Main Edition
US
FR
July 22, 2024 - 10:45am
At the end of last week, Foreign Secretary David Lammy announced that British funding for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) would resume. As a result, £21 million is to be released immediately to help finance agency efforts in Gaza and the West Bank.
The previous government, alongside 15 other countries, suspended funding to UNRWA in January, after allegations by Israel that agency staff were involved in the 7 October attacks. While one internal investigation remains ongoing, another already-published review found Israel had not even submitted evidence for such claims. For some, those allegations by the Israeli government are merely the latest episode in a campaign stretching back years to not only undermine the agency, but dismantle it.
Regardless of motives, until last week only the UK and US had not restored funding to the agency, leaving them as “shameful outliers” according to Human Rights Watch. Now, however, Washington — which has banned any funding until next March at the earliest — stands alone.
Besides the implications for UNRWA, and those who depend on its work, Lammy’s announcement was extraordinarily significant. This was because it was a rare moment where London and Washington diverged on foreign policy, all the more surprising because of Starmer’s instinctive Atlanticism. After all, this is the man who initially rejected calls for a ceasefire last year, and who told his MPs to abstain on an SNP motion calling for one. At the time he backed an amendment which merely criticised Israel for its conduct in Gaza — with the whips office making clear to every frontbencher that voting with the SNP would mean the sack.
Among those who defied orders was Jess Phillips — her decision to resign from the Shadow front bench likely proving the difference in keeping her seat of Birmingham Yardley earlier this month. Yet even then, a majority of more than 10,000 was reduced to less than 700 — with Workers Party candidate Jody McIntyre finishing second. Starmer’s clumsy handling of the situation was due to a long-held rule of thumb for the Labour Right: don’t say anything new until the Americans give you permission.
While Phillips was run close, Jonathan Ashworth lost in Leicester South and Khalid Mahmood succumbed in Birmingham Perry Barr. Meanwhile, Heather Iqbal, a former SpAd to Rachel Reeves, was defeated by another pro-Gaza independent in Dewsbury and Batley. Most important of all was the near-miss of Wes Streeting: the crown prince of the Labour Right came within 530 votes of losing to Leanne Mohammed in Ilford North. The common theme was Gaza.
Join the discussion
Join like minded readers that support our journalism by becoming a paid subscriber
To join the discussion in the comments, become a paid subscriber.
Join like minded readers that support our journalism, read unlimited articles and enjoy other subscriber-only benefits.
SubscribeThere is mountains of evidence that UNRWA is a big part of the problem. The so called independent review was a fix up job designed to bury the truth and give donors cover to resume funding.
https://unwatch.org/exposed-unrwas-rigged-independent-review/
Whilst I am not convinced now is the right time to collapse UNRWA when there is nothing to replace it. At the right time serious questions need serious answers as UNRWA is the very worst stain on an already heavily tarnished UN’s reputation.
Meanwhile there is mounting evidence that many, and possibly, most of the deaths of Israeli civilians on October 7th were caused by the IDF themselves. The IDF in this case quite literally buried the evidence by burying hundreds of cars thereby precluding any kind of a proper investigation into who murdered their occupants. That there was already video evidence of helicopter gunships blasting away at fleeing cars suggests the numbers of these victims could be rather large.
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2024-07-07/ty-article-magazine/.premium/idf-ordered-hannibal-directive-on-october-7-to-prevent-hamas-taking-soldiers-captive/00000190-89a2-d776-a3b1-fdbe45520000
Nonsense
It isn’t actually – can’t imagine why the released footage from the Apache helicopters – but they did. Even Knesset members admitted to ‘Traitors from within’. https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20240128-israeli-knesset-member-says-traitors-from-within-might-be-behind-hamas-attack/
OMG!
You get an award for the most delusional comment of the day.
So the IDF did not enact their Hannibal Directive?
No.
You hit the jackpot for skewed argument therefore no cigar
The delusion is those who think you can walk back to a country Jews inhabited thousands of years ago because you are Jewish – never mind if you’re a convert or that many of the Original Jews converted to Islam – might is right. David Hearst is right – the European Jews need to go home.
What about the Mizrahi Jews?
Hardin: The majority of Jews in Israel are not Ashkanzi. See here: https://people.socsci.tau.ac.il/mu/noah/files/2018/07/Ethnic-origin-and-identity-in-Israel-JEMS-2018.pdf
Also Israel has become the home of the Ashkanazi’s. They have been born there. You’d be (rightly) accused of racism to suggest that British-born scions of Bangladesh, Pakistani, Indian, West Indian etc. should go home.
