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The UK Elections and Palestine with Sara Husseini
81 Plays4 months ago
Sara Husseini joins host Yara Hawari to discuss the recent British elections, the role Palestine and the Israeli genocide in Gaza played in the election results, and the challenges facing pro-Palestine activism under the new Labour government.
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Transcript
Palestine as a Unifying Issue
00:00:00
Speaker
Palestine has actually been a singularly unifying issue. We've seen that in the hundreds and thousands of people taking to the streets every week, week in, week out, over the past nine months. People from all communities, struggles, walks of life, and that's been reflected also then in terms of the election of not only the independents, the Greens, but also the really narrowing labor margins of victory in many constituencies that
00:00:26
Speaker
From Ashabaka, the Palestinian Policy Network, I am Yara Hawari, and this is Rethinking Palestine.
Labour's Election Win and Challenges
00:00:37
Speaker
On July 4th, the British public elected a new government. As predicted by many pundits and pollsters, the Labour Party led by Keir Starmer won in a crushing defeat for the Conservative Party, which was ousted after 14 years of parliamentary rule.
00:00:52
Speaker
For many supporters of Palestinian liberation and fundamental rights, this election posed a challenge, with both the major parties supporting the genocidal actions of the Israeli regime. Within the Labour Party, which has traditionally been the political home for many Palestine supporters, this led to some very serious tensions and fractures. Indeed, some candidates were forced to break with the Labour Party and run on independent tickets. It also gave rise to candidates predominantly running on what was called a pro-Gaza platform.
00:01:21
Speaker
Following the election, the first official trip by the new foreign secretary, David Lamy, was to Israel where he met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. So what does this British post-election landscape look like now for Palestinians and their allies? Joining me to discuss all of this and more is Sarah Hossaini, director of the British Palestinian Committee and policy member of the Shabaka. Sarah, thank you for joining me on this episode of Rethinking Palestine.
00:01:48
Speaker
Thank you for having me. I'm really looking forward to it. So perhaps we can begin by having a little overview of the elections. What happened? What were the significant changes? So as you mentioned in your introduction, what we saw was a landslide majority for the Labour Party. So in this first pass the post system that we have in the UK where people vote for their MPs within constituencies and then the person with the most votes goes to parliament, we saw Labour win 411 out of 650 seats.
Rise of Independent Candidates
00:02:18
Speaker
which, as you said, is a crushing victory in this system. But actually, if you scratch the surface a little bit, what we see is quite a shallow victory. First of all, we're looking at one of the lowest voter turnouts we've had at 60%. And if we bear in mind that the Conservatives pretty much self imploded, they were incredibly unpopular. In fact, one in five voters actually voted tactically purely to oust the Conservatives.
00:02:40
Speaker
When you see them that Labour actually have, they have control with 34% of the vote share, which is actually the lowest of a governing party in modern history. It really gives a clearer picture of how there's very little love for either of the two major parties right now. What was also really interesting is, and again, as you referred to as this rise of five independent MPs or the voting in a five independents based on a Palestine platform. So four of those were completely new members of parliament and one of them, Jeremy Corbyn.
00:03:08
Speaker
Again, unprecedented in terms of voting in the British system. We saw the Green Party, which made Palestine an intentional part of its platform, had its best election ever as well. So going from having one seat previously only to four seats. Now we also saw a rise in the popularity of the far right with Nigel Farage's reform party also gaining five seats. So there's that as well. But I think in relation to Palestine, we saw what's happening in Gaza played an important role in this election. And more broadly, it puts a real dent in the machine of party politics.
00:03:37
Speaker
and I think showed the real possibility of breaking beyond the two-party system for the first time. Now, as I mentioned in the introduction, historically the Labour Party has been a political home to many who support Palestinian liberation, fundamental rights, and that was especially the case under the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn. But the purge of so-called Corbynistas and in general leftists from the party has meant that that's no longer the case. Not to mention since the beginning of the genocide, Stama and other key figures have been supportive of
00:04:07
Speaker
the Israeli regime's actions in Gaza. So what is the Labour Party like now for people who support Palestine liberation?
