The statement Keir Starmer made on Tuesday announcing the government’s intention to recognise the state of Palestine sounded as if it had been drafted and re-drafted so many times that no one thought to check if it still made grammatical or logical sense.
Hence the initial confusion: did this mean Britain will recognise Palestine or not? The statement said the government would do so at the United Nations General Assembly in September “unless…” the Israeli government did four things. But one of the conditions listed was a commitment to a two-state solution, something to which Benjamin Netanyahu would never agree.
So it seemed clear that, whatever the deliberate ambiguities of the rest of the statement, recognition would be going ahead in September. It was a victory for those members of the cabinet who had been pushing for it – David Lammy, Shabana Mahmood, Yvette Cooper, Wes Streeting and others – with the support of the silent majority of Labour MPs.
Not that there was any triumphalism – unless you count Emily Thornberry, Labour chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee, saying: “I think it’s great news” – because the situation in Gaza is so serious and the chances of recognition making a difference on the ground are so small. But there was no question that this was an important shift in government policy that had been brought about by quiet pressure behind the scenes from the parliamentary Labour Party.
Then questions started to be asked about the rest of the prime minister’s statement, about the demand that Hamas release the hostages and the phrase “no one side will have a veto” on the government’s final decision in September. Did that mean that recognition of Palestine would be conditional on the release of the hostages?
When Starmer was asked, in a short encounter with journalists today, he wouldn’t give a Yes or No answer to that question, which I take to be the equivalent of “No”.
So I think British recognition will go ahead, unless something dramatic happens over the next month, such as Netanyahu ceasing to be prime minister of Israel.
I don’t think Starmer wanted to make this change. But I think he was going to do it before Emmanuel Macron changed French policy on recognition last week. Macron set the context, and Mark Carney, the leader of the third G7 nation to make the switch, confirmed it with his announcement last night.
What mattered above all was the state of opinion among Labour MPs. Starmer can remember what happened to Tony Blair in July 2006 – and if he can’t, Jonathan Powell, his national security adviser, who was Blair’s chief of staff, can remind him.
That was when Israel responded to Hezbollah’s killing of two Israeli soldiers by invading Lebanon. Labour MPs wanted Blair to condemn this “disproportionate” response. Blair refused. Labour MPs wrote letters demanding a change of leadership. Tom Watson, a junior defence minister, resigned.
By September, Blair was visiting a north London academy school to announce that the imminent annual Labour conference would be his last as prime minister – although he didn’t actually leave office for another nine months.
Starmer, after a year in Downing Street, is in a similar position to Blair after nine years.
Blair, having already said he wouldn’t fight another election, refused to bow to his party. “If I had condemned Israel, it would have been more than dishonest,” Blair wrote in his memoir. “It would have undermined the worldview I had come to hold passionately. So I didn’t.”
Starmer cannot afford such a devil-may-care attitude, so he has yielded to pressure from his MPs.
There have been some attempts to explain the shift in his position that I think are not quite right. He is trying to head off the Corbyn-Sultana party, it is said, especially in constituencies, such as his own, with a significant Muslim vote. These are factors, of course, although the Corbynites are not going to be assuaged by recognition of Palestinian statehood – Zarah Sultana thinks Starmer belongs in The Hague, presumably for the crime of disagreeing with her.
But the main reason Starmer has shifted his position is because Labour MPs demanded it. No prime minister can defy their parliamentary party for long on an issue that they care about. That is why Starmer U-turned on the winter fuel payment and on disability benefits, and it is why he has U-turned on this.
Whatever you may think of the right or wrong of the final position – and I can guess what Blair’s view would be on each of them – the reason for it is that it is what the majority of Labour MPs want.
They want to recognise Palestine because they think it is a way to try to end the conflict in Gaza. Some of them may want to appease their constituents, but most of them are sincere in their horror of this unequal war – in which they reflect British public opinion generally.
Whatever anyone thinks of Starmer’s decision, they should not be surprised by his instinct for survival.
