Britain’s Left and the Middle East

Although Prime Minister Rishi Sunak continues to languish in the polls, British voters should be careful about thinking that Labour’s Sir Keir Starmer is a moderate.

Although his predecessor Jeremy Corbyn had the Labour whip removed and is an Independent MP and even though his Labour Party supporters in Momentum have seemingly faded into recent history, a hard-Left group of MPs still exists on the Labour benches in Parliament.

Effie Deans of Lily of St Leonards, a Scottish politics site, has two good posts about the British Left’s attitude towards what is going on currently in the Middle East. Excerpts from both follow, purple emphases mine.

Keir Starmer is weak

The first is ‘Keir Starmer is too weak to defend Israel’, which begins by taking us back to 2019 when Jeremy Corbyn was the Labour leader:

I was horrified by Jeremy Corbyn in a way that I wasn’t horrified by any previous Labour leader. I might have disagreed with previous leaders, but they were within the mainstream of British politics. Corbyn was not. He was an extremist who supported terrorists and quite frankly hated Britain.

The one thing that has worried me since 2019 is that every single important figure in the Labour Party campaigned for Corbyn to become Prime Minister. Keir Starmer may have suspended Jeremy Corbyn and prevented him from standing at the next election, but he knew all there was to know about Corbyn in 2019. A man who is now unfit to be a Labour MP was fit then to be Prime Minister.

Deans then moves to the present day with Starmer as Labour leader:

I was impressed by Keir Starmer’s initial response to the terrorist attacks on Israel. He was clear in his condemnation and clear that Israel had the right to defend itself and prevent Hamas committing such atrocities again. I think Starmer genuinely believes this. But he’s got a problem. The Labour Party clearly does not.

The fuss from some Labour MPs and the resignation of some councillors is absurd. Israel is primarily concerned about support from the United States. It would be annoyed if the British Government or another ally did not support it, but it wouldn’t much matter. The idea that Israel would even notice what a councillor for Leicester, the Irish Government, Humza Yousaf or various Labour MPs say is preposterous.

Guido Fawkes has been reporting on the backlash from Labour councillors. I haven’t bookmarked the posts, but there are several just from this week alone.

The latest, from October 27, concerns London’s Labour mayor Sadiq Khan. Guido reports (red emphases his):

Sadiq Khan has broken ranks with the Labour leadership and called for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. In a video statement released this morning, Khan claimed he was joining “the international community in calling for a ceasefire“, and demanded an end to the”the escalation of military conflict”. As if Hamas will finally lay down their weapons now the Mayor of London has asked nicely…

Of course while Khan may claim to stand with “the international community” today, he doesn’t stand with own party’s leader. Starmer, like Sunak and Biden, is still calling for “humanitarian pauses“, not a ceasefire. This will ratchet up tensions within Labour even further. Khan is sticking his neck out again…

Guido’s post has Sadiq Khan’s letter in full for those who wish to read it.

Here is a Daily Mail story from Wednesday, October 25:

Deans reminds us that a general election is looming. Today’s voter indifference could turn into tomorrow’s worry:

It matters very little indeed what Keir Starmer and the Labour Party say now, they are in opposition. But it would begin to matter if Labour formed the next Government, not so much for Israel, as for us. I don’t want to live in a country where the Government supports antisemitism and has sympathy for terrorists. That sort of attitude is liable to become a problem not just in Israel, but here too.

There has in the past weeks been huge amounts of condemnation of Israel from Scottish nationalists and from many in the Labour Party. There have been mass demonstrations in support of the Palestinians that only took place because of the 7th of October terror attack. There have been celebrations of this attack too.

Deans asks a question that I, too, have been pondering ever since Corbyn was leader:

I have come across lots of people who believe that the Palestinians are the victims of a historical wrong. They have ended up trapped in the West Bank and Gaza. They live in poor conditions and have little hope of a better life. Let’s assume that this is true. Why are you so interested?

