Mick Hartley

The Labour Party has always, historically, been solid in its support of Israel. This started to shift under Ed Miliband – eager to gain the Labour leadership over his brother by courting the left of the party – and then rapidly deteriorated under Jeremy Corbyn. Keir Starmer made it a key feature of his leadership to get rid of all that antisemitic Corbynite baggage, and yet here we are now, with the new Labour government putting in place a ban on arms and adopting what can only be seen as a foreign policy hostile to Israel's legitimate concerns.

What's going on? Former Labour MP Tom Harris, in Fathom, sees a new factor at play:

Keir Starmer’s initial political instinct, in the aftermath of the Hamas terror attacks on Israel last October, were sound and based on Labour’s traditions of solidarity with the only democratic, liberal democracy in the Middle East. For a while, his staunch support for the attack by the IDF on Hamas strongholds in Gaza held firm. But it perhaps says much about Starmer’s inexperience in frontline politics that it wasn’t long before he started to cave in to the loudest opposition voices in his party, and started to backtrack on his previous opposition to a ceasefire.

But when the general election came in July, no backtracking on Israel’s right to hunt down those responsible for the massacre of 1200 Jews and the kidnapping of 250 others was enough to assuage an element of militant Muslim opinion in Britain, whose voices had been amplified by weekly demonstrations at which the most foul anti-Semitism had been on regular display. Now they swapped public demonstrations for the ballot box: four previously ‘safe’ Labour constituencies fell to pro-Gaza candidates, including the Leicester seat of leading shadow cabinet member Jonathan Ashworth.

Now it wasn’t just public order and Jewish citizens’ sense of safety that was being threatened: this was much worse – now Labour votes were being threatened!

Perhaps it is too cynical to draw a causal line between Labour’s nervousness about losing ground domestically in a section of the electorate on which it had previously been able to count, and the new Labour government’s undeniable withdrawal of support from Israel via a number of policy announcements. So call me cynical.

First, we had the decision to drop Britain’s objections to the issuing of an arrest warrant for ‘war crimes’ against Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, a move that created a serious disagreement between Britain and our strongest and most important ally, the United States.

Then there was foreign secretary David Lammy’s announcement that the government would reinstate funding to the UN Palestinian refugee organisation UNRWA, despite allegations that UNRWA personnel took an active part in the 7 October pogrom.

And then we had the announcement that some arms-based exports to Israel by British firms would be halted.

In none of these cases can we see any similarity with what previous Labour governments would have done. But the case for concluding that these policies have been pursued specifically in order to assuage Muslim opinion in the UK is convincing, if not overwhelming. Labour has form on this, after all. During the Batley and Spen by-election in 2021, the party avoided at all costs even mentioning the local grammar school teacher who was forced into hiding for his own safety after threats by Muslim protesters in response to his showing cartoons of Mohammed to his pupils. The issue strikes at the very heart of what role religion should play in an open, tolerant, liberal society, but it is one that no Labour MP, including the local one who actually represents the teacher, is willing to discuss.

Assuming, perhaps unfairly, that the government’s approach to Israel has at least been influenced by domestic Muslim opinion (which in itself would be disgraceful and unacceptable) what do ministers hope to gain from such acquiescence?

In campaigners’ experience, will there ever be a point, short of declaring that Israel should abolish itself in favour of a Greater Palestine, that more extreme Muslim opinion is satisfied? How far must the government go along the path it has chosen before it starts to win back that lost support in northern and midlands seats?

The answer, of course, is that extremists tend to demand extreme things. Those who march each week for Palestine and who voted for pro-Gaza candidates at the general election will never, ever be satisfied with a government that does anything other than express complete opposition to Israel.

Time for Labour in general, and Starmer in particular, to show some backbone. Unfortunately, though the PM's principles may be sound, backbone is not something we've seen much of to date.

Labour must rediscover its principles and – just as important – its international allies. Wasting time trying to appease the unappeasable can only lead to surrender of our own values and the betrayal of our true friends.