My message to Labour: Palestine cannot be summoned into existence by pogrom or fiat - The Jewish Chronicle

The last time I met Keir Starmer was at a reception in Whitehall, and he was still Leader of the Opposition at the time. Although we had met briefly a couple of times when I was an MP and he was Director of Public Prosecutions, I had to reintroduce myself. He was genuinely interested in the reasons why, three years after leaving the House of Commons in 2015, I had resigned my membership of the Labour Party.

Long story short: it was because of the anti-Semitism that had been allowed to prosper under the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn, and I was no longer prepared to see my admittedly modest monthly contributions fund such hatred against Jewish people and Israel. Starmer listened to my explanation with intensity and courtesy, not seeking to change my mind or make an argument that Labour had changed under his leadership. He seemed genuinely interested in my experience. I was impressed.

He had already shown great integrity in his efforts to claw Labour back from the precipice in the wake of the Equality and Human Rights Commission’s damning findings about how anti-Jewish racism had run riot in the party of anti-racism. Unlike Corbyn, he had promised a relationship with the Jewish state, going as far as asserting that he “support[s] Zionism without qualification”.

I paid close attention to Starmer’s response to the October 7 attacks by Hamas in 2023, and I thought I could see in his countenance a blazing hatred for the Islamist terrorists who had inflicted so much misery on Israel by their untrammelled violence. He seemed, at first, to be a reliable ally of Israel’s and for that I was grateful.

And then came the general election and the shock to Labour of the loss of four previously “safe” seats to independent pro-Palestinian candidates. My political instincts warned me that there would be short-term and very negative consequences. And so it proved.

Within months of its electoral triumph, Labour had dropped the UK’s opposition to the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrants for Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant, introduced a partial arms embargo against Israel, and even suspended free trade talks. This was a worrying and potentially catastrophic development, especially for Britain’s invaluable military and political relationship with our closest ally, the United States, as well as that with Israel. At the time it struck me as cynical student politics, geared to win back the support of UK Muslims who had turned their backs on Labour.

But the biggest betrayal came this summer when Sir Keir announced the UK’s intention to recognise a Palestinian state.

Even worse were the conditions Starmer was imposing on such recognition: the only thing that could prevent such recognition would be a ceasefire. In other words, provided Hamas could artificially extend the conflict, sacrificing more of its own citizens for Hamas’s own political aims, then recognition by the UK would go ahead.

No wonder Hamas were grateful to our government. At a stroke, all the terrorists’ actions, all the rapes, all the kidnappings, all the murders of innocent Israelis, and even all the Palestinian deaths that had occurred in the conflict since – all were justified by the UK’s absurd attempt to virtue signal on an international stage.

What, exactly, will the UK recognise? Palestine may well exist one day – although for that to happen it will require a rather more realistic and more constructive approach to its neighbour than Hamas is able to construct – but it does not exist today. It has no borders, no capital city, no currency. It doesn’t even have a real history. If Starmer presses ahead with recognition he will be doing no more than seeking to appease those in his own country who can never be appeased so long as Israel continues to exist. It will be a fruitless, pointless gesture. Except it will have one, single point: it will gift to the Hamas Islamist terrorists – and let us remind ourselves that it remains so designated and proscribed in the UK and in Europe – an undeserved reward for provoking the dreadful conflict we see on our screens every night.

Consider the fact: before October 7, 2023, Britain had no intention of recognising a borderless country with no legal status. But after the brutal massacre of 1,200 innocent people, the very people who carried out the slaughter are celebrating and thanking Keir Starmer for this latest advance.

That is something of which we in Britain, and everyone who genuinely cares about democracy, should be ashamed. Britain used to pride itself on its policy of not negotiating with terrorists. Now we’re in danger of rewarding them.

And with the imminent launch of a new political party to Labour’s left, a party that will be explicitly “anti-Zionist” and will make a direct appeal to British Muslims, Labour and Starmer can be expected to become even more nervous about the electoral impact of the Middle East conflict. Previous Labour leaders, men and women of immense stature, showed the way in the past, standing in solidarity with a tiny, democratic nation surrounded on all sides by hostile actors.

If today’s Labour wishes to emulate that principled stand in defence of liberal democracy and against the savagery of Islamism, it must reject any notion that Palestine can be summoned into existence by pogrom or fiat.
Tom Harris, a former Labour MP, is a columnist for the Daily Telegraph

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