00:04:16
Speaker
First of all, I think it's important to build a bit really in terms of Starma and others being supportive of the genocide because we don't say this
Internal Struggles within Labour
00:04:23
Speaker
lightly. I think it's important to kind of add some examples there of what we mean when we say that. And I think, you know, no Palestinian in the UK, and I'm sure many other people are going to forget that interview that he gave in October on LBC when he said that Israel had a right to cut off power and water to the people of Gaza.
00:04:39
Speaker
which is collective punishment and a war crime under international law. And then we saw four months later, Starmer's Labour leadership effectively appended parliamentary protocol to push for a Labour amendment on a ceasefire vote that was a motion that was brought by the SMP that removed the term collective punishment from the motion, among other things.
00:04:59
Speaker
specifically to shield Israel from accountability. And, you know, this support for Israel really goes beyond that as well in the sense of, you know, people will remember that they obviously interviewed very well, but maybe fewer people will know about the speech he gave to Labour friends of Israel at an annual lunch in 2021, where he recalled the colonious language of the Zionists, the early Zionists making the desert bloom and associated racist tropes along those lines.
00:05:23
Speaker
So yeah, this is the Labour leadership that we have in power now. To your point about the purge, I think even just before the elections, we've seen a series of deselections before the elections even took place of left-leaning candidates. You know, Faisal Shaheen, for example, was one of them that was famously reported. Reported attempts to bar Diane Abbott from running as the Labour candidate, and at the same time backing new candidates like Luke Gakehurst, for example, who is the former director of an organization called We Believe in Israel.
00:05:52
Speaker
which is a very active supporter of genocide. So in short, it's a really difficult environment for those Labour MPs, councillors, party members who rightly stand against the genocide, who do believe in the universal principles of justice, who understand that there can be no justification for the massacre of now more than 40,000 people. And as we've seen recently, a very conservative estimate by the British medical journal, The Lancet, that could be somewhere around 186,000 people.
00:06:19
Speaker
not to mention the collective punishment and the starvation of two million. And so it's these people at all levels of the party, weighing up resignations.
Palestine's Role in Reshaping UK Politics
00:06:28
Speaker
We saw a number of Labour councillors resigning over this issue in the past months and weighing up whether to stay in the party and push back from within and try to bring the party back to its values or whether to step out.
00:06:41
Speaker
So despite this hostile environment within the Labour Party, I think what's been really interesting in this election and also elections elsewhere across the world is that Palestine, broadly, but also the ongoing genocide in Gaza has been a key issue.
00:07:01
Speaker
And I think it's something that's almost unprecedented in terms of foreign policy concerns amidst election. So what does this tell us about Palestine as a core issue for people?
00:07:14
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I think that's exactly right. And what you're pointing to there is something that has happened despite a really difficult environment. There's a dynamic that we've been seeing playing out through the elections and beyond. Attempts particularly by the previous government, elephants, the mainstream media to stir up real divisions in the UK to kind of frame or try and make Palestine a sectarian issue, a Muslim issue, a matter of Muslim Jewish communal tensions and sort of stoke these kind of culture wars.
00:07:41
Speaker
when actually what we've seen, as you've said, is we know in reality and what we've seen has been quite the opposite. Palestine has actually been a singularly unifying issue. We've seen that in the hundreds and thousands of people taking to the streets every week, week in, week out, over the past nine months. And people, you know, from all communities, struggles, walks of life, and that's been reflected also then, you know, as we're speaking now in the election, in terms of the election of not only the independents, the Greens,
00:08:06
Speaker
but also the really narrowing labor margins of victory in very, very many constituencies that have gone, you know, less reported, but very important to take note of. So Palestine really, people are seeing, people understand that this Palestine is not a singular issue. It's an issue of our collective humanity. It's an issue that unites people and brings people together because they see the injustice and recognize that.