Millions of Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs were displaced from their homes in 1947 when India was partitioned. Millions of Germans were displaced from their homes in in what is now Poland and Russia. Millions of Native Americans, Aztecs, Incas, Aborigines, Maoris and others were killed or lost their homes due to colonisation. It does not give the descendants of these people the right to commit acts of terrorism. It does not give India the right to attack Pakistan. It does not give Germany the right to attack Poland.

So even if you think there was historical injustice in the formation of Israel, the displacement of the Palestinian people and their present situation, it still would not give them the right to attack Israel. What’s more if Labour MPs are uninterested in the rights of displaced Germans and Hindus in the 1940s why are they so concerned with Palestinians? Do they only care about conflicts involving Jews? There is a word for this.

… this is our problem with the two-state solution. The Palestinians don’t want it. They rejected it because they demand the right to return of all descendants of people who were displaced in 1948-1949.

No doubt lots of Labour MPs think that all Palestinians should have the right to return. But no one thinks that Germans have the right to return to their homes in Poland. No one thinks that Hindus and Sikhs have the right to return to their homes in Pakistan. There were millions of displaced people after the Second World War, but there are only demonstrations about the descendants of Palestinians. What do you call people who are only concerned about people displaced by Jews?

Deans concludes:

Keir Starmer needs to ask his MPs why are you so interested in Israel versus Palestine, but you don’t care about any other conflict in the world? This is the same problem as the Labour Party had under Jeremy Corbyn. There are just as many antisemites as there were only these can’t be criticised for their antisemitism.

Starmer then has to ask what practically can be done to bring permanent peace to the region? Calling for the destruction of Israel isn’t going to help. They will fight you and they will win.

The only thing that can bring peace to the region is if the Palestinians give up terrorism and accept the existence of Israel. The people demonstrating in Britain, and I strongly suspect the majority of rebellious Labour MPs neither accept the existence of Israel nor think the Palestinians ought to give up the armed struggle. This view is now commonplace in the UK. In certain places it is universal and believed without question.

It frightens me that such people might soon form our Government. It frightens me that so many are on our streets. Keir Starmer was too weak to oppose Jeremy Corbyn becoming Prime Minister and will be too weak to oppose those MPs who are hostile to Israel. Like Macron he will be too weak to say anything other than we must learn to live with terrorism.

I have a few bookmarks about Labour’s support of Palestine.

One is from June 8, 2021. The content is too offensive in my estimation to reproduce here, but this is how Guido began and ended his post:

Since her suspension from the Labour Party was lifted in 2016, Naz Shah seemed to have genuinely learnt from her mistakes and put the nasty business of antisemitism behind her. That was until last week, when the Shadow Minister for Community Cohesion was filmed speaking at a Pro-Palestine rally in Bradford …

The Labour MP has history, in 2015 she wrote that Israelis should face “transportation” out of the Middle East and suggested that Israel should be “relocated” to America. Though she apologised for her controversial comments at the time, it seems her associates have not. Much like Jeremy Corbyn, Naz might be one of the world’s unluckiest anti-racists… 

Guido included Shah’s apology from Twitter:

Over recent weeks, a small minority of individuals have been trying to infiltrate demonstrations about the situation in Palestine to spew hatred. 

I was made aware that an individual at one of the rallies I spoke at, made remarks following the rally in Arabic – a language I do not speak. The individual was not a speaker but gained access to a microphone – the translation of their comments given to me are not remarks I’d ever make.

I will never shy away from using my voice to raise the plight of the Palestinian people but I will never tolerate antisemitism and I totally condemn anyone perpetrating it.

