It was a coincidence that on the one-year anniversary of the October 7 attacks, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer decided to relaunch his government just as it reached its 100-day mark.
It would be wrong to view the two issues as separate pressures on the Starmer administration, even though conflict in the Middle East did not cause the staff shake-up. The conflict is one of the defining issues facing the government, but there is a glaring need to sharpen its operation having made the worst start to a new government since Liz Truss.
The governing Labour Party’s political project has unresolved tensions at its heart, and none is greater than how Downing Street is handling British policy towards Palestine and Israel.
Mr Starmer has been a resolute supporter of Israel’s right to self-defence throughout the past year. But it is also true that in its first weeks after replacing the Conservatives, his team has conducted a rebalancing of the country’s policy towards the conflict.
The Starmer government came to power against the backdrop of rising instability and fears of a regionwide conflict. One of the weaknesses exposed in its first three months has been that it does not command a united front on its Middle East policies.
It is not enough to see the crisis in Downing Street as just a failure of personnel, though there is plenty of that. The Labour leader’s most testing challenges in office have been to do with his internal staff disputes, allegations surrounding his fondness for freebies and a lack of what former Labour prime minister Tony Blair called the “vision thing”.
Politics practised in London at the highest levels is a rough trade that hounds mercilessly through any apparent cracks. Without the ability to repel through those cracks, any government is left at the mercy of its tormentors. It was the case in the successive failing Conservative governments.
Getting rid of his chief of staff, Sue Gray, who was recruited as a former civil servant to bring a seamless transition after being out of power for 14 years, is designed to stop the rot of briefings and negative revelations. Mr Starmer and his new team of lieutenants must urgently show that they can get the government match-fit to tackle the oncoming rush of issues that it must address.
A poll conducted last week exposed how little impact Mr Starmer’s position on the Middle East has made on British public opinion. Two thirds of Labour