The reason UNWRA exists is because, unlike all other mass migrations, the refugees have neither tried to build a successful nation state nor been absorbed and welcomed into another nation state. Neither of these are Israel’s fault (IMO). Compare what happened to the 700,000 Palestinian who fled and were driven out of Israel in 1948 to the 14 million (!) Indian and Pakistan nationals who were displaced in the same year. They built new lives in the lands they were forced to flee to. Or the 900,000 Mizrahi Jews expelled from their homes in the Middle East and North Africa from 1948 onwards – you don’t hear the UN demanding that Syria, Iran, Iraq, etc return their lands to these displaced people.
Finally, Israel has it’s issues (most heinous IMO are the settlements in the West Bank) but based on objective measures, they have managed to build the most liberal and humane nation in the Middle East. (Based on quality of life measures like fairness in law, health outcomes, education outcomes, equality of the sexes, freedom to practice your religion, freedom of expression, etc, the best country to be an Arab is Israel.)
Even if there were merit in that claim, which there is not, the 8 million Jews of Israel will fight to the death to keep their country, and they have nuclear weapons. If your idea of justice requires genocide—the real thing, not the false charge—then your idea of justice needs work.
“European Jews need to go home”. Right so ethnic cleansing?
UN recognised statehood, which subsequent UN moral bankruptcy and lies cannot undermine.
Just fess up A D Kent, you hate Jews.
No, I had the IDF and their supporters – ever since I heard of the USS Liberty. I’m assuming you are one.
You must really dislike the Vietcong.
USS Liberty is a favorite talking point of antisemites, neo-Nazis and their dupes. They can’t explain why the US investigation cleared Israel, except to imply that, of course, “the Jews control” the U.S. government, which has never been remotely true and is if possible even more laughable with reference to America in 1967.
All the buzzwords
You should be writing for the Guardian
Ah – there you go – hide behind Judaism. That one is so last year.
And why is it any likelier that he rather you is a hater of Jews? You can be anti-semitic and still be a zionist – Reinhard Heydrich, Victor Orban etc. If you’re serious about preventing such a devastating event as October 7th you have to look at all causes, including Netanyahu’s neglect of the border with Gaza, in order to prevent it happening again – an activity seemingly too complex to contemplate in a moral universe as simple as yours.
Blind defence of everthing the Israeli government does, does not automatically mean you are working with the Israelis’ best interests in mind – just look at how counterproductive this war (as indeed is the case with any war by a foreign army against an insurgent enemy) has been so far, fought as it partly is to extend the position of Netanyahu and protect him from corruption charges.
Good point worthy of further investigation I think. It seems clear as well that the first group – Zaka – called in to investigate the scene were responsible for headline-grabbing claims, later discredited, such as those of beheaded babies. Not that this means October 7th was not a horrific act, but it does suggest a government keen to manipulate reports to its own advantage and make Hamas’ acts look uniquely evil in comparison with say the thousands of Palestinian civilians killed in Gaza and the West Bank by the IDF and illegal Israeli settlers in the run-up to October 7th.
Did they also discredit the Israeli children burned alive, too? Hamas own body cam footage proved that and more.
Discredited by whom?
Do you also deny the holocaust?
Neither he nor I are denying that October 7th happened – only that it has not been reported entirely truthfully and that some of the government’s initial claims have been discredited, and that like the killings of Palestinians by illegal settlers in the West Bank, these facts have been underreported.
So you think Hamas own body cam footage of the rapes and murders and their obvious pride in their ghastly behaviour wasn’t proof enough?
What absolute bullshit.
Porridge is steak, commissar said so.
Ha’aretz is almost neck and neck with the BBC and the Guardian in its anti-Israel bias.
So, once again, the UK will be providing ‘ logistical’ support to Hamas, by doing the ‘basic‘ governmental day to day, of looking after the Palestinian people, allowing Gaza’s government elect to do the ‘important’ stuff, like killing Israelis. It’s a bit like The UK, France and the USA sending food parcels to WW1 Germany, to combat the suffering, on the civilian population, caused by their naval blockade.
How can we seriously expect things to change if we continually subsidise odious regimes, who care nothing for suffering around about them, by picking up the pieces that they expect ‘gullible’ others to provide. Talk about killing with kindness.
