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October 6, 2024 - 8:00am
On the eve of the most important day of the Conservative leadership race so far, Iran launched over 180 ballistic missiles at Israel. Tensions in the Middle East were escalating, but would it cut through to the debate about the Tory leadership?
Two candidates made standing alongside Israel a key part of their main conference speech the following day. James Cleverly told the assembled members that he had been the first foreign minister to visit Israel after the 7 October attacks, before stating his “unwavering support to the people of Israel”. Tom Tugendhat took pride in having been sanctioned by Tehran, where the order to send the missiles had originated. There was no doubt whose side they were on.
That Israel didn’t make it into the speeches of Kemi Badenoch or Robert Jenrick was hardly a reflection of their lack of support. Badenoch kicked off the conference by praising Israel’s “moral clarity in dealing with its enemies and the enemies of the West”. Its actions against Hezbollah were, she said, “extraordinary”.
Jenrick went furthest of all the candidates. Having donned his “Hamas are terrorists” hoodie, he told the Conservative Friends of Israel (CFI) reception (attended by all four candidates) that, under his leadership, the next Tory manifesto would pledge to move the British embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. It was a plan previously considered during Liz Truss’s brief premiership, following the example of the United States in 2018, but the proposals were dropped by Rishi Sunak.
Jenrick’s dramatic pledge on the embassy was overshadowed only by a seemingly bolder one: to display the Star of David at “every airport and point of entry to our great country”. Yet after some misleading reporting, it emerged that he had proposed Israel be added to the list of countries eligible to use electronic passport gates, resulting in its flag being shown alongside the EU, American and Australian flags, among others, at passport control.
Although it was a former Tory prime minister, Arthur Balfour, who issued the declaration pledging British support for a “national home for the Jewish people”, Conservative affections for Israel haven’t always been effusive. Anglo-Israeli relations arguably reached their nadir under a Tory prime minister when, during the Yom Kippur War in October 1973, Edward Heath refused to allow American planes to refuel at British bases on their way to support Israel.
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SubscribeHow jarring to be reminded of the walking disaster that was Edward Heath. Hope springs eternal in the shape of Kemi Badenoch but the grim truth is that – with the huge exception of Margaret Thatcher – all Tory Party leaders since Churchill have been notable for their gruel-thin conservative instincts. Soft-lefties-on-a slight-time-delay as one Unherd columnist once described them. But then there was Mrs T. Of course, in 2024, a longed for conservative counter-revolution cannot simply invent a Thatcher just because it needs one. But it can recognise the template. Hope springs eternal. https://grahamcunningham.substack.com/p/mrs-thatcher-and-the-good-life
I think the article is further sad evidence of the Amerification of UK politics, whereby the Conservative Party bereft of any ideas or imagination itself, look to the US to see what it should be doing. That now seems to mean gross subservience to the Jewish/ Israeli cause whereby no support can be too much support for the Jewish state and it is far more important to trumpet their support for Israel than it is to support the home nations here in the UK. I.e. Do absolutely nothing about the Batley school teacher and the islamification of this country, for instance, and yet back a far away country as they bomb, shell and missile the more or less defenceless indigenous people, killing tens of thousands people in the process. What a contemptible party the Tories are. I just hope Reform does not follow the same slavish route.
Oh dear – proofreading. I think the word in the final sentence should have been “indissoluable”. As it appears, Evans is saying that the Tories’ bond with Israel cannot be worked out.
In the wider picture, there are two issues here: the appalling and unprecedented antisemitism which is directed at British Jews, and the conflict in the Middle East. The two have been conflated, with the conflict overshadowing the antisemitism. British Jews are the obvious losers here.
Oddly, it is British Jews who are spearheading this conflation. This begs the question: why?