The decision by Keir Starmer to offer recognition for Palestine in the autumn is the result of a miscalculation which is rarely referred to in the Government.
The Prime Minister and his foreign secretary, David Lammy, wrongly assumed in Opposition, that in giving full backing to Israel’s military action to destroy Hamas’s military capability in Gaza after the horrors of the 7 October attacks two years ago, this would yield a clear and quick outcome.
Instead, we have seen a messy war of attrition which has killed, displaced and maimed tens of thousands of civilians in Gaza, with no end in sight and an Israeli leadership which is determined to finish the job in destroying Hamas – but with no clear criteria for what would count as victory.
The Prime Minister has followed an upward trend across France, Germany and now the UK away from “whatever it takes” rhetoric of support for Israel towards a position intended to wield pressure on the Netanyahu government for a change or course.
In domestic political terms – and given the very limited leverage the UK has over events in Gaza – he seeks to make a pivot in his outlook on the conflict a clearer part of Labour’s political identity.
But the policy shift towards recognition of Palestine is a different tack to supporting more humanitarian aid or extending a welcoming hand to some 300 young Gazans in need of advanced medical treatment who will be allowed access to the NHS – in the same way that treatment rights were given to Ukrainians who have fled the fighting zones. The unspoken aim of the recognition of Palestine, alongside a genuine horror at the rise of child and infant deaths and malnutrition in Gaza, is a more vocal alignment with the Palestinian cause.
That is what Starmer wants to emphasise by advocating for a Palestinian state to be recognised in a process which would be separate from the return of the Israeli hostages; and which fudges the fact that while Hamas is in control of Gaza, there is no clear negotiating partner to engage with (as Hamas and Fatah, which governs the West Bank, are rival forces with a claim to represent the territory).
It is essentially a cry of frustration, not a policy: Israel can give ground on conceding that famine conditions in Gaza are unacceptable (even assuming it can be persuaded to drop the claim that Hamas is solely responsible for this outcome) but nothing follows from that about the viability of a two-state solution.
The Netanyahu government last accepted in 2009 any commitment to the route charted by the Oslo Accords, even in principle. And since then Israeli opinion has moved decisively away from the idea. In effect, advocates are asking for a different Israel to the one that exists – which is never a great starting point for progress.
It means the policy is a chimera: recognising a Palestinian state without the means to create one. This is an ongoing conflict, which means that this very basic test of recognition flounders unless the two sides agree on borders or deal with the status of Jerusalem. This is a tangle of competing objectives, none of which are realisable in the near future.
What it does reflect is Starmer’s fear that fence-sitting on the Palestinian issue could endanger his government.
Not uncoincidentally, this move has come as the ghosts of the Corbyn era set up shop in a nascent party to the left of Labour, seeking votes among the young (votes at 16 may turn out to be a mixed blessing for Labour in that regard) and areas of high Muslim population where fury over Gaza is more likely to act as a driver of votes towards independent candidates than elsewhere.
Talking to ministers close to the decision to support the recognition strategy, one common theme was a fear that Starmer had, as one Cabinet figure put it, “backed himself into a Blair mark 2 position”, a faultline similar to the Iraq conflict in which many people uncomfortable at the leader’s full-throated support for the invasion felt subject to a loyalty test to a commitment they did not feel comfortable about.
If that was true about taking on the appalling regime of Saddam Hussein, how much more salient is it in an era of fast-spreading social media images of suffering and dying children caught up in the bombardments in Gaza?
The heat has not come only from the left of the party, with historically pro-Palestinian connections, but also from impeccable Starmerite centrists, including Shabana Mahmood, the Justice Secretary, and Wes Streeting, the Health Secretary, both of whom are in constituencies vulnerable to pressure on the right from Reform UK and the left from Gaza-allied voters abandoning Labour.
square IAN DUNT Starmer is finally recognising Palestine - but it isn't enough
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But there is a price to be paid for this positioning and the main point of contention is a growing sense that Starmer’s beliefs are so mutable that reassurances and positions can be downgraded when the mood music changes.
Many Jewish supporters of Labour are horrified by the images from Gaza and supportive of a push to amp up pressure for humanitarian aid to be let into the war-torn territory. But as one prominent donor observes, the tensions over the era of unaddressed antisemitism in Labour has not gone away: Starmer defined his leadership of Labour with a ruthless rout of the anti-Israel left.
“Now,” says one donor, “the message is essentially to threaten Israel with recognition, with a lot less emphasis on the need for Hamas to fulfil conditions. Who knows what Keir’s position will be next? It’s a whirligig.”
The problem this stores up for Starmer is that in trying to solve one problem via the “Palestinianisation” of his outlook, he has drawn attention to a vulnerability: namely a tendency to embrace and drop positions of principle. The core Starmer belief (if there is such a thing) is that the “10 years of Labour” promise of solid electoral revival can be achieved, if Labour can avoid an internal fissure and focus on the rise of Reform.
The wars of the Middle East have a habit of haunting Britain’s leaders – Starmer has made a choice to embrace friction with Israel for the price of buying time and better opinion in the Labour Party.
But there are dangers in making promises which can’t be fulfilled in practice. It’s a recipe to ease tensions at home but nowhere near a durable plan for peace where it counts – in Gaza.
Anne McElvoy is co host of POLITICO/Sky TV’s podcast, Politics at Sam and Anne’s
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