Actually it’s a bit more like the UK, US and French governments providing air cover to the Israelis against attacks from Yemen & Iran so the Israelis can continue the ‘important stuff’ like bombing schools and hospitals and other such acts of depravity.
Killing Israelis. Do you mean killing the terrorists? If not suggest you read
State of Terror, How terrorism created modern Israel; Thomas Suarez.
Would you be happy if someone would write that all Arabs are terrorists?
I suggest you read a newspaper and develop an understanding of their bias.
Hamas is not the government elect. That was 2006. They then took the Strip in 2007. In this case, even Holocaust survivors are accusing the IDF as behaving like the N@zis. The Knesset is an odious regime. RIP Israel.
Nonsense,childish argument, Israel’s reaction to Hamas October 7th atrocities was to punish Palestinians first and foremost,Israel has succeeded in surpassing Hamas for terror acts.
I take it you haven’t seen Haniyeh’s answer, from the comfortable exile in Qatar, to the journalist who asked him why Hamas wouldn’t allow women, children and vulnerable Palestinians to shelter in THOSE tunnels alongside his brave Hamas warriors after the war he started? He said that Hamas “needed the blood” of women and children. Probably the better to fool its useful idiots abroad
They need to be held accountable. They allowed Hamas to be a terrorist group.
It’s much worse than simply supporting terrorists. UNWRA spends most of its budget on ‘education’. Guess what they educate young Palestinian children to believe? It’s not called ’anti-Jew studies’ but it could be. They are part of the problem, not the solution. Watch this terrifying video to discover more https://x.com/koshercockney/status/1814253760291500276?s=46&t=hqt_Pwjw4Y8AMH1Pzz9q_Q
And of course that doesn’t happen in Israel at all. Which is why the young ‘Israelis’ all with European accents and names – are destroying the aid for Palestinians who can’t even access clean water. This is about humanity and you have none.
It is about humanity and terror organizations don’t support it.
And whose fault exactly is it that the gazans don’t have clean water or good infrastructure? You claim it’s the Israelis but how could that be? Gaza gets millions in international aid a year.
I suspect you don’t care to look at these facts because it breaks your narrative. Because ultimately it’s the narrative that matters for people like you, not the facts. You’ve already decided who is bad and who is good, and you selectively cherry pick in order to make yourself feel good. I can think of some other people in history who did that….
What exactly is a “european” name? There are multiple languages in Europe. A lot of Israeli names are in hebrew, which is a middle eastern language.
Another important step has been taken in Europes continuing project to destroy itself from within.
Don’t be so hysterical. The central banks destroyed Europe. Israel is destroying itself.
Yes – your analysis, though oversimplified, is closer to the truth I reckon.
It’s simply common sense. And Five them crédit for getting there sooner rather than later. We might hope for more. Starmer may be smart enough to realise he’d hitched his wagon to a falling star.
“More recently, Defence Secretary John Healey promised the party would apply international law “without fear or favour” in reference to the conflict in Gaza.”
I hadn’t realised that the Labour party is able to “apply international law” … it’s so very Edstone making promises that are impossible to keep.
Seriously, this all seems performative and just words. What we think or say here isn’t going to move the needle. And there’s very little we can do that will actually improve matters in Israel/Palestine. Given our previous achievements in the region, it might be time to step back and give others a chance …
Look, it’s really simple – John Healy is just going to, you know, um, send the gunboats down to the middle east, to a, aeerm, apply ‘international law’, erm, ‘without fear or favour’. And if no gunboats are available, he will send a flotilla with everything from some Cunard cruise liners with geriatrics who will spend good money for a Dead Sea mud bath, to fishing trawlers who can throw industrial quantities of cod at both sides. So, next time Lammy goes on a diplomatic mission down to Israel, he’s gonna, you know, take along a pair of handcuffs so he can bring Bibi in, to hand him over to the ICC. But ‘without fear or favour’ of course, because ‘It is a truth universally acknowledged’ as MH might put it, that the left are just, um you know, ‘better people’, very, umm, morally. Yea, that’s it: ‘very morally better people’.
This made me chuckle. Well written.
Lammy received around £32K from Israeli lobbyists prior to the election, and is a supporter of Labour Friends of Israel. If he goes to Israel it isn’t to give the orders, it’s to receive them. Likewise there’s not been an Atlanticist ‘conference’ five-star schmooz-fest that he’s missed in the last couple of years.