Keir Starmer cannot distance himself from supporting Palestine, either — even if this is an old photo. The blonde is a Green who now sits in the House of Lords:

On September 9, 2019, before the general election in December that year, a Jewish MP at the time, Ian Austin, announced in the Commons why he was leaving the Labour Party. Jeremy Corbyn was sitting on the front bench at the time. This is one of the most moving speeches I have ever heard from Parliament. The video has a link to Austin’s transcript, which shows up in the right hand column of the YouTube page:

Two excerpts follow:

… They don’t believe in the rule of law abroad either, Mr. Speaker, they always back the wrong side, whether it’s the IRA or Hamas and Hezbollah who they describe as friends …

… No previous Labour leadership would have allowed a party with a proud history of fighting racial prejudice to have been poisoned by racism which is what’s happened under these people, racism against Jewish people to the extent that members have been arrested on suspicion of racial hatred that the party itself has become the first in history to be investigated under equalities laws by the Equalities and Human Rights Commission. These people and the people around them are a million miles away from the traditional mainstream decent politics of the Labour Party. They have poisoned what was once a great party with extremism. They cannot be trusted with the institutions that underpin our democracy they are completely unfit to lead the Labour Party let alone our country…

The Labour Party was indeed found to have breached the Equality Act:

Mr Corbyn was stripped of the party whip in October 2020 after refusing to accept the findings of a damning antisemitism report.

The investigation, published by the Equality and Human Rights Commission, concluded the opposition party breached the Equality Act during Mr Corbyn’s time at the helm.

It accused the Labour Party of political interference in antisemitism complaints and said it was responsible for “unlawful acts of harassment and discrimination” and cited “serious failings in leadership”.

Mr Corbyn suggested the scale of antisemitism in the party which was under his leadership for five years, was “dramatically overstated for political reasons” – a statement that plunged the party into turmoil and led to his suspension …

Some of Mr Corbyn’s supporters believe the former leader can still retain his Islington North seat as an independent MP.

In June 2022, Guido reported that Corbyn felt hard done by in an interview with Declassified UK:

Yesterday yet another sore-loser interview was published, with the independent MP once again refusing any blame for Labour’s decimation, and accusing outlets like The Guardian and the BBC of outrageously focusing on his antisemitism crisis …

Off the back of this … Declassified UK, makes the following incredibly misjudged assessment:

The media assault on Corbyn during his tenure as Labour leader from 2015-20 will be recorded as perhaps the most intense political assassination in modern British history.

An assessment Corbyn’s Peace & Justice Project clearly agrees with, actively picking the quote out when sharing the interview …

Regardless of Starmer’s withdrawing the Party whip from his predecessor, in January 2023, Sir Keir said in an LBC (radio) call-in:

NF: Would we be in a better place had Britain voted Labour in in 2019?

KS: Yes. We could hardly be in a worse place…

Guido began tracking Sir Keir’s flip-flops on Corbyn.

On February 15, 2023, just a few weeks after his LBC call-in, Guido reported:

In the space of just under three years, Sir Keir’s gone from claiming he’s “100% behind” Jeremy Corbyn and determined to get him into Downing Street, to outright banning him from even standing as a Labour MP at the next election. It is as if he’ll say whatever helps his case at the time…

One week later, on February 23, Guido featured soundbites from Starmer in 2020, wherein he said of Corbyn:

He’s a friend …

… and from 2023:

We were never friends.

However, it should be noted that Labour denial of Corbyn reaches beyond Sir Keir. On October 13, Guido had a post about Helene Reardon Bond, Corbyn’s former deputy chief of staff:

It turns out Sir Keir isn’t the only one trying to acid wash the Corbyn friendship away. Helene Reardon Bond, his Deputy Chief of Staff, has quietly removed the references to her days as Director of Jeremy’s office from her LinkedIn CV.  Helene is also the mother of Jack Bond, who was a key member of Corbyn’s team for some years – responsible for Jezbollah’s social media output. Her husband was Corbyn’s driver to complete the left-wing family’s close links to the friend of Hamas. Now she’s referring to the Corbyn years as her “freelance consultant” era…

Dear, oh dear.

Guido has a screenshot of her LinkedIn profile and concluded:

At the time of Reardon Bond’s appointment to Corbyn’s office in 2019, Corbyn’s team told LabourList she would “bring her experience and expertise to the leader’s office to step up our preparations for government.” Look how that turned out. Guido can’t really blame her for erasing it from her CV…

See if the Bonds come back into focus should Labour form a government in 2024 or early 2025.

Now let us move on to the SNP and Scotland’s First Minister.

