Keir Starmer is trying to bang war drum louder than Johnson – but Labour right’s habitual support for Israel now clashes with his plan
The Israeli government has put Keir Starmer and his allies in a pickle by refusing to sign a UN Security Council resolution condemning Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. The country has also declined to say how it will vote on a similar UN General Assembly motion when it is put to the GA.
Given Keir Starmer’s attempts to look more eager for war than Boris Johnson – part of his ongoing attempt to persuade billionaires and hardline Tory voters that he is no threat to their interests – this gives him a problem. He and his supporters habitually support Israel, but now Israel’s position clashes with what passes for electoral strategy in Starmer’s office.
The problem is compounded by the fact that the Erdington by-election is only two days away and by all accounts going disastrously – Starmer claimed Ukraine was the reason he did not attend a regional party conference, but in reality he then went to Erdington to try to shore up Labour’s imploding campaign in what could be a tight contest despite Tory chaos – and a change in tack would be and look weak to voters.
But it’s beyond difficult to imagine Starmer and co condemning Israel for failing to condemn Russia – a ploy that the Labour right has freely and dishonestly used against the Labour left. So the safe bet is that they will just ignore it completely and hope nobody asks them about it. None of the ‘usual suspects’ of the pro-Israel Labour right – JLM, LFI, Akehurst, Starmer himself and others – appears to have so much as mentioned it.
Which would be an absolute open goal for any journalist or interviewer worthy of the name – but the appalling state of the so-called ‘mainstream’ media makes it almost unthinkable that any of them will actually do their job and slot it home.
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