With a stagnant economy, talent fleeing the country and absolutely no hopeful plan for the future of Britain, naturally the Labour Government has decided to do the inevitable. It has had emergency meetings on recognition of a Palestinian state.
In doing so they are following the lead of the French government of Emmanuel Macron. And for precisely the same reasons.
Although it might come as news to them, it is no longer in the gift of the British or French governments to create states in the Middle East. That era is over, and close observers might have noticed that modern European Leftists tend to be opposed to such “colonial” and “orientalist” reflexes.
But the Starmer Government, like their counterparts in Paris, are not making a priority of Palestinian statehood for foreign policy reasons. Even before October 7 2023 the leadership of the Palestinian people was hopelessly divided. Fatah and Hamas are divided because, among other things, Hamas make a habit of killing their fellow Palestinians if they happen to be from Fatah.
So even before the current conflict, the idea of a “two-state solution” in the Middle East was dead. At best, back then, there could have been some three-state solution. The state of Israel, some Hamas-run polity in Gaza and a Fatah-run territory in the West Bank (Judea and Samaria). But that option is itself utterly dead for the foreseeable future because nobody knows how to run Gaza or who will run it, and no one could trust the Palestinian authority in the West Bank which has not had an election in two decades.
Still, historians will note with some amazement that the present Hamas-started war led to Western countries scrambling to once again try a Palestinian-statehood option. Not least because if the years 2005-2023 showed anything in Gaza it is a glimpse of what a Palestinian state’s actual objectives and ambitions would be: not coexistence, but rather the continued effort to wipe out the Jewish state.
But the interesting thing today is why Starmer, Macron and others seem so intent on prioritising this issue. Why do they get before lecterns and issue stern warnings about Palestinian statehood? All while they have effectively zero capability to implement their grandiose policies?
The answer is that Palestinianism is not a foreign policy matter. It is a domestic one.
Starmer decided to rush out an announcement on the matter not because the time is ripe for the creation of another Palestinian state. He did it because time was running out for him in Westminster.
The SNP and others have been pushing Starmer from his Left. Part of his own party are pushing him from within. If Starmer had not made his intervention this week it was possible that the SNP would have brought forward a debate on Palestinian statehood in the House of Commons which the Labour Government would have lost.
So in order to placate the ranks Starmer has tried to take the initiative from those to his Left and show that he is doing something.
None of this will make any difference on the ground in the Middle East. But it does give us a good glimpse of some of the terrain here at home.
The Scottish Nationalists, like all mini-nationalist parties, have failed at their own agenda and so have become vacuum-like devices, hoovering up the other issues that the radical Left likes to push. If the Scots Nats can’t get independence for Scotland, why not push hard for independence for Palestinians?
Within Starmer’s own ranks similar pressures reign.
We now have a number of MPs who have been elected to Parliament purely for their ability to speak to the Palestinian issue, and they have done so because the issue is – as they know – one of the two foreign policy issues which most ignites opinion among Britain’s growing Muslim electorate (the other issue being Kashmir).
Much of the Muslim world – even those hailing from the Indian sub-continent – have imbibed anti-Israeli views from birth. And they have decided that the creation of another Muslim state, and the eradication of the world’s one Jewish state, should be a priority.
As well as the “Gaza independents” in Parliament, Starmer also needs to head off the considerable number of his own MPs who share much of their sentiment or pander to the same electorate. He also has to head off the new oddballs party which is being set up by Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana – someone who is expert (as so many radical Leftists are) at playing both bully and victim at the same time.
Although Corbyn’s new movement may not be significant in the House of Commons at present, it is perfectly possible that at a future election a party like his which makes Palestinianism its first priority could hoover up dozens of seats.
Starmer’s Labour Party would then be squeezed not only by Reform that is leading them in the polls, but by this other force to his Left. Were these two forces to come at Labour simultaneously it is perfectly possible that they could push the air out of the inflated Labour majority and lead to the party losing its majority in Parliament. With the Conservatives not yet seeing any meaningful uplift in their own popularity, this messy outcome starts to look like the most likely way that Starmer’s massive majority would deflate.
Some people will think that what Starmer has done is clever politicking. It may be in the short term. But in the long term it is yet another demonstration of a dangerous trend in our country. That is the way in which religious, sectarian conflicts from abroad have been brought into the heart of our own nation, a trend which sees blocks voting along ethno-religious lines.
Starmer may have no way to lead this country to a positive future. But this week he has given us another glimpse into a future which is just as fractured and divided as some of us long warned it could be.
