Peering into the post-election puddle

A week has passed since Labour’s landslide general election victory. Dig behind the headline figure of Labour’s 174-seat majority and it becomes plain to see that, with a mandate from just 19% of eligible voters, the party is entering government with support as deep as a puddle. Keir Starmer will have an unenviable task over the coming parliament to maintain a shaky electoral coalition. The success of five independent candidates – including former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn – who ran campaigns centring support for Palestine, indicates how Starmer’s positioning on the issue has the potential to prove a critical stumbling block for his premiership.

Indeed, as the new prime minister has begun settling into the job, appointing ministers and travelling to summits, a series of articles have been published in the rightwing Jewish press on the government taking shape, and what it will mean for British-Israeli relations. They give us an indication of the differing approaches the pro-Israel British Jewish establishment may take with the Labour administration, and food for thought about how we on the left can best resist their efforts.

Most revealing is the opinion piece penned by Times journalist and Conservative peer Daniel Finkelstein for the Jewish Chronicle. The column exposes the unease felt by hardline Zionists about the advent of the Labour government, replete with fears of a new status quo in which “[r]elations with the government and within the community will simply becoming [sic] trickier and less reliable”. 

Finkelstein suggests two factors underlying his trepidation: on the one hand, he explains “Palestinian rights have become a major left cause [...] and the leadership will be concerned about the loss of seats and votes” and, on the other, he points to a hegemonic shift within the British state, and perhaps even the Jewish community, as the rightwing Zionist ideology that has been so dominant under recent Tory governments cedes ground to a more liberal form, rooted deep in Labour’s history.

Finkelstein is not alone in expressing alarm over the electoral expression of widespread support for Palestine among the British public, and how this risks impacting policy across Whitehall. While there are some on the far-right of the Labour party who are keen to play down the significance of the election of the pro-Palestinian independent MPs, Finkelstein speaks for many when he bemoans how these results mean that “supporters of the Israel [sic] are now on trickier political terrain”.

Assuredly, with greater public exposure and coordination between campaigners, many more pro-Palestine independents could have joined the opposition benches in the Commons. For instance, British-Palestinian candidate Leanne Mohamad came just 528 votes from defeating the new Health Secretary, darling of the Labour right, and bookies’ favourite for next leader of the party, Wes Streeting. That’s not to mention the extraordinary state of affairs in Starmer’s own seat, where the Jewish anti-apartheid activist and writer Andrew Feinstein gained an astonishing 7,000 votes, coming second behind the now-PM whose support was slashed in half – a reflection of his personal approval ratings nationwide, which still remain negative despite achieving a large parliamentary majority.

The threat of a “human rights focus”

Along with nakedly xenophobic and Islamophobic fearmongering about Labour’s core constituencies exerting electoral pressure from below, Jewish Zionist opinion makers are also concerned with what Finkelstein identifies as a “human rights focus” among those at the top of the party. On the day that Rishi Sunak called the snap election, the Jewish Chronicle ran a story on the then-shadow foreign secretary David Lammy’s response to the International Criminal Court prosecutor’s application for arrest warrants against Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and defence minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity. The article exhibits how far rightwing Zionists are willing to trash the rules-based order, with readers being told that Lammy “sparked outrage by supporting the case, saying: ‘Democracies who believe in the rule of law must submit themselves to it.’”

Ironically, the new minister causing Finkelstein most consternation is a man he describes as “a committed Jew, a member of Alyth Gardens [North Western Reform Synagogue] and someone with all the usual family and emotional commitments to Israel”. Richard Hermer – a human rights lawyer, liberal Zionist, and Starmer’s pick for attorney general – has come under fire from the Jewish Chronicle in the past for his position on matters relating to Palestine. In particular, the legal advice he gave the Labour party on the Boycott Bill was met with a hit piece originally entitled: “Revealed, the pro-Palestinian activist past of lawyer advising Labour Party on Boycott Bill”. This, in turn, led to a backlash from other eminent Jewish lawyers, who attacked the paper for its “dangerous and foolish” reporting.

It is this mushrooming discord within the British Jewish community that Finkelstein is anxious to squash. Consequently, he spells out what can only be read as a direct warning to other rightwing Zionists: “It would be both wrong and politically foolish to simply attack Hermer because he doesn’t always agree with Israel. And it would be absurd, actually grotesque, to suggest he is antisemitic or a ‘self hating’ Jew.” It would seem Finkelstein realises that any attempt to undermine the respectability of those liberal Zionists with a “human rights focus” would not only risk splitting the pro-Israel bloc, but could well backfire on the right and leave them on the margins of this uncharted political landscape following the general election.

Roads ahead 

So what potentially fruitful avenues can we survey for Palestine supporters and the broader British left to tread at this moment, and is there a particular role for leftwing Jews to play in and amongst these movements?

First and foremost, the Jewish left must bolster the demands of those spearheading Palestine campaigning in the UK, namely Palestinians themselves, and, beyond that, the Muslim communities who have and will continue to be subjected to racist attacks from both main political parties. We ought to take our lead from these activists, such as Nijjor Manush – the group organising among Bengalis and Bangladeshis in the UK – who make up part of the South Asians 4 Palestine bloc at national demonstrations, and it is incumbent on us to offer our solidarity, for instance in countering the prime minister’s targeting of Bangladeshis, and denouncing the treatment of those like Marieha Hussein, who has faced persecution at the hands of the state.

It is key that we continue to engage in the organising that has emerged out of the Gaza protests and the general election, as the broader pro-Palestine left will need to consolidate that momentum and channel it towards the next major electoral challenge: the 2026 local polls in London, Birmingham, and other crucial battlegrounds.

This, in turn, should shape the approach we take with our opponents. While, of course, we will wish to encourage the growth of fractures Finkelstein highlights between opposing elements within the Zionist bloc – and with that the marginalisation of rightwingers and institutions like the Board of Deputies or Jewish Leadership Council – we cannot allow this process to provide the liberal wing with an air of legitimacy. Since last October, it should have become clear that the latter simply represent a more tepid yet insidious form of the racist, genocidal project of apartheid, ethnic cleansing, and settler-colonialism.

So with members of this group now garnering power in the British state, it is crucial we keep their feet to the fire: by repudiating the dangerous deficiencies in their positions – whether it be the implementation of largely symbolic gestures or the mere reversal of Tory policy; and, furthermore, by criticising the contradictions within their ideology, which finds its termination in the mirage of a two-state solution, and the promotion of “co-existence projects” between Palestinians and Israelis, which only helps manufacture false narratives and obscure the true power imbalances.

This will not necessarily be an easy task, but the election results of last week have created an opening for us to make some significant inroads, and we must grasp that opportunity while it remains at hand.▼

Aaron B. Grant is a writer and researcher.

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