Keir Starmer’s politicking as children die is sickening

The SNP’s motion calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza was supposed to have been voted on, and the spotlight is firmly on the seedy foundations of our not-so-beloved Westminster institution, showing it up to be the corruption-ridden international embarrassment that it is. 

History will not be kind to the UK when it reflects on the barbarity that Israel has unleashed on the people of Gaza. That much is already confirmed.

Both Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer in particular will take centre stage amongst the list of those who made it possible, who refused to stand up for humanity.

Their failure will forever be entangled in the mass murder of Palestinian people, which is the least that they deserve. In a just world, they’d be dragged before The Hague – and there is time yet.

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Amidst the despair and shame, I’ll hold out some hope that real justice will be served in due course. This Commons vote which was once again brought forward by the SNP – who have stood their ground repeatedly against the tide on Gaza – was an opportunity for our notoriously shambolic political system to do what is right and human, albeit four months too late.

After all the evidence we have now seen, it cannot be denied that the only route to peace and justice is with an immediate cessation of violence. It was an opportunity for the UK to lead. 

Instead, we were treated to another episode of Starmer’s circus.

Call me optimistic given the UK’s track record on such affairs and Starmer’s track record in general, but a part of me was hopeful that with so much human suffering at stake, humanity might just this once have prevailed over political capital.

For a fleeting moment, I believed that Labour would put their infamous brand of childish politicking to the side and do the right thing. The quickest reality check of my life perhaps, because the truth is that this Labour Party can’t and shouldn’t be depended on for a single thing.

They are nothing other than a cheap imitation of those that sit across from them in the chamber, with perhaps even less integrity if it’s possible. 

After spending the weekend pretending that they were cooperating with the SNP, to changing their position on how they would vote multiple times in one day, to tabling their own amendment in an attempt to weaken it’s entire premise, to then supposedly blackmailing the speaker into breaking Parliamentary precedent so that Starmer could save himself the embarrassment of a mass rebellion. It seems that to Labour, the people of Palestine are nothing other than collateral damage in their mission to win the election.

Much like working families, disabled people and the trans community, who have all recently been thrown under the bus by the so-called socialists in a similar fashion. 

As David Lammy himself let slip on Sky News, being seen to vote with the SNP in an election year was the real crux of the issue for them. It wasn’t about the almost 30,000 dead Palestinians that have perished with help from their support. We knew as much anyway, given that it has taken them four months and 60% of Gaza to be turned to rubble before they even bothered to call for a ceasefire, but the politicking has really never been uglier than it has been this week.

Stephen Flynn could table a motion on the sky being blue, and Starmer would invoke a three-line whip against it. His party will happily climb into bed with the Tories across the country to close down leisure centres and wreak havoc on local communities for a taste of power, but voting with the SNP on an issue with 13,000 dead children at its heart is too much to stomach. It is utterly pathetic. 

I am an avid defender of politics and politicians generally, I don’t buy into the narrative that all politicians are corrupt or corruptible and in it for themselves. On the contrary, I think most people (at least in the beginning) get into politics to make a difference or to campaign on issues that matter to them, but there are definitely a few rotten apples and I have never been more convinced than I am in this moment that Keir Starmer is one of them.

What he and his party have pulled over the last few days is the absolute worst of gutter politics, and will be used as a prime example as to why politics is often met with so much cynicism. He represents the hallmarks of every bad political leader in history – a lack of integrity, and a thirst for power greater than his care for the people. 

There was of course in all of this the option for Starmer to have backed a ceasefire himself months ago, and tabled his own motion. But he also failed to do that, because he doesn’t really care about Palestine – he cares about the keys to Number 10 and, it seems, not much else.

So, instead of the focus being on the death and destruction being wreaked upon innocent people, the world watched on yet again as the grubby and corrupt reality of Westminster was laid bare – and we should never forget that Labour and Starmer were at the very heart of it. 

What hope do we have if our politicians can’t even come together in the face of the mass-slaughter of children? When politics is more important than human life? How are we supposed to defend our political institutions and processes, when they are indeed making a mockery of themselves at every given opportunity?

It is monumentally embarrassing to be from the UK at this moment in history. Even more so than usual. 

I have refrained from writing about the Labour Party or my perhaps least favourite politician of the moment for quite some time. There is little use or learning in writing the same things on repeat, and I think most would agree that my opinion on this generation of the Labour party, or the Tories 2.0 as otherwise known, is fiercely unambiguous. 

But there needs to be some accountability, given that they are unfortunately lining up to be our next rulers as so generously decided for us by the population of England. And this week was too much to bear.