You’re right about the general cakiness of our armed forces though.
Do you really believe that Jews control the world? Have you read anything recently beside Mein Kampf?
He’s not saying Jews control the world. He’s saying that Israel, like many western governments, has close connections with other western powers which it uses to ensure backing for violent/exploitative foreign policies.
Like every other Western power, then. No need to single Israel out.
Yes there is, because we are discussing Israel,which right now is facing genocide charges. If this was about the US in Vietnam or Britain in Iraq, or Britain’s funding of Saudi Arabia’s military action in Yemen (the biggest humanitarian crisis of this century before the slaughter in Gaza began last year), we would also be condemning that.
Trumped up “genocide” charges. So, were the ghastly events of October 7th a Hamas-organised equivalent of Sunday school picnic then? As was Hamas’ threat to repeat them evidence of its cuddly-bunny nature?
False charges
In this case defensive ones. Google Palestinian Media Watch and you may learn something about young lives and older ones which are fed hatred by their “democratically-elected” (albeit decades ago) leadership,
Keep going.. you show yourself to be exactly what you are with every post
Maybe he will fly there on Qatari airlines and bring his brolly.
Just a thought: If Corbyn and the Gaza independents got together, would that not be the genesis of a new party which would immediately have the same strength as Reform in the House of Commons?
They might even win the election eventually. What a bright idea. I’m surprised nobody though about this before.
So, we’re back to funding terrorism.
Been sponsoring and funding terrorism since at least 1923. See
State of Terror, How terrorism created modern Israel; Thomas Suarez.
Also see
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2023-06-21/ty-article-magazine/.highlight/zionist-military-org-efforts-to-recruit-nazis-in-fight-against-the-british-are-revealed/00000188-d93a-d5fc-ab9d-db7ae0ea0000
If you pay taxes – you already were.
It’s a vote winner.
Bastani is basing a big case on a single move. Reinstating funding for UNRWA is not a break with the US alliance. If it is, then one could also argue that abstaining on key votes when the US votes against is similarly a break. It’s a neat argument but based on very little. I would be very surprised if much more happens to back up the sea change Bastani claims is taking place inside Labour. Meanwhile, there are Labour MPs ousted on the Gaza issue who are accusing their victors of terrorism. That is perhaps more significant going forward.
UNRWA is not only at the beck and call of Hamas – UNRWA’s Gaza director, Matthias Schmale, was dismissed in 2021 for slightly diverging from the Hamas line in an interview -, UNRWA’s very existence is making the Palestinian problem intractable. By uniquely giving refugee status to all the descendants of the Arab Palestinian refugees of 1948, even when they just moved from one part of Palestine to another, UNRWA ensures that the Palestinians will never accept a solution that doesn’t include their return to all parts of Palestine, i.e. the destruction of Israel. As long as the world keeps funding UNRWA, the 2-state solution is unattainable. So, for the UK government to support UNRWA while saying that it favors a 2-state solution in Palestine is the height of either idiocy or hypocrisy.
No point in a 2-State solution – doesn’t work. It’s very division is enshrined in the title. One country – The Holy Land. Those who can live in peace can stay. Those who can’t – Bibi, Hamas, Ben-Gvir, Smotrich, settlers and Europeans/US with zero connection to the Holy Land (in terms of ancient Hebrew DNA) can leave. No dual citizenship.
Those who can live in peace can stay.
How long would any Jew survive in a Palestinian majority state? A week? Most Israelis are there because their ancestors were brutalised, murdered and dispossessed in Arab majority states. You’re living in a fantasy world.
This is a laugh. Those who can’t live in peace should leave? That would mean most of Gaza and the West Bank out. A handy way of solving the problem, I suppose, but perhaps not in the way you think.
Precisely this Hardin Jones is a moron. The very logic of his arguments are always and simply “Jews bad gazans good”
You claim that some Jews should have to leave based on lack of DNA similarities with ancient hebrews. Are you an expert in DNA? Where do Jews live then? As an eternal minority their DNA expression was not expressed as a historic majority anywhere. Imagine saying arabs should leave europe based on not having dna linked to europe. Yup that would be a racism.
Hamas server farms under the main UNRWA HQ in Gaza run on electricity Hamas syphons off from the building, with the full knowledge of the UNRWA staff who work there.