00:08:32
Speaker
And perhaps also because people are increasingly becoming aware of the complicity of their own governments and what their, you know, type of contribution that going towards the fact that the British government is directly complicit in the ongoing genocide, I think plays a huge role in the politicization of really hundreds of thousands of people.
00:08:56
Speaker
Absolutely. And I think also you just see people being much more alive to the issue now. I think many more people questioning what they're seeing on the mainstream media and they're seeing how it doesn't tally up with the images, you know, livestream genocide they're seeing through social media, for example, or on their phones.
00:09:13
Speaker
And it's really making people who potentially say, well, this is a foreign policy issue for many people in the UK, but they're seeing it now and they're seeing the reality of it and it becomes their issue
British Foreign Policy on Palestine
00:09:22
Speaker
as well. And as you said, I think not underestimating how foreign policy issues don't normally affect elections. This one clearly has. If you're enjoying this podcast, please visit our website, al-shabaka.org, where you will find more Palestinian policy analysis and where you can join our mailing list and donate to support our work.
00:09:45
Speaker
And that kind of explain the rise of these independent candidates who are predominantly running on what people are calling pro-Palestine or pro-garza platforms. Can you tell us a bit more about these individuals?
00:09:59
Speaker
Again, as we mentioned, this is five Independents elected, unprecedented. The election of Independents to Parliament in this number. Four of them, as we said, new candidates ran on a Palestine platform from all over the country. So we have candidates from the North in Blackburn, from the Midlands in Birmingham, Leicester in Dewsbury. It's also in the North of England.
00:10:22
Speaker
and then obviously Jeremy Corbyn in Islington North in London and I think as well as them and running as human beings of conscience on a Palestine platform and obviously being most into Parliament because people felt they were speaking for them.
00:10:37
Speaker
There are a number of others who are very, very close to unseating the major parties. I think perhaps the most significant one being the 23-year-old British Palestinian, Leanne Mohammed, who ran in her home constituency of Wilford North, which is here in London, against Labour's now Health Secretary, West Streeting. And this is the man who had widely been tipped to be the next leader of the Labour Party. She was 528 votes shy of beating him. They both had around 15,000.
00:11:02
Speaker
I think that sends a really strong message about how people feel about not only what's happening in Gaza and Palestine more broadly, but how deeply complicit the establishment here in the UK is.
00:11:16
Speaker
So I think it's not by coincidence that the Labour Party has now placed several vocally pro-Israel MPs in its cabinet, including David Lamy, who I mentioned earlier as Minister for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs. What can we expect moving forward in terms of British foreign policy vis-a-vis Palestine? Because it seems like there won't be much of a difference with the previous government's policy.
00:11:44
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, the early signs are not looking good, although I guess we did expect that from, as you say, those who have been placed in the cabinet. And, you know, there's a number of issues that we were looking straight away to see how the government would respond or deal with those, one of those being, I think, the amicus brief, the objection lodged by the previous government's International Criminal Court against arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Galant.
00:12:08
Speaker
There are a couple of other issues. I mean, arms trade, for example, so I think Lamy and the Labour leadership had called on the previous Conservative government to publish legal advice from lawyers around Israel breaking international humanitarian law, which would then result in the need to suspend arms sales to Israel. We haven't seen anything really a movement on that yet, either in terms of calling to publish legal advice or as the government should be doing, suspending arms sales immediately, pending any kind of review they want to make.
00:12:37
Speaker
So yeah, it's still a little bit difficult to see how these things are going to go. I think obviously the US election is going to play a role, of course, coming up in November. So I think we have a Labour leadership that is not massively indistinguishable from the previous government, honestly. And there's going to be a lot of work to do. I think the difference is that Labour does hold certain professor principles, has made a number of statements
00:13:00
Speaker
Prior to becoming in government, I think we need to really hold them accountable too. And I think that's where the work's going to be. It's going to be with those MPs in the Labour Party, Labour Party members, unions, those who really do hold to Labour's professed principles and the universal values. And then looking across party, I think also, you know, we look with independence, greens, other parties.