Humza Yousaf is ‘useless’

Effie Deans had a second post worth noting, ‘Is Humza worse than useless?’

On Tuesday, October 17, Guido told us about a recent poll involving a word cloud used to describe Yousaf:

Savanta have asked Scottish voters what words come to mind when they think of Humza Yousaf. The results won’t surprise anyone…

We asked 1,000 Scots to give us one word to describe Humza Yousaf.#SNP23 pic.twitter.com/jvEYy6fHLR

— Savanta UK (@Savanta_UK) October 17, 2023

According to YouGov 60% of Scots think Humza’s doing a bad job in office. When he made his conference speech to empty seats this afternoon the longest applause and a standing ovation only came when he mentioned Nicola Sturgeon. “Humza Useless” does roll off the tongue…

Effie Deans ponders another thing that’s been puzzling — how he became First Minister:

It’s always been a mystery to me why Humza Yousaf is leader of the SNP and First Minister. I remember during the leadership contest reacting with glee when it was announced that he had won. Could the SNP membership really have been as stupid as to pick Useless? Yes indeed. They were that stupid.

It is now clear that the British electorate has decided to dump the Conservative Party. Labour may turn out to be worse. But voters have decided to give the other party a go. Nothing will change this.

But the swing to Labour is not only going to wipe out much of Tory England it is also going to wipe out much of SNP Scotland …

Yousaf is generally seen as useless. He has achieved nothing of consequence since entering politics. We don’t know why he became the favoured successor to Sturgeon. It may have been to keep a lid on things. This is all part of the mystery.

But if Yousaf was picked for damage limitation reasons there is a danger that the damage will exceed all expectations.

As a member of the Scottish Parliament Yousaf attracted minimal attention. No one outside Scotland was very interested in what he did, what he thought or who he met. But Yousaf is now attracting a lot of attention.

This is because his in-laws are in Gaza at the moment. Furthermore, his parents took part in a pro-Palestinian march in Glasgow.

As to the first story, on October 13, GB News reported:

Humza Yousaf’s mother-in-law has issued an emotional plea for “humanity” as she spoke out on the conditions in Gaza.

The mother of the Scottish first minister’s wife had travelled from her home in Scotland last week to visit family in Gaza.

She has been trapped along with her husband in the enclave since Israel’s bombardment of Gaza in response to Hamas’s terror attack at the weekend.

Around that time, I read anecdotally online that one of his brothers-in-law is working there as a doctor, however, nothing has come out in the press or media that I have seen to support that allegation.

The article continues:

Elizabeth El-Nakla, speaking in a video posted to X, said “everybody from Gaza is moving towards where we are.

“One million people, no food, no water – and still they’re bombing them as they’re leaving …”

Posting the video to X was Yousaf, who said: “This is Elizabeth El-Nakla. She is my mother-in-law. A retired nurse from Dundee, Scotland.

“She, like the vast majority of people in Gaza, has nothing to do with Hamas. She has been told to leave Gaza but, like the rest of the population, is trapped with nowhere to go.”

Yousaf told the BBC that his mother-in-law was in a “real state of distress”, adding that he felt it necessary to share the clip to show how ordinary Palestinians are suffering.

Yousaf predecessor Nicola Sturgeon waded in by commenting on the video, tweeting: “My heart breaks for the people of Israel and all the innocent civilians in Gaza who are also paying the price of Hamas’s appalling acts of terror.

“Closer to home, my thoughts are with my friends Nadia and Humza and their family, and also with Scotland’s precious Jewish community, at this unimaginably awful time” …

The following day, October 14, The Times reported, ‘Yousaf’s parents join large pro-Palestinian march in Glasgow’:

Humza Yousaf, the first Muslim to lead a western democracy, last week revealed his parents-in-law were trapped in Gaza.

Elizabeth and Maged El-Nakla, who live in Dundee, were visiting an elderly sick relative when the attacks began and the borders were closed. The first minister told Sky News he felt “powerless” to help them.

His own mother and father, Shaaista Bhutta and Muzaffar Yousaf, were at the rally in Glasgow today.