I am astonished that a humanitarian action by UK´s PM should be criticised by commentators on this site. While I am surprised that Starmer has taken this position, I am also relieved that he is taking notice of the views of the electorate. It is long past time to seek to end the slaughter in Gaza, as well as the West Bank.
Feeding heroin to the addicted is not a humanitarian action.
Welcome to Unherd. You’re now deep in the belly of the NatCon dragon.
Do you agree that it is long past the time for Hamas to release the hostages?
Yes – and for Israel to release theirs (thousands that have been detained for no reason before October 7th)
Ugh please
Yes. But in the manner of all islamists that would show them to have been wrong to abduct them and maturity/reality testing is not a dependable strength of theirs.
Because throwing money at UNRWA in Gaza has led to the slaughter of Israelis instead?
…. Or it could be titled,”Keir Starmer finally gives in to Hamas and the leftie loonies who support them.”
You really are a sad little fascist.
Or, more correctly, no longer genuflects before the murderous nazis with with Jewish faces.
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2023-06-21/ty-article-magazine/.highlight/zionist-military-org-efforts-to-recruit-nazis-in-fight-against-the-british-are-revealed/00000188-d93a-d5fc-ab9d-db7ae0ea0000
“….many of whom are in his Party”.
Jelly Spined
That UNRWA only functions in Gaza at HAMAS’s pleasure has been known for a long time. Just consider that Matthias Schmale, the UNRWA director in Gaza, was forced out by HAMAS in 2021 for stating the obvious: that the Israeli Air Force’s strikes are, in fact, very precise. https://apnews.com/article/united-nations-middle-east-b03eb29c5b9286fff1d6b80cf6539294
But the problem goes much deeper. UNRWA, who uniquely defines the Palestinian refugee status as hereditary – unlike the UN’s High Commissioner for Refugees – and who enjoys for 5.6 million Palestinian refugees a budget larger than the UNHCR does for 100 million refugees worldwide, is the biggest reason that the Palestinian problem has been festering for 76 years. The UN, via UNRWA, is convincing the Palestinians that, uniquely, they will remain refugees and will never have to resettle in a new location – even within Palestine itself! – until they can reintegrate the areas that their parents and grandparents left in 1948. Since that would mean the elimination of Israel, it will not happen, and thus the Palestinian problem will remain unresolved as long as UNRWA exists.
Forget 1948 – it was 1917 the British Mandate started bringing people into Palestine without the agreement of the indigenous population (which included both Jews & Palestinians). The indigenous population at that time comprised mostly of those who has never left the land (according to their DNA) – many of whom had converted to Islam.
British mandate was established in 1924.
ROFL – your move, Hardin.
Forget 1948 – it was 1917
… or 627
Most of the Jews who went to Palestine pre 1945 were fleeing countries in the Maghreb and Levant following a long series of pogroms going back to 1860 that had nothing to do with the (then non-existent) state of Israel.
If you talk to ordinary Palestinians (ie: Jordanians) you will quickly learn that none of the ‘who did what and when’ sophistries that you employ have any bearing on this conflict except as propaganda aimed at gullible Europeans.
It’s simply that the mere existence of a Jewish state on land once ruled by Muslims is a blasphemy and an affront to their basic sense of self. Read the Quran and the Bukhari hadith. It’s all there in black and white.
The Palestinian problem, as you say, has been festering because the West collectively insists on imposing a murderous nazi state in exile on the Palestinians.
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2023-06-21/ty-article-magazine/.highlight/zionist-military-org-efforts-to-recruit-nazis-in-fight-against-the-british-are-revealed/00000188-d93a-d5fc-ab9d-db7ae0ea0000
Does the current administration in the United States even have a coherent foreign policy from which we might divert?
At present it seems roped along to a variety of ill conceived and open-ended adventures with no central organising principle other than shoreing up ‘American prestige’ around the world.
Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan. What do any of them have in common other than wounded vanity?
What they have in common is standing against evil. That said, I’d be the first to acknowledge that the US can be a bit half-arsed about it.
‘Standing against evil’ is not foreign policy, It’s theology.
Not that the £21M will make any difference. Right now the Occupying forces won’t let anything in. The much hyped US pontoon dropped of 8100 tonnes of aid which was allowed to rot in the sun. The pontoon came in handy for the hostage raid, which killed 3 hostages and 290 Palestinians.
