Sir Keir Starmer

• IN a recent interview the MP for Holborn and St Pancras made clear that he disagrees with the conclusions of Amnesty International (as well as Human Rights Watch and B’Tselem) about Israel’s status as a regime which practises apartheid.
See: Israel is not an apartheid state, says Keir Starmer as he apologises for the Corbyn years.

As a private individual he is entitled to his opinion. As a trained human rights lawyer he should know better. And as the leader of a major political party one might expect him at least to offer a shred of reasoning for his mistaken view.

Instead Sir Keir Starmer simply asserts his position. With an airy wave of his hand he discounts the reams of evidence that have been carefully compiled by three respected human rights organisations without even the barest attempt at an argument.

What next? Will he disagree with Amnesty’s conclusions about Vladimir Putin’s Russia and the Myanmar junta (to take just two examples)?

Will he call for the International Criminal Court to drop its investigation into Rodrigo Duterte’s rule in the Philippines? Or is he singling out Israel for different treatment?

He does make a half-hearted attempt to justify himself, claiming that Labour policy does not support Amnesty’s conclusions.

He is wrong about that too, of course. A majority of delegates at Labour’s 2021 conference voted to support a motion, drafted by Young Labour and the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, which declares that Israel is practising the “crime of apartheid” and which commits the party to supporting Palestinians “in their campaign for the boycott, divestment and sanctioning of Israel”.
See: https://twitter.com/YoungLabourUK/status/1436043087705485316/photo/2.

The party leadership has acted as if the vote didn’t happen. And, as a measure of the party’s vindictiveness in response, Young Labour has since had its operations wound up.

One used to hear claims about tinpot Stalinism (and other similar absurdities) directed against the former party leader. Well, how about this? Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour Party has edited its website to remove any references to the conference vote and has erased the videos of the debate at the conference.

Whatever next? Airbrushed photographs? Sir Keir Starmer’s response does not bespeak confidence; it speaks instead to a deeply authoritarian impulse to censor those whose arguments cannot be refuted in open debate and honest argument.

Those who support Sir Keir Starmer’s denial of Israel’s apartheid status can sometimes be heard invoking Tony Blair’s legacy in negotiating the peace agreements in the north of Ireland.

They would do better to look to the mass campaign against apartheid South Africa, because that it is the legacy they are betraying.

DIANE PEARSON, GARETH MURPHY, GEOFF LEE, HELENA AKSENTIJEVIC, JANET GREEN, LUCA SALICE, LUKE PEARSON, OWEN HOLLAND, ROBERT BOYCE, SABBY SAGALL, SIMON PEARSON, STEPHEN KAPOS
On behalf of Camden Palestine Solidarity Campaign