00:13:19
Speaker
to who may hold different political views but do have moral clarity on the deep injustices that are being faced by Palestinians and that we'll be able to hopefully hold a Labour leadership who claims to support international law, to support the independence of mechanisms of justice, to actually hold them to account on that.
Labour's Centrist Shift
00:13:36
Speaker
Do you foresee any potential for cross-party coalitions on this particular issue, particularly as we're seeing, as you mentioned, the sort of these fractures or disruptions in the two-party system and the rise of independent candidates and sort of other spaces within Parliament to deviate from party lines?
00:13:59
Speaker
I do. I'm hopeful. And I think because there are a few, you know, we just touched on a couple of the issues, but there are a few issues where I think it's really clear that Labour, at least in word, hold to certain principles, have made comments about things that need to be done. You know, they base a lot of what they talk about on respect for international law and the rule of law and international mechanisms for justice.
00:14:22
Speaker
And so I think there'll be a lot of people in not only their party, but other parties who believe in these things, who will be, I hope, willing to scrutinize, to be there and be putting in questions, putting in early day motions, putting in all kinds of things that will really, as I say, hold Osama and his leadership to account.
00:14:43
Speaker
Sorry, you mentioned the Labour Party's values that some people still hold dear to. We know that Palestine is an issue that exists in a vacuum and Labour's current position on Palestine really speaks to
00:14:59
Speaker
the transformation of labour as a whole, so it's moved to the centre in an effort to challenge the right. Do you think it's still possible for it to return to those so-called values that you mentioned, or are we seeing a complete transformation of the Labour Party where return is not possible?
00:15:21
Speaker
I don't know. It's a really hard question. I guess the reason I'm asking that is because it's not just Palestine, is it? The Labour Party has abandoned a lot of its core base, it's abandoned the working classes, it's abandoned.
00:15:37
Speaker
its values and its politics that it was supposedly established on. And its argument for doing so, you know, sort of to challenge the far right, be a more inclusive party, which is in reality is a shift towards the centre. And we're not just seeing that in the UK, we're seeing that across Europe, where sort of left wing parties are becoming more centrist to gain more votes. So the issue of Palestine really speaks to a broader
00:16:07
Speaker
political problem where we're seeing the solution of the left and leftist values. So with that in mind, do you still think that there is a chance for the Labour Party to recover from this?
00:16:23
Speaker
I mean, look, I think it's a very, very big job, if possible. Like you said, I think if you look to other issues, to their policies, and some of the rhetoric around immigration that we saw Starmer using to try and win votes from the centre, and questions of privatisation, there's a number of things that, as you say, they've moved to the centre. Ostensibly, like you said, to
00:16:47
Speaker
to counter the right but actually all you see is a rightward shift then because I mean if we look at the you know we're not really talking much about the reform situation but you know one of the big stories around reform was that Soella Bravenman the former Home Secretary was considering potentially defecting there was all this talk about her potentially defecting to reform. She was a Tory Home Secretary
00:17:06
Speaker
who was the architect, or at least the champion of this, sending people to Rwanda on planes, asylum seekers scheme. She was calling to criminalise the Palestinian flag, so across a number of issues, and she was the Home Secretary. Her moving even further right shows that the Labour Party banning its principles and moving further to the centre is just actually
00:17:27
Speaker
playing into this rightward shift and these, as I say, some of this stuff in terms of culture wars obviously isn't just about Palestine, it's about stoking up division among communities in the UK. And, you know, one really worrying thing report we've seen in the last, I think last week or so is Starmer and the Labour Leadership creating something called the Muslim Leadership Council. So a new Muslim body that can give credible policy recommendations to the government.
00:17:52
Speaker
It's effectively bypassing the existing community structures for the Muslim community. It's a very dividing, like, rule tactic. And it's just really, really worrying that rather than, you know, there's an electorate that obviously was not happy with you across, you know, and not just the Muslim community, many communities.