I am shocked. Shocked, I tell you. UK professing to want to conform to international law in defiance of the zionists! What is the world coming to? A pang of conscience? Or a conversion on the road to Mt Zion bringing on a realisation that maybe it does not look too good to prop up the terrorists and demonise the victims who wage war on them? Can it be possible that they have just read
State of Terror, How terrorism created modern Israel; by Thomas Suarez; or innumerable other such publicatiions by divers authors?
Mahmood, relax! Zionists rule the world, we all know that.
Thank goodness for that! Imagine a world ruled by islamists.
Psst… we’re rapidly approaching that …
I deliberated for a good 10 minutes before making this post because I wasn’t sure I wanted to say this out loud on a public fora. But here goes…
This is tangential, but related to the islamic sectarianism mentioned in the article that is now very clearly going to be a feature of UK politics.
I feel Aaron is missing many parts of the lethal bigger picture here, because I don’t think Labour can keep it’s coalition of ethnic minority voters onside for long, no matter what they do – they could institute a policy of withdrawing the UK ambassador from Israel or somesuch tomorrow and it won’t bring those voters back for long. To state this in a more brutal if unattractive way, Jess Phillips could be replaced by Jamila Pachachi as a final sop, but it won’t buy Labour more than a brief reprieve.
Labour have had the islamic community as a pretty much monolithic voting block for years, naked clientelism, which is now going to unravel in a very ugly way, because the islamic community have realised they don’t need Labour any more, because they have sufficient numbers. It looks to me there are around 30 seats across the UK which Labour will eventually lose, potentially as soon as the next election, and it is very clearly only a matter of time before those islamic MPs coalesce under an islamic party. What their espoused policies will be can be guessed at, but from my perspective they will be nothing I want any part of, under any circumstances. My guess is that Labour will lose many of the likes of Sadiq Khan, because for them, staying within Labour will come to be viewed by many in the islamic community as a betrayal, so those types of figures will have a choice of flipping into the new sectarian vehicles, or losing their positions.
Parking the schadenfreude of Jess Phillips and Angela Rayner being screamed abuse by people they long pandered to and who used to vote for them in exchange, it is clear to me this will force the hand of the various other ethnicities in the UK, who will then create their own sectarian pressure groups – a horrible prospect. Because those other groups will have both, not much choice if they want a voice to counter other groups who have gained outsize influence, and a template of how to go about gaining such an outsize influence.
Contrary to the condescension of the left (ref a couple of pieces in the graun yesterday, one by John Harris and another by David Kynaston) I don’t think anyone is politically naive. Those writers think they can hold back what they call ‘populism’, ignoring the fact that large scale sectarianism has already been imported into the UK, often enough as deliberate policy. Nobody is stupid, people can see this happening under their noses, and they are *not* going to be bought off with little sops. John Harris recommended Labour to confront Reform as selling snake oil, and I would like to see what possible arguments they think they have up their sleeve other than saying to people that Reform are scamming you, because telling people they are dumb as a line of attack is of course *really going to work*. Or perhaps not, as the case may be.
Having been in the UK from the early seventies there is not much anyone can tell me about the politics of race or class or the effects of technology on economies that would come as a surprise, because I lived through it here over five odd decades. It gives me no pleasure to say this. I voted for Reform in the election just gone, not because I buy their political, economic or technology package, which is thin at best, or because I’m especially enamored of Farage and Tice (although to be clear both are clearly democrats to the core, and I have known enough racists over the years to know that Farage is not remotely racist), but because I want to put a stop to everything I’m seeing, from some green candidate screaming ‘allah u akbar’ on winning, to unpolicable cities and towns rife with drugs and violence, to big fractures across the country on sectarian lines, which is really a recipe for a low growth, low productivity horrid society (and I have seen enough of those over the years to know what I am taking about). And I cannot any longer see how it can be done outside of Reform. The main parties have deliberately brought about these conditions, and demonstrably have no interest in fixing any of this. I am just one vote, but they have lost me forever. And I can tell you, if they have lost people like me, they are in very big trouble.
Thanks for your thoughts and honesty. Reform however, are closet Thatcherites run by a former banker with contempt for workers seeking to improve their lot (see how he reacted to the strikes of the RMT, many of whose members voted for Brexit). What do you really expect Reform will do for ordinary people? Their chief solution to all problems seems to be lowering immigration. I have a small degree of sympathy with that suggestion but only if it is combined with constructive policies of investment in public services and an attempt to reverse privatisation (which across almost all industries has been disastrous for the consumers it was supposed to serve) – which is something they’ll never do.