Yousaf has met with both Jewish and Palestinian representatives in Scotland over the last few days, including a visit to a synagogue where he hugged the bereaved mother of a Bernard Cowan — a Scot who died in the Hamas terror attack …

The Scottish government announced it would be sending £500,000 in humanitarian funding to help the Gaza relief effort. Christina McKelvie, the minister responsible, said the money would go to a UN agency.

She said: “Our thoughts are with all the innocent people caught in the middle of escalating conflict in Israel and Gaza.’

Effie Deans says:

It was unfortunate that Yousaf’s in laws were visiting Gaza when Hamas attacked Israel on 7th October. But it wasn’t just bad luck. They should not have been there. Yousaf was in a privileged position with access to civil servants and contacts who could have told him that the Foreign Office advised against all travel to Gaza. Why didn’t he tell his in laws not to go?

Every reasonable person hopes that Yousaf’s relations get out safely and indeed that there are as few casualties in Gaza as possible. But Yousaf appears desperate to make political capital out of the plight of his relations and I think this has been noticed.

Suddenly there are regular stories about Yousaf’s connections with Islamist organisations. In the past two days I have read more about Yousaf meeting with people connected with Hamas or the Muslim Brotherhood or a dubious Islamist charity than I have in the past few years. There were always a few such stories if you chose to dig for them, but Yousaf could just about get away with it. That’s becoming harder.

Hmm. That we did not hear or read about during the SNP leadership campaign following Nicola Sturgeon’s surprise resignation.

Deans wonders what the attraction of the SNP was for Yousaf:

Part of the problem is that it is difficult to find a motivation for Yousaf to join the SNP. His parents would have had zero interest in Scottish independence when they arrived in Scotland. Yousaf suffered from islamophobia and racism as a child and would have been told by numerous people that he was not Scottish. It’s odd that he should have become the ne plus ultra of Scottishness after that …

For this reason, I always thought he desired Scottish independence for another reason. Just as some people of Irish descent gravitate towards the SNP as a means of achieving the goal of Irish nationalism, so too I think some people gravitate towards the SNP because of their hope that Scottish independence might damage the West generally and punish the UK for its foreign policy choices such as supporting Israel and sending troops to Iraq and Afghanistan.

Yousaf is a mass of contradictions. On the one hand some Muslims criticise him for his liberalism. He has usually been willing to adopt progressive viewpoints on gay rights and transgender. But privately these sorts of viewpoints must conflict with the Islam that he is taught at the mosque. It must at times be difficult to hold together the two ideas, what he has to tell his SNP colleagues and what he has to believe as a good Muslim.

The contradiction can also be seen in Yousaf divorcing his first wife after he had an affair because she was not a good Muslim and next marrying his second wife Nadia El-Nakla after she had an affair and was divorced by her husband. What is it to be a good Muslim?

I think this is the problem for Muslims living in the UK including Scots like the Yousafs. Their parents liked the wealth of the UK and the opportunities, but rejected everything else about us. But those who grew up in Scotland are more torn. They don’t wholly reject what our country has to offer. Some are not wholly observant Muslims. But on an issue like the Israeli-Palestinian conflict Muslims feel the need here at least to assert their Islam even if in nothing else. This explains the excesses at the demonstrations.

I don’t know how much Yousaf has flirted with Islamism …

Yousaf is not a Jihadist agent sent to destroy Scotland with his uselessness. That is a conspiracy theory too far …

Quite a lot of Scots are willing to flirt with support for the IRA and also with Islamic terrorism, but only so long as it doesn’t happen here. It’s a fun game to play from a distance, but that’s all. Far too many in the SNP flirt with very dubious sympathies. You might think it attracts support, but it’s much more likely that ordinary Scots will reject you if you bring such conflicts here. Yousaf has much more damage to do yet. He is worse than useless. 

The story will continue to unfold over the next few weeks.

The lessons are that, no matter how pure and spotless Opposition politicians present themselves, the truth is out there. The problem is finding it. Mainstream media outlets won’t tell you much about their recent history or their past. Keep following Guido Fawkes and GB News.