Gaza - Starmer Behind The Curve

A quote attributed to Alexandre Auguste Ledru-Rollin, one of the leaders of the 1848 Revolution, was the probably apocryphal “There go the people. I must follow them, for I am their leader”. The leader who is behind the curve, only making their mind up after everyone else has made up theirs. The quote could so easily have been attributed to Labour leader Keir Starmer.

There are ever louder calls for a ceasefire in the Israel and Hamas conflict, which would mean, mostly, the IDF desisting from its round-the-clock rocketing, bombing and shelling of Gaza, where whole neighbourhoods have been levelled and over 7,000 killed, including more than 3,000 children. But here Starmer is as the proverbial rabbit in those approaching headlights.

It has been claimed that he is reluctant to move until the USA has joined the ceasefire call. This may dismay some, but is understandable: ever since the Suez débàcle, Israel has known to which country its wagon should be hitched, and that country is not the UK or France, with whom it joined in the deception that ended the brief premiership of Anthony Eden.

Eden thought he could win over Gemayel Abdul Nasser; he learned some of the language, had done that sort of thing before. He won no-one over: Egypt seized the Suez Canal, Eden, the poshest of PMs, denounced Nasser as a “fah-sist”, and cooked up the deception with the French and Israelis, which was bust when US President Eisenhower told them all to desist.

It was a re-election year; Ike wanted to present himself as a man of peace. From that point on, the UK followed the US, sometimes managing not to look too slavish, but on occasion, as with Tony Blair backing Dubya Bush over Iraq, showing just how far, and at the expense of a serious amount of credibility, UK Governments were prepared to go to please Washington DC.

Starmer has already shown himself to be less than totally nimble when challenged on the behaviour of Binyamin Netanyahu and his pals. We are now being told that when he said Israel was within its rights to cut off power and water to Gaza, he was misrepresented. He was not. The audio is out there. Cutting off water and power to an occupied territory is a war crime.

That’s as in Section 33 of the Geneva Convention. Not only have Starmer and his team tried to rewrite reality, they are now in the Ledru-Rollin camp over calls for a ceasefire. One by one, senior Labour figures are calling out their leader, and with the certainty of night following day, are stating unequivocally that a ceasefire has to be called for.

Starmer’s latest headache has been induced by London Mayor Sadiq Khan, who has demonstrated his considerable abilities by getting his own ducks in a line first. Like the Community Security Trust, who met Khan and later Tweeted approvingly “Thank you, Sadiq Khan, for challenging antisemitism and all forms of hate crime.” They could hardly denounce him after that.

And so it came to pass that the Mayor told earlier today “Thousands of innocent civilians have already been killed in Israel and Gaza. With the humanitarian crisis set to deteriorate even further, I’m calling for a ceasefire”. Full stop, no ifs, no buts. Which puts his party leader in one of those Very Difficult Positions. He can hardly suspend Khan. What does he do?

His minders can’t retrospectively redefine reality: the claim he was “misrepresented” will join other chin-stroking moments on shows like HIGNFY and be repeated relentlessly. He can’t sit this one out. On Israel and Gaza, he cannot get away with standing for nothing. 7,000 dead in Gaza, 1,000 unidentified bodies buried under the rubble, and counting. DO SOMETHING.

Remember Galbraith’s definition of leadership. “All of the great leaders have had one characteristic in common: it was the willingness to confront unequivocally the major anxiety of their people in their time. This, and not much else, is the essence of leadership”. Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar has now confronted that anxiety. He has called for a ceasefire.

Quit waiting for the USA. Get off the fence and show some leadership.

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