You can talk about Labour’s disconnect with working people, and I agree that – as with almost all parliamentary parties – they are to some extent bought out of properly representing their constituents by the big money required to make it/receive favourable press coverage. But, if we look at the policies of Labour governments, especially those of Blair and Attlee (too early to tell for Starmer though there are promising signs), there’s far more evidence of redistribution that has helped ordinary people in many areas across a long history (Attlee’s establishment of the NHS, Blair’s successful spending increases on the NHS, on education, vast improvements in the warming and weatherproofing of social housing, Gordon Brown’s Sure Start program etc) than there are for Conservative governments (and what in of Reform’s policy package really shows they’ll be any different?), or have I read the record wrong?
In 2004 Gordon Brown deliberately broke the link between housing costs and interest rate policy. Meanwhile Blair opened the borders. The consequence has been the largest upward transfer of wealth in the country’s history and the virtual collapse of our public services.
Set against that undeniable reality the minor measures you refer to are utterly trivial.
The virtual collapse of our public services
According to an IFS report NHS outcomes went up by a third under Blair, homelessness dived, as did child poverty – quite the reverse of what has happened under the Tories, with the UK now boasting 4 million children in poverty.
Tell me again that the Tories have a better track record with serving ordinary people. I’m genuinely interested to hear because no one is ever able to tell me how. I might concede Thatcher’s Right to Buy, but ultimately, by drying up the stock of social housing it has contributed to soaring housing costs and so cannot be counted as a long-term good for the country.
You are a Labour partisan, and that’s fine. But I am most certainly not going engage in an unsophisticated ding-dong by each of us flinging supposed achievements and failures by governments in the past, in exchange after exchange – if that’s your bag, I suggest the Punch and Judy of PMQ where you can get plenty of all that, but I have no interest in that kind of debate because it’s mere projection. What I invite you to do instead, is look around you, and ask if you like the UK as a society as is right now, and like where it’s headed. If you do, fine, there is nothing more to say. If you don’t, I suggest putting your alligences aside for a moment and asking the question: how have we got here, and what you think might be done about it, other than exchanging one set of milquetoast politicians for another.
I’m not a Labour partisan, I happen to have mainly voted LibDem in past elections to try to keep the Conservatives out (a party for whom you tellingly seem to have nothing good to say.)
But since when was a respectful discussion about the effectiveness of policies, both proposed and in the past (please do outline exactly what Reform will do for ordinary people in material terms) an ‘unsophisticated ding-dong?’ Could it be that you would rather just not be challenged?
I look around the UK and see an unproductive and unnecessarily impoverished country that has too long been hostage to a form of rentier capitalism which has flourished under the Conservatives (and, to a degree, been enabled by the Labour right before them), though I know your question is really an eloquent albeit oblique way of asking: do I feel comfortable with a growing Muslim population? The answer, based on the greater respect I have received from Muslims in and outside of the classroom, is yes. Though as I said in my comment, I’m open to discussions about lowering immigration and improving processes of assimilation (yet you seem convinced I’m not).
I also disagree with your characterisation of the four new Independent candidates (five, if you include Corbyn) as representing a purely Islamic sectarianism or that their campaigns were especially aggressive. As the above article says, and you might not like it, three quarters of the British have consistently been in favour of a ceasefire in Gaza from the beginning, whereas no more than 7% of the population are Muslim i.e. ceasefire has long had broad, non-Muslim support. Much of the ‘abuse’ that the Labour right, like Thangam Debbonaire and Jonathan Ashworth claimed to ‘suffer’ whilst on the doorstep were in reality fair questions politicians should expect to be asked while on out on campaign, such as ‘do you support a ceasefire in Gaza?’ Meanwhile, little of the racism or indeed death threats aimed at these Independent candidates has been reported because they are ordinary people without connections in the media.
In addition and by way of explanation for their success despite low financial and media support, these independents are generally upstanding members of their community for whom they work tirelessly, campaigning on policies of genuine redistribution. Of course the likes of Unherd and Talk TV would rather you just understood all these people through the prism of one green councillor who once shouted ‘allah u akbar’ on winning, and it’s your choice if you would rather smear this triumph of people-powered campaigning with one unrelated moment – but now you have my perspective.
Again, I’m sorry if you feel affronted by my ‘unsophisticated ding-dong.’ I wish you all the best with winning over voters under 50 with your remarks.
