LONDON — Donald Trump’s Gaza deal won’t save Keir Starmer. But his MPs hope it’s a start.
Under-siege Labour lawmakers hope that a cessation of fighting in Gaza — if it lasts — will take the sting out of a polarizing issue that has long created a wedge between the British PM and some of Labour’s traditional voters.
Starmer’s pulled punches against Israel — and perceived sluggishness in formally recognizing Palestinian statehood — has been an open sore in Labour ranks and among some voters since Israel’s bombing campaign of the Gaza Strip followed the deadly Oct. 7, 2023 attacks by Hamas.
The damage to Starmer’s Labour Party was starkly illustrated at last year’s general election, when five pro-Gaza independents, including former party leader Jeremy Corbyn, managed to win long-held Labour seats, with other pro-Gaza candidates almost deposing frontbenchers Shabana Mahmood and Wes Streeting.
Support for the Green Party, which won four seats in last year’s contest, is also thought to have been turbocharged by Starmer’s response to the Middle East crisis.
Few think the ceasefire, brokered by the U.S. president to much fanfare, will be a silver bullet when it comes to turning around Starmer’s fortunes, and his ruling center-left Labour party languishes 11 points behind the populist Reform UK in the polls. But Labour MPs hope it will at least lower the political temperature, and make it harder for their opponents to mobilize.
Reclaiming the left
There is “definitely a sigh of relief,” one backbench Labour MP, granted anonymity like others in this story to speak candidly about internal strategy, said Tuesday.
A second predicted that outrage over Britain’s Middle East policy would once again be contained to the usual hardcore campaigners.
An end to the fighting might “bring the overall temperature of politics down,” a third speculated — noting that interfaith and cross-community work might be possible again.
“The next election is going to be about marginal groups commanding small chunks of the vote … and having fewer issues for people to coalesce around can make a difference,” a fourth MP added.
While Trump’s deal has been widely welcomed in Labour ranks, few think the ceasefire alone will improve Labour’s poll ratings among the more left-leaning voters that Starmer has lost.
There is a “collection of issues which are important to a certain demographic,” of which recognizing Palestine was just one, a fifth Labour MP said. The two-child cap on access to certain benefits, which Starmer is under huge pressure from Labour MPs to ax, is another, they said. The government needs achievements on a “group of issues,” the MP added.
Hurdles to come
Others, however, remain deeply skeptical that Trump’s deal will translate into long-term success.
“I don’t know if people believe it’s real — It’s Donald Trump after all,” a sixth, skeptical Labour MP said.
“There is so much more that has to be discussed and decided,” Green Party Foreign Affairs Spokesperson Ellie Chowns — whose party threatens Labour from the left — said, while also welcoming recent steps.
In the House of Commons on Tuesday, one pro-Palestine independent MP, Dewsbury and Batley’s Iqbal Mohamed, gave a flavor of the many contentious issues Starmer will still have to navigate.
He called for the British PM to push for the release of 10,000 captives still being held by Israel, and to oppose fresh settlements on the West Bank. An official working with the left-wing Independent Group of MPs, many of whom rode to office after campaigning on the issue, insisted the Gaza problem “isn’t going away for Keir Starmer.”
Discussions would soon turn to “what this government has enabled,” they predicted, as more details about the destruction in Gaza during the conflict emerge. Pro-Palestine marches will, they said, likely continue.
Pollsters are also skeptical that the ceasefire will repair Starmer’s standing among the Brits he has lost.
“Whilst Gaza may fall down news agendas, the voters that have left Labour over the issue did so because they perceived the party to have failed morally,” Scarlett Maguire, director of Merlin Strategy, said. “For these voters that is a binary test, and it will be hard to persuade them back to the fold.”
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