When Keir Starmer takes part in the signing ceremony for the Gaza peace deal in Sharm El-Sheikh today, he will do so mostly as a spectator.
Whatever the UK Government may insist, Britain had very little to do with the negotiating of a deal that was struck due largely to the efforts of Qatar, Egypt, Turkey and the United States.
When British Cabinet ministers insisted at the weekend that the UK had played a “vital role” in securing the ceasefire deal, the claim drew immediate scorn from those closely involved in the peace talks. Israel’s deputy foreign minister directly rebutted the idea. Mike Huckabee, the US ambassador to Israel and a key player in the negotiations, dismissed the suggestion as “delusional”.
While Steve Witkoff, Donald Trump’s Special Envoy to the Middle East, later tried to smooth things over by stating that the UK had played a “vital role in assisting and coordinating efforts that have led us to this historic day”, nobody was convinced. It was little more than a diplomatic bone being half-heartedly chucked across the Atlantic.
Even Downing Street says Starmer is in Egypt to pay “particular tribute” to Donald Trump – our Prime Minister reduced to a fawning cheerleader in the latest act of obsequiousness that the UK Government seems to believe is necessary to maintain the “Special Relationship” in the time of Trump.
Trump deserves the credit he is getting for his role in securing the deal. Starmer is deservedly getting none. While the US President appears to be achieving – for now at least – something that for so long seemed impossible, the UK has been reduced to a minor player in the Middle East. The country’s warnings, pleas and demands have ignored at every turn.
square ALEXANDER DRAGONETTI I was a British diplomat in Gaza – for peace to last, five things need to happen
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Much of this problem predates Starmer. It reflects how little leverage Britain has retained in the region, especially with the Netanyahu government. Labour came to power without significant means to shape events in the region, not helped by the disdain with which Netanyahu has long treated more liberal, peacenik supporters of Israel.
But as the war went on, any political capital the UK did have was lost through public statements that seemed designed more to appease critics at home than to genuinely influence the course of the conflict.
As the missiles rained down on Gaza, a political minefield was created back home – Starmer trapped between those demanding that the UK stand by a key ally in its hour of need, and others urging him to cut ties with a country they accused of committing crimes against humanity. Navigating a path through these conflicting demands required dexterity, political poise and a nimbleness that would have tested any leader, let alone one not renowned for his political nous. Instead, the Government appears to have alienated both sides by either going too far or not far enough. At almost every turn, Britain followed the international herd rather than leading from the front, satisfying nobody.
The relationship between the two nations frayed and the Israeli government’s lack of respect for their British counterparts became more and more obvious. Time and again, Netanyahu and his ministers thought nothing of making their disdain for Starmer and his Government abundantly clear, regularly issuing public statements dismissing, mocking and condemning UK decisions in unusually undiplomatic terms.
Even if it had few cards in the first place, Downing Street has not played its hand well. The trump card that Britain has always held in its back pocket was squandered with absolutely no discernible benefit at all.
Starmer had long insisted that the UK would only recognise an independent state of Palestine when doing so would have the maximum possible impact. In the end, it had none.
Absurdly, the Labour Government decided to recognise a Palestinian state without any conditions being placed on Palestinian leaders. It failed to use the opportunity to pressure Hamas to release the hostages or lay down its arms. It did not bother to use the prospect of statehood to force the Palestinian Authority to democratise and reform.
Instead, it tried to use the threat of recognising a Palestinian state to pressure Israel to end the war in Gaza, drawing nothing but more withering scorn from Netanyahu. As Britain officially recognised a state of Palestine in a naive attempt to force an end to the fighting, the war raged on unabated. One of the few diplomatic tools that UK prime ministers have had at their disposal in recent years, one they have carefully delayed using until the right moment, was wasted by Starmer.
Downing Street does not appear to have grasped how to do business with Netanyahu, one of the world’s most cunning, hard-headed political operators and a man who responds to power and strength, not airy demands or carefully-worded pleas.
The Israeli prime minister is motivated purely by power politics and his own political survival. Trump, who is of a similar mould, understood this instinctively. Starmer never seems to have done so. Instead, UK statements and warnings about the war in Gaza were couched in moralistic terms of the sort so irrelevant to politicians like Netanyahu.
What would the consequences be if Israel did not heed the demands the UK was making of it? Why should the Israeli government take any notice? That was never made clear. Instead, UK ministers continued to plead with Netanyahu to do the right thing. It is not at all clear whether the Israeli prime minister understands such a concept. Starmer and his team give the impression of having completely misunderstood who Netanyahu id and how he operates.
Now, the relationship between the UK and Israel is at its worst point in decades. Many might welcome this fact – at last, they will say, there is distance between Britain and a country that has been accused of heinous crimes against international law. But from a pragmatic UK security and diplomatic perspective, the breakdown in relations should come as a concern. Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East. It is an important strategic ally and a vital source of intelligence about threats to UK security. Its fractured relationship with Britain is not good for UK interests.
To his credit, Starmer has emerged as a key player during negotiations over the war in Ukraine. He has not been able to exert even a fraction of that influence over events of the Middle East. Instead, his presence at the signing ceremony in Egypt is a necessary formality – in reality, few would have noticed or cared whether he showed up or not. For much of the last century, Britain was the dominant power in the Middle East. As the last few days have made clear, it is now almost entirely irrelevant.
Ben Kentish presents his LBC show from Monday to Friday at 10pm, and is a former Westminster editor
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