Thanks for your thoughts and honesty. Reform however, are closet Thatcherites run by a former banker with contempt for workers seeking to improve their lot (see how he reacted to the strikes of the RMT, many of whose members voted for Brexit). What do you really expect Reform will do for ordinary people? Their chief solution to all problems seems to be lowering immigration. I have a small degree of sympathy with that suggestion but only if it is combined with constructive policies of investment in public services and an attempt to reverse privatisation (which across almost all industries has been disastrous for the consumers it was supposed to serve) – which is something they’ll never do.
You can talk about Labour’s disconnect with working people, and I agree that – as with almost all parliamentary parties – they are to some extent bought out of properly representing their constituents by the big money required to make it/receive favourable press coverage. But, if we look at the policies of Labour governments, especially those of Blair and Attlee (too early to tell for Starmer though there are promising signs), there’s far more evidence of redistribution that has helped ordinary people in many areas across a long history (Attlee’s establishment of the NHS, Blair’s successful spending increases on the NHS, on education, vast improvements in the warming and weatherproofing of social housing, Gordon Brown’s Sure Start program etc) than there are for Conservative governments (and what in Reform’s policy package really shows they’ll be any different?), or have I read the record wrong?
Tremendous post, thank you.
An excellent post, and unfortunately, a realistic prognosis.
So you all think prosperity will be restored if only immigration numbers go down. Tell me, how exactly is that going to work given that we are also facing demographic collapse and rely on immigrants for our public services to function? Your top 5 examples of countries that have turned their economies around simply by lowering immigration – go!
Welcome to Lebanon.
Thank you for your piece. Absolutely correct and spot on ! I have no trust in Farage he and Tice will occasionally come out with buzz words but they are both fully on-board with the extreme communitarian multiculturalism which political Islam thrives on! What this country actually needs is to move towards a secular, republican system where immigrants are integrated as individuals, not as communities.
Thanks for this. Creature feeling for you and good post.
Like you I made my decision not to vote for the Labour candidate, who was Muslim, because he minimised the threat from increasingly fractious Islamism to the very few Jewish people here and insisted that antisemitism had been rooted out of Labour. I told him I remained to be convinced, only to be condescended to in a sentence which began, “Now listen darling…” and continued in an equally nauseating tone. I couldn’t vote for the independent candidate, who seemed distinctly suss, so I voted Tory rather than support Starmer the Spineless. I feel vindicated.
And I renewed my passport.
This in the MOS today. You couldn’t make it up as Richard Littlejohn would say. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13681001/This-calling-Video-reveals-hate-clerics-follower-roaming-remote-Scottish-roaming-bid-raise-3-5million-donations-turn-Islamic-homeland-believers.html
I guess kier is a trumpette.
Does this mean that we are starting to see the Left having their noses rubbed in Diversity? How ironic…
You state incorrectly that an already-published review found Israel had not even submitted evidence for such claims. Israel submitted a mass of evidence and screenshots to the UN it did not submit an independent report. The UN want to gloss over this and their investigation is half hearted. 12 UNWRA staff participated in the massacres and they or their contracts have been terminated, another 30 assisted crimes relating to October 7 and as many as 12% are Hamas affiliates. UNWRA have not had a proper vetting process and reports from 2022 show their schools teach the hatred of Jews and glorify terrorism. This is not an organisation that currently deserves £21m funding. Other humanitarian organisations need to start from a clean base.
UNRWA in Gaza is a key component of Hamas’s money laundering and terror financing. Unlike UNRWA in the West Bank, UNRWA in Gaza pays its 13,000 employees in dollars and charges them high exchange rates so that it can use the proceeds for terror financing. A lawsuit filed last month will expose the details.
Even if the author hasn’t heard about the lawsuit, there’s simply no excuse for not knowing that an UNRWA teacher imprisoned one of the hostages in his home, or that key Hamas infrastructure has been built around UNRWA facilities.
It is often said that Britain gave two contradictory promises, one to the Jews and one to Arabs. Had the area now lying between Turkey in the north and Yemen in the south been given to the Arabs to create a unitary Arab state and then say the area currently occupied by Israel in its 1967 border confirmed as the Jewish state, that would have been an equitable division of the land. One can argue about percentages but Jews have been in Palestine since antiquity. The original sin was that whilst giving promises to Jew and Arab, the reality was that Britain and France were always intending to divide much of the area up between themselves.