as Home Secretary to ban the police from recording “non-crime hate incidents”. It will not be long, one can be sure, before the first report of the police feeling someone’s collar for daring to call out Islamist hatred. And given the police’s dogmatic refusal to tackle the overt antisemitic hate on display at the fortnightly hate marches, it is difficult to see how the marchers, and their backers in organisations such as the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, will be anything other than emboldened by the arrival of a Labour government.Sir Keir Starmer has given a good impression of someone on the sensible side of these issues. But sense is not a word that applies to most of his colleagues.
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