Labour makes the story about itself

Stamer's clunky response on LBC was bad. The Party management has been worse. What now?

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I have deliberately chosen not to add my thoughts to the din surrounding the events in the Middle East because I simply don’t know what I can add beyond horror, sadness and sympathy for the people of both Israel and Gaza. I’m not a diplomacy, foreign policy or military expert. My only response has been horror at what has happened first in Israel on October 7th and on an ongoing basis in Gaza both before when the situation was horrendous and since when it has been horrific.

Here are a few things I think I know.

There is not going to be any stopping Israel from taking action. There may be ways of tempering that action. The only parties that can have any effect on tempering that action are the US and Hamas themselves. The UK government has little to no influence on what Israel will do—the UK opposition has none at all.

I don’t see the likelihood of Hamas agreeing to a ceasefire even if Israel were to offer one (they won’t). The call for a pause in Israel’s action felt like the closest we might get to allowing humanitarian aid into Gaza before the land war started. I think the land war makes a pause harder - but that the US Government are still calling for it makes me very slightly hopeful that something could happen to get more aid to the people of Gaza.

The row in the Labour Party is not one that is going to actually change anything in the world. It’s a classic ‘something must be done’ row where people feel a desperate need for action without really knowing what to do to achieve it. I don’t judge anyone who is calling for a ceasefire (though I do judge some of the ways this is being spoken about - ignoring or diminishing what happened on October 7th to ordinary Israelis is no way to convince someone you are asking something of that you are a good faith actor).

God, I would love a ceasefire too. I would love to see peace in the Middle East and an effective, lasting two-state solution. But I don’t believe it is going to happen soon and I don’t believe it will make the slightest bit of difference to whether it happens what Keir Starmer says about it.

What I do know about though is the Labour Party. So that’s what I am going to write about here. Because I feel I do have an analysis of this small part of the overarching narrative that some might find helpful or thought-provoking.

Because despite the inevitable truth that Starmer’s position won’t matter to the Israelis or Hamas, that means that it doesn’t matter to the Labour Party. As we come ever closer to the next election, and as Labour continues to lead in the polls, it is only right and natural that questions are asked about how the party manages itself and how it would conduct itself in government. These questions are coming from the media, but they are also coming from Party members, and not just the usual suspects.

So given that, what has gone wrong with the conversation in Labour and how could it be put right?

First, let’s look at how we got here.