Could Gaza unite the new left against Keir Starmer?

New Statesman​

a day ago

Photo by Henry NichollsAFP via Getty Images
As the Labour government fits and reels, the left is organising. A week of disastrous climb-downs and workarounds from the government and their whips delivered a Pyrrhic victory over Starmer's welfare bill. But – most visibly with tears on the front benches of the House – the Starmer administration looks and feels exhausted. This is an opportune moment for Zarah Sultana and Jeremy Corbyn, two of the party's most popular and most rebellious former MPs, to break away and form their own political movement, as they did yesterday (4 July). And, speaking to MPs this week, it seems that the issue the left inside and outside the party is going to hammer the government hardest on going forward will be the war in Gaza.
Prior to the escalation of the conflict between Israel and Iran, it seemed as though a turning point had been reached among MPs on the conflict. A heated urgent question on 4 June taken by the Foreign Office minister, Hamish Falconer, saw MPs from all parties in agreement. Enough was enough, they said, and the government must act: Israel should be sanctioned, and the UK should halt all arms sales. But in the weeks since the situation in the Middle East began to worsen, all eyes have been on Iran, Israel and the USA. Gaza has fallen from the headlines and from the political agenda. But the strength of feeling among MPs outraged with the government remains.
Rachael Maskell, the quietly determined leader of the welfare rebellion, believes Gaza will be the next crunch point. The Labour MP for York Central said, 'You could tell the frustration that we've got through watching this genocide unfold. The government just feels like it's standing and looking on and not acting.' She described the 'major frustration' on the backbenches around the government's inaction and, in her opinion, its complicity. 'What the whole of the last few days has shown to me is the importance of backbenchers,' Maskell said. 'We reach in and shout into the echo chamber,' she said, 'but what we are finding is the government never reach out.' Other MPs agreed: Brian Leishman, the MP for Grangemouth and Alloa told me that 'the endless violence has got to stop'. Though he, like Maskell, clearly plan to remain in Labour, he is equally unimpressed with the government. 'We have been inept and impotent on what's happened to Palestinian people. It's a stain on our country, it really is,' he said. 'It will reach a crescendo in the house – I think it has to, the sooner the better.'
Awkwardly for the government, this is a sentiment Zarah Sultana is already channelling. She has long been critical of the government's actions on Gaza and has described it as 'an active participant in genocide'. And it is thought that she and Corbyn will now work to develop the current group of Gaza independents into a more formal movement around this issue – although Corbyn has been coy about the exact shape that will take and the timeline it will follow. Alongside Sultana, Corbyn has been agitating in the Commons over Gaza for months. 'Genocide should already be a flashpoint,' he told me. 'It should already be difficult for the government… The daily headlines of people being shot at aid sites – those should be enough for this government to wake up.'
And a lot of the public would agree with him. A recent poll by YouGov for the International Centre of Justice for Palestinians found that 55 per cent of Britons oppose Israel's aggression. Over 80 per cent of those opposed said what is happening in Gaza amounts to a genocide. Many who previously voted Labour will never forgive Starmer over his approach to the conflict in Gaza; that Corbyn appears more principled on this could see more voters turning his way.
In June, Corbyn brought a 10-minute rule bill which called for an independent inquiry into the UK's involvement in Gaza, which was voted through to second reading. On Friday, the government refused to give it any parliamentary time. But Corbyn has now used this as an opportunity to show up the government, criticising their unwillingness to go public on the UK's exact involvement in the conflict. 'The government is attempting to hide the truth on Gaza,' Corbyn said, 'it will not succeed.' Pointing to the inquiries which followed the war in Iraq, Corbyn added: 'This isn't over. We will uncover the full scale of British complicity in genocide – and we will bring about justice for the people of Palestine'. Though his bill may be finished, it is unlikely that Corbyn will let this issue go and it could prove a linchpin issue around which MPs attracted to his new movement begin to organise.
Though none have moved yet, Sultana may yet be joined by other MPs leaving the party over Gaza. This week, 26 MPs, including nine from the Labour benches, voted against the proscription of Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation which Yvette Cooper has led. They included Clive Lewis, who questioned how the Suffragettes would have been treated by this government, adding that Palestine Action's activities are 'direct action, not terrorist action'. Corbyn was, predictably, also opposed. He said: 'The proscription of Palestine Action, for example, is a truly shocking misuse of state power.' The rebels were led by the Mother of the House, Diane Abbott, and also included Ian Byrne, Nadia Whittome and Richard Burgon. In the hours after the vote, which passed by 385 votes, some Labour backbenchers called on the government to remove the whip from the rebels. (This week a new direct-action group has emerged, bearing the same aims and colour palette as Palestine Action. The group's name? 'Yvette Cooper').
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The government has not announced any punishment for these rebels as of yet. But if the whip is removed from these MPs in this moment, when momentum is picking up over the creation of a new party, it could drive more than just MPs into Corbyn and Sultana's hands. Analysis shared with the New Statesman by Stack Data Strategy found that Labour is losing more voters to the left than to the right (the party is currently retaining just 60 per cent of its 2024 voters). A new leftward movement, with a coherent leadership and strategy could therefore prove deeply damaging to Labour's majority at the next election. It equally makes Keir Starmer's focus on winning votes back from Reform a high-risk strategy.
But the left of politics is a competitive space, and there are others jostling for these voters. Zack Polanski, the Green London Assembly member, erupted onto the scene in May with a leadership bid calling for 'eco-populism'. Polanski is clearly aiming to emulate a left-wing Corbynite style of leadership; and he has opened his arms to some of the former Labour leader's previous devotees, such as the economists Grace Blakeley and James Meadway, the latter of whom previously joined the Green Party in order to vote for Zack. Though he has not won yet, some claim that there has been an uptick in the party's membership numbers since Polanski announced that he was running.
To Polanski, the government's perceived ineptitude on this crisis is the Green party's opportunity. 'Gaza is the biggest moral litmus test of our time, and it speaks to exactly why the Green party need more MPs and why I am running for leader,' he said when we spoke over the phone. 'I want to see the government using their voice on this, not equivocating,' he said. 'The reason we're not hearing [about Gaza] more often in parliament is simply because we don't have the right people elected,' he said.
In his leadership bid, Polanski has been talking to MPs on the Labour left, almost encouraging them to join him and his campaign. 'I say the same thing to left-wing MPs both privately and publicly,' he said, 'you're not leaving the Labour party, the Labour party has left you.' (When I interviewed him in May, Polanski told me he would 'roll out the red carpet' if he is elected for the Labour MP Clive Lewis and for Zarah Sultana). As the chaotic announcement of Sultana and Corbyn's plans to co-found a new left-wing party unfolded, Polanski said he would await the detail, but he reiterated: 'I still think though we'd all be so much stronger and more effective if they joined the party with 4 MPs and over 800 councillors – the Green Party!'
This is a tense moment. The government's actions on Gaza have for a long time now seeded resentment among the left of the party. If Starmer does decide to remove the whip from the Palestine Action rebels, it could spark even more defections or desertions. And now a new force on the left, however chaotic, is slouching towards Westminster, all but endorsed by the Prime Minister's populist predecessor, Jeremy Corbyn. If Keir Starmer is not careful, taking his eye off the ball on Gaza will only serve to galvanise the left.
[See also: A new force is stirring on the left]
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