With a stagnant economy, talent fleeing the country and absolutely no hopeful plan for the future of Britain, naturally the Labour Government has decided to do the inevitable. It has had emergency meetings on recognition of a Palestinian state.
In doing so they are following the lead of the French government of Emmanuel Macron. And for precisely the same reasons.
Although it might come as news to them, it is no longer in the gift of the British or French governments to create states in the Middle East. That era is over, and close observers might have noticed that modern European Leftists tend to be opposed to such “colonial” and “orientalist” reflexes.
But the Starmer Government, like their counterparts in Paris, are not making a priority of Palestinian statehood for foreign policy reasons. Even before October 7 2023 the leadership of the Palestinian people was hopelessly divided. Fatah and Hamas are divided because, among other things, Hamas make a habit of killing their fellow Palestinians if they happen to be from Fatah.
So even before the current conflict, the idea of a “two-state solution” in the Middle East was dead. At best, back then, there could have been some three-state solution. The state of Israel, some Hamas-run polity in Gaza and a Fatah-run territory in the West Bank (Judea and Samaria). But that option is itself utterly dead for the foreseeable future because nobody knows how to run Gaza or who will run it, and no one could trust the Palestinian authority in the West Bank which has not had an election in two decades.
Still, historians will note with some amazement that the present Hamas-started war led to Western countries scrambling to once again try a Palestinian-statehood option. Not least because if the years 2005-2023 showed anything in Gaza it is a glimpse of what a Palestinian state’s actual objectives and ambitions would be: not coexistence, but rather the continued effort to wipe out the Jewish state.
But the interesting thing today is why Starmer, Macron and others seem so intent on prioritising this issue. Why do they get before lecterns and issue stern warnings about Palestinian statehood? All while they have effectively zero capability to implement their grandiose policies?
The answer is that Palestinianism is not a foreign policy matter. It is a domestic one.
Starmer decided to rush out an announcement on the matter not because the time is ripe for the creation of another Palestinian state. He did it because time was running out for him in Westminster.
The SNP and others have been pushing Starmer from his Left. Part of his own party are pushing him from within. If Starmer had not made his intervention this week it was possible that the SNP would have brought forward a debate on Palestinian statehood in the House of Commons which the Labour Government would have lost.
So in order to placate the ranks Starmer has tried to take the initiative from those to his Left and show that he is doing something.
None of this will make any difference on the ground in the Middle East. But it does give us a good glimpse of some of the terrain here at home.
The Scottish Nationalists, like all mini-nationalist parties, have failed at their own agenda and so have become vacuum-like devices, hoovering up the other issues that the radical Left likes to push. If the Scots Nats can’t get independence for Scotland, why not push hard for independence for Palestinians?
Within Starmer’s own ranks similar pressures reign.
We now have a number of MPs who have been elected to Parliament purely for their ability to speak to the Palestinian issue, and they have done so because the issue is – as they know – one of the two foreign policy issues which most ignites opinion among Britain’s growing Muslim electorate (the other issue being Kashmir).
Much of the Muslim world – even those hailing from the Indian sub-continent – have imbibed anti-Israeli views from birth. And they have decided that the creation of another Muslim state, and the eradication of the world’s one Jewish state, should be a priority.
As well as the “Gaza independents” in Parliament, Starmer also needs to head off the considerable number of his own MPs who share much of their sentiment or pander to the same electorate. He also has to head off the new oddballs party which is being set up by Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana – someone who is expert (as so many radical Leftists are) at playing both bully and victim at the same time.
Although Corbyn’s new movement may not be significant in the House of Commons at present, it is perfectly possible that at a future election a party like his which makes Palestinianism its first priority could hoover up dozens of seats.
Starmer’s Labour Party would then be squeezed not only by Reform that is leading them in the polls, but by this other force to his Left. Were these two forces to come at Labour simultaneously it is perfectly possible that they could push the air out of the inflated Labour majority and lead to the party losing its majority in Parliament. With the Conservatives not yet seeing any meaningful uplift in their own popularity, this messy outcome starts to look like the most likely way that Starmer’s massive majority would deflate.
Some people will think that what Starmer has done is clever politicking. It may be in the short term. But in the long term it is yet another demonstration of a dangerous trend in our country. That is the way in which religious, sectarian conflicts from abroad have been brought into the heart of our own nation, a trend which sees blocks voting along ethno-religious lines.
Starmer may have no way to lead this country to a positive future. But this week he has given us another glimpse into a future which is just as fractured and divided as some of us long warned it could be.