Labour, the US and the Middle East: We’ve been here before
JVL Introduction
In this fascinating, spine-chilling account of the Labour Party’s attitude to Middle East conflicts in recent times, Mike Phipps traces the Party’s convoluted posturings over the war on Iraq and the earlier Gulf War in particular.
Principle has never been its strong card, but rather electoral calculation and trailing behind the United States with international law something to pay lip service to, but not to respect.
Even in its own terms, it has delivered remarkably little benefit to Labour.
On the situation today Phipps says: “To be brutally blunt, Starmer is not remotely interested in the human rights of Palestinians.”. Under him “there is a new emphasis on tailing behind the American line on the Middle East in a manner unseen since Blair and Iraq”.
It is not proving popular…
This article was originally published by Labour Hub on Thu 2 Nov 2023. Read the original here.
Labour, the US and the Middle East: We’ve been here before
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Cabinet papers for 1965 suggest that Harold Wilson was unable to send British troops to Vietnam because of his small majority and because of the opposition from a significant number of his MPs.
It is also worth recalling that Defence Secretary Denis Healey was particularly hostile to President Johnson. In his 1989 memoirs, he writes: “Lyndon Johnson was a monster.”
Neil Kinnock was probably never the strong opponent of nuclear weapons that people thought he was. A true believer is unlikely to have behaved on the issue in the way that he did. In his memoirs, Healey challenges the claim that Labour lost the 1987 election because of its stance on nuclear weapons. In 1992, and with a different stance on the issue, Labour still lost.
One difficulty for Labour Party members is the inability to oppose the leadership from inside the Party. Resolutions are routinely ruled out of order. Discussions are closed down, Entire CLPs are foreclosed. elected councillors and delegates are removed. shortlists are rigged. elected officials suspended. MPs are silenced with the threat of expulsion. The entire bureaucracy is locked down and controlled by Starmer and his supporters, and the Labour Friends of Israel operate openly as Party within a Party. If Starmer does have a principle, it’s Israel.
1. Steven Taylor is right to say “If Starmer does have a prin iple, it’s Israel.” Indeed, he has declared himself a proud Zionist. In other words, he aligns himself explicitly with the very project that has caused the current carnage.
2. Regarding Blair, his post-Prime Minister acceptance as the “Quartet”‘s pointman was utterly grotesque – a nauseating attempt to put clean cuffs on a butcher’s shirt.
3. There will be differences within JVL on emphasis and solutions, but surely we can all campaign to “Stop arming Israel”…inside and outside the Labour Party.
The Labour is now and always has been a pillar of the establishment, rarely giving a few crumbs to our own people. How can anyone with a conscience, Muslim, Jew, Christian or aetheist, support this racist imperialist endeavour any longer? The matter of “what next if…” will emerge. The trades unions are the key to a new party – as Ken Loach has so eloquently pointed out. Anyone who believes the Labour Party will return to a democratic socialist party if Starmer and the right are removed is a fool. It is intrinsically linked to Israel, the colonialism of Britains past and is a weapon to ensure the status quo is maintained. It supports genocide in Israel and war around the world. No more. Not in our name.
Mike Phipps, what a great summation, pointing to Jeremy Corbyn’s attitude to the US lights up the rumour that it was the US that was damaging to his campaign. Phipps is right on every point, we have to draw our own conclusions but it points to not electing internationalists in future elections, Starmer must go.
Keir Starmer’s now infamous reply on LBC as to whether a siege was appropriate, ‘cutting off power, cutting off water?’ – surely gave the State of Israel the green light to commit that particular war crime. To say, as the Leader of the Opposition/government in waiting, ‘Israel does have that right’, was either a spectacular moment of brain drain or the most politically reprehensible remark to make on the world stage where Israel is repeatedly said to be at war with Hamas. For Israel’s collective punishment on the people of Gaza clearly operates to conflate the Palestinian people with Hamas and thus to justify both that and other subsequent war crimes. But I ask you, on what planet is it ever a political right to deny a people the basic necessities of life? Water? Food? Medicine?
To think that it’s a backbench MP, Andy McDonald being made by the MSM to explain his words on the stage of that London March! Ahem! What about the Labour Leader’s words that day on LBC, whether intentionally or not, giving timely support to what is a known war crime?
And now, just to add to this, the UK Leader of the Opposition won’t call for a ceasefire! In contrast to Starmer’s mealy-mouthed speech, McDonald’s words sounded completely literal and sincere to me. But given the accusation of some darker, hidden meaning, his suspension by Labour is a painful reminder of what Mohammed El-Kurd wrote not long before about semantic vs systematic and material violence: ‘A drone is one thing, but a trope—a trope is unacceptable.’
After what he’s already both said, and omitted to say, how can we let Starmer become Prime Minister? The thought of that is obscene!
Labour under Starmer is nothing more than a Potemkin proxy of Israel and the USA’s unelected permanent government. Starmer’s behaviour since winning the Leadership on a platform of lies is based on controlling the Party through false accusations, suspension, expulsions and rigged shortlists in a whirlwind of anti-Corbynism and routinely voiced rote boilerplate accusations of anti-semitism.
This follows from Starmer’s complete unwillingness to negotiate an agreement over the terms of Brexit with the May government with any degree of competence in the hope that a democratic decision made by the largest electorate the UK has ever had could be overturned, thereby creating the conditions for May’s resignation and the opening for a Johnson government.
Then there was his deliberate insistence, completely against a highly nuanced Party policy on Brexit, “In the aftermath of the local elections and particularly the EU elections, there are many in the Labour party who feel we need to be very clear about a second referendum and about making the case for remain.
“That’s certainly what I’m advocating, discussions are going on at the moment, I hope we can resolve it pretty soon, and that will be a material step in the right direction as far as I’m concerned.”
I find it impossible to imagine a more divisive and deliberate election loser in 2019.
My hope is that there are enough pissed off members and former members of the Labour Party to band together as an electoral organisation which will provide the electors with an alternative to the Labour Party, and to ensure that Starmer, a Zionist shill who even lacks the capacity of demonstrating pragmatic compassion when Palestinian men, women and children are murdered in a genocide with the world’s eyes wide open, throwing into doubt the future of the Jewish State, never becomes prime minister nor remains a Member of Parliament.