Burnham’s apology over Gaza marks ‘reset moment’ as Labour seeks to win back progressive voters | Labour

On the final day of Labor’s 2023 conference, with the public still reeling from Hamas’ brutal attack on Israel just days earlier, Keir Starmer hit the airwaves for his traditional broadcast tour – but he gave an interview This will have particularly damaging consequences.

Meeting with LBC’s Nick Ferrari, the opposition leader defended Israel’s right to defend itself; this was a stance in line with the broad political consensus at the time. However, he later also claimed that he had the “right” to deny electricity and water to Palestinian civilians.

“Obviously everything has to be done within the framework of international law,” he added. His comments were clipped and shared widely on social media, drawing the ire of many on the left.

It took a week for Starmer’s team to clarify his remarks, which they insist were misinterpreted. But the damage was done.

Dozens of Muslim councilors threatened to leave the party. The Labor leader has written to them in a bid to bridge divisions and reassure them that he understands their concerns. However, many people thought this was not enough.

The following month, party tensions deepened over the leadership’s stance on Gaza when Starmer was rocked by a major rebellion over a ceasefire vote in which eight of his leading figures, including Jess Phillips, resigned.

The row has highlighted the deep tensions Labor has had for years on an issue with a complicated history.

The Labor Party has supported the creation of the state of Israel since its founding. The argument was that a party that believed in social justice should protect a people who had gone through the Holocaust.

As a result of Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza under the rule of a series of hard-line right-wing leaders, a more critical view of the Israeli government began to emerge. The focus instead turned to showing solidarity with the Palestinian people.

Under Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership, some justified criticism of Israel’s behavior has spilled over into antisemitism; EHRC found “unlawful harassment” of Jewish members, but former leader denied it was ever tolerated

Some in the Labor Party felt that Starmer, who has implemented a zero-tolerance approach to antisemitism and has excluded many leftists, including Corbyn himself, was forced to tackle Gaza partly out of a desire to draw a line between himself and his predecessor.

As Labor comes to power in 2024, international condemnation of Israel for the horrors it inflicts on Palestinian civilians has grown. The government has struggled to convince the British public that it is doing enough. What he did didn’t cut it.

“People were fixated on the LBC interview. Keir just couldn’t shake it. No matter what we did – which was a lot – people didn’t seem to notice,” a senior Labor figure said.

Labor has lost and continues to lose the support of its progressive wing, a key part of its electoral coalition; Andy Burnham is now trying to win back Labor by apologizing for its initial response to Israel’s military action in Gaza and promising to put more pressure on the Israeli government.

Any action will need to be calibrated with very real concerns about the potential impact on the UK’s Jewish communities, who are already fearful amid the rising antisemitism that Burnham witnessed up close in Manchester.

Those who abandoned the party were not just far-left voters or Muslim communities who turned to pro-Gaza independents in the elections. Those who joined the resurgent Greens were young people and middle-class graduates.

Labor activists up and down the country describe anecdotally how the problem is always on the doorstep – in Westminster by-elections, in Scotland and Wales, in UK local elections – and shows no sign of abating as the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza continues.

The hope is that Burnham’s rise will give Labor a voice once again. “Andy is giving us a real reset moment. It’s more of a shift in tone than anything else and how we talk about what’s going on in Gaza. A lot of progressive voters have abandoned us. This gives us a chance to win them back,” the insider said.

But so far, with the prime minister only saying he will “look” at further sanctions and measures to ban the trade in goods through illegal settlements, it is unclear how much the substance will change or whether this change will be mostly a matter of style and, in either case, whether it will be enough to win back those who took action.