Rather like Marley’s ghost in
Charles Dickens’s “A Christmas Carol”, Britain’s Labour government is dragging
behind it a long, heavy chain to which is attached a great collection of anti-Israel
initiatives. It’s a cumbersome burden
to explain away as Donald Trump, a staunch friend of Israel, enters on his
second term as US President.
His first term more or less
coincided with the descent of the Labour party into unprecedented anti-Israel,
and indeed anti-Jewish, bias under the leadership of extreme left-winger Jeremy
Corbyn. Since Sir Keir Starmer, now the
UK’s prime minister, was a leading light in Corbyn’s shadow Cabinet throughout
the period, Trump must have had strong reservations about him from the start.
It was in September 2015 that the Labour party voted Corbyn as its leader. His pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel stance (he once notoriously called Hamas and Hezbollah his “friends”) led to charges of antisemitism and to resignations from the party.
Finally in May 2019 the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), a body legally charged with enforcing the UK’s equality and non-discrimination laws, launched an unprecedented investigation into whether Labour had "unlawfully discriminated against, harassed or victimized people because they are Jewish."
Sir Keir Starmer took over the leadership of the Labour party in April
2020, pledged to clean it up from the stigma of antisemitism. However the EHRC In its report,
published in October 2020, determined that the Labour party had indeed been
"responsible for unlawful acts of harassment and discrimination", and
required it to draft a clean-up action plan.
Immediately after the EHRC issued
its report, Corbyn issued his response, asserting that antisemitism
within Labour had been “dramatically overstated for political reasons”. A storm
of media comment resulted in Starmer suspending him from the party.
Corbyn became a free-floating MP (Member of Parliament), and it was still as an
independent that he fought and won his seat in the general election of July
2024.
Meanwhile Starmer rehabilitated
himself with the UK Jewish community, and MPs who had resigned returned to the
fold. In his four years as Leader of the
Opposition Starmer succeeded so well, and the country became so disillusioned
with the Conservative government, that he won an overwhelming victory in the
general election of July 2024.
It was at that point that a new
tranche of anti-Israel problems not likely to sit well with Trump began to
emerge.
One of Starmer’s first appointments to the new
Labour government was of his longstanding friend and former legal colleague,
Richard Hermer. Because Hermer was not an MP, Starmer raised
him to the peerage. He thus became a
member of the House of Lords, and it was as Lord Hermer that he took up the
post of Attorney General.
Hermer had made his reputation as a lawyer by defending human rights, sometimes in controversial causes. Early in February 2025 a leading UK newspaper revealed that back in 2011 Hermer had helped write a handbook whose purpose was to “prove useful in the fight against Israeli war crimes, occupation and apartheid.” The text, entitled Corporate Complicity in Israel’s Occupation, drew together contributions from pro-Palestinian lawyers and academics including Hermer.
Hermer’s chapter set out ways in
which “Palestinian victims” could use UK courts to sue companies that
sold arms to Israel. He writes
critically of British “export licenses for weapons used by Israel in violation
of international humanitarian and human rights law.”
There is therefore little cause
for surprise that in September 2024, on Hermer’s advice, the UK government suspended
30 out of approximately 350 arms export licenses to Israel. This decision was nominally
justified by concerns that UK-supplied arms could be used in serious violations
of international humanitarian law. This
explanation, plainly, took it for granted that Israel – one of the UK’s closest
allies – was believed likely to commit such crimes.
The US, of course, not only maintained
but enhanced its sale of arms to Israel, and on February 4 it was announced
that the Trump administration had
sought congressional approval to transfer nearly $1 billion in bombs and
military equipment to Israel.
Hermer was also vocal in urging
the Government to comply with the International Criminal Court arrest warrants
for Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, and Yoav Gallant, its then
defense minister. It was duly made clear
that if either Israeli leader were to set foot in the UK, they would run the
risk of being arrested.
Trump, on the other hand,
immediately condemned the ICC for issuing the warrants, and Washington is
reported to be preparing sanctions to be issued against the ICC and its chief
prosecutor.
In response to widespread
criticism of Hermer for these and other controversial aspects of his career and
conduct in office, a groundswell of feeling against him is rising in the media,
and there has been a call for his resignation.
So far, Starmer has expressed his full support for his Attorney General.
A government spokesman said: “The UK
continues to support Israel’s right to self-defense in accordance with
international law. The Attorney General
is the Government’s chief legal adviser and provides impartial legal advice.”
However Starmer has adopted other positions
in regard to Israel and the Middle East not calculated to endear himself to
Trump. For example, the Labour
government has expressed strong support for UNRWA (the United Nations Relief
and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees), despite the fact that Israel has
barred them from operating from within Israeli sovereign territory. Following Hamas’s bloodthirsty incursion into
Israel on October 7, 2023, when its followers massacred some 1200 people and
took 240 hostage, evidence emerged of the actual involvement of Hamas officials
in the pogrom. Following the revelation
the UK’s then-Conservative government suspended its funding. On taking office, Starmer’s government
immediately resumed UK payments to UNRWA.
The US also stopped funding UNRWA
at the time, and on February 4 it emerged that Trump is to maintain the suspension
and, moreover, to stop US engagement with the UN Human Rights Council. There seems little meeting of minds between
the UK and the US on that issue.
Meanwhile Starmer is anxious to
strengthen the UK’s economic and trade relations with the US during Trump's
second term. He would like to side-step
any punitive US tariffs, like those imposed on China, still hanging over the
heads of Canada and Mexico, and threatened against the EU. Starmer’s
aim is to secure a major deal with the US that supports economic growth,
focusing on areas such as defense, security, trade, crime, and migration.
From time to time Trump makes
remarks indicating that he cherishes a soft spot for the UK, but he is above
all things a deal-maker, and is likely to make certain demands in exchange for
any favorable trade arrangement with the UK. He may, for example, demand that the UK aligns
more closely with US foreign policy, particularly concerning relations with
Israel. He could pressure the UK to lift the suspension of arms export licenses
to Israel, emphasizing the importance of supporting a key ally in the Middle East. He might expect the UK to withdraw support
for ICC investigations targeting Israeli officials, or he could urge the UK to
align with his critical stance on UNRWA.
Starmer, saddled with his less than solid
record in support of Israel, may find the coming months something of a
nightmare.
Published in the Jerusalem Report and the Jerusalem Post online, 2 March 2025:
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-843563
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