[Order Michael Finch’s new book, A Time to Stand: HERE. Prof. Jason Hill calls it “an aesthetic and political tour de force.”]

Keir Starmer has been a wretched Prime Minister of Britain. He is now deeply unpopular, but he’s just acquired some new and enthusiastic fans: the jihad terrorists of Hamas. They think Sir Keir has just exhibited wise statesmanship in recognizing, without any preconditions — no need for Hamas to free any of the hostages, for instance, or agree to surrender their weapons — a “state of Palestine.” More on Hamas’ expression of delight at the glad news from 10 Downing Street, in an article by journalist Matthew Syed (whose father, incidentally, was a convert to Christianity, and his mother is Welsh) can be found here: “Hamas sees Keir Starmer’s Palestine statement as vindication for murder,” by Matthew Syed, The Times, September 21, 2025:

…This, by the way, was the Hamas response to Sir Keir Starmer’s statement, perhaps the greatest evocation of glee from within the terrorist group in months. “The fruits of October 7 are what caused the entire world to open its eyes to the Palestinian issue — and they are moving towards it with force,” Ghazi Hamad, a senior operative, said. “That is, that the Palestinian people are a people who deserve a country. The initiative by several countries to recognise a Palestinian state is one of the fruits of October 7. We have proven that victory over Israel is not impossible, and our weapons are a symbol of Palestinian honour.”

So there you have it: Hamas regards the British policy as an explicit vindication of mass murder, of gaining by killing. And it isn’t just this group of psychopaths who see it in these terms. Security insiders tell me that other jihadi networks also regard official British policy as an exoneration of terrorism as they busily recruit across the Middle East via propaganda pumped out daily over social media. One might call it appeasement, although I am not sure this quite does justice to the strategic and moral pusillanimity of what we’re seeing, not just from the British government but the French, Canadians and more….

This decision is not the only one that will come back to haunt Starmer, a man who has proved a dire PM. But this, I fear, is one that will reverberate for years to come.

Comment:

This is all you need to know about Keir Starmer’s recognition of a “state of Palestine”: the British prime minister’s decision has caused fury in Israel, one of Great Britain’s closest and most valuable allies in the war on terror , while Hamas, whose combatants raped, tortured, mutilated, and murdered 1,200 people on October 27, 2023, and promises to repeat those attacks “again and again,” is absolutely overjoyed at Starmer’s decision. Shouldn’t Starmer bethink himself, and if he now has Hamas as his grateful claque, begin dimly to comprehend that perhaps he has done something very very wrong?