00:18:09
Speaker
But rather than deal with that and amend policy and think about why that might be that you've lost that support, you would actually bypass them to create a whole new structure. So again, I think that's just a slightly different example, but it speaks to what I think you're asking, right? Which is, is the Labour Party salvageable,
Potential Political System Shift in the UK
00:18:24
Speaker
I think?
00:18:24
Speaker
I mean, not under this leadership, certainly, and I haven't, you know, it's, it would be a, it's a huge, huge job. I think, but I think also that's, that's where this so dissatisfied, so unhappy is the British electorate with these two parties that for the first time we have seen this glimmer of light, this cracking slightly of the two party system. And I think that should really, you know, give hope for a different way of doing things.
00:18:47
Speaker
Sarah, just have a final question. In the immediate term, what should we watch out for in terms of British foreign policy vis-a-vis the ongoing genocide in Gaza?
00:18:59
Speaker
So I think ICC arrest warrants and what happens there. We've mentioned also the arms trade and what they do in terms of making good on their claim to want to publish the legal advice and then act upon it. I think it's going to be interesting also to see how they respond to rulings in the international court of justice, whether it's the case that South Africa brought against Israel for genocide or the ruling we saw around the occupation and the lawful nature of the occupation. Because this is the other thing, this goes beyond Palestine in the sense that
00:19:28
Speaker
What happens here, Palestine is really litmus test for the whole international system. And what the new government here and everywhere and others do has the potential to collapse that whole international system that we've seen to date. And I think, you know, even the foreign policy chief, Leosip Borrell, said very clearly after the ICJ ruled on this, gave an interim ruling on the South Africa case, that governments are going to have to make a choice. They choose either to support international institutions and the rule of law, or they choose to support Israel.
00:19:56
Speaker
And that was a very, you know, a guy who's not been particularly helpful in Palestine. That's a very clear, very honest statement. So given all of this, Sara, how do we not despair?
00:20:10
Speaker
That's a good question. And I think while the picture isn't particularly positive in the short term, I think it does feel like a moment of inflection in the longer run. And that's really difficult to say in the midst of a genocide and not to mention all of the other manifestations of settler colonialism, of occupation, annexation, apartheid, exile, the things that have been used to subjugate and oppress the Palestinian people as a whole for more than three quarters of a century.
00:20:33
Speaker
But I do think there are some glimmers of hope when we look at what's happened here in the UK and I'm sure in lots of other places as well. I think we said before, people are definitely more alive for the reality of what's happening and are questioning their own government and their own leaders on these things.
00:20:49
Speaker
We talked about the translation in the streets, we can recount people protesting, people just getting out on the streets from many different communities. We see more and more people making ethical choices about where they spend their money. We've seen it translating the student encampments, generation of students willing to risk their safety, their futures, because they see it as being nothing compared to how their fellow human beings are suffering in Palestine. And they see it as a much bigger issue broadly for our humanity.
00:21:16
Speaker
And, you know, as we've been discussing today, again, this has been translated to the ballot box and we should, you know, yes, it's a landslide majority and lots and lots of seats for labor, but we shouldn't underestimate the significance of what this has done in terms of a two party system and having some new hope through independence and greens. And it's about the hope it really creates for the future in terms of showing people that it actually is possible to vote a different way. It's really important.
00:21:38
Speaker
So I think no one really knows exactly when that tipping point will be when you're in the middle of this I don't think but I think all we have to do is just keep going and doing everything our power you know to get there and not only show us as Palestinians and Palestine but really for the sake of our collective humanity. Sado thank you so much we'll leave it there but it was great to have you on Rethinking Palestine. Thank you for having me.
00:22:03
Speaker
Rethinking Palestine is brought to you by Ashabaka, the Palestinian policy network. Ashabaka is the only global independent Palestinian think tank whose mission is to produce critical policy analysis and collectively imagine a new policymaking paradigm for Palestine and Palestinians worldwide. For more information or to donate to support our work, visit al-ashabaka.org. And importantly, don't forget to subscribe to Rethinking Palestine, wherever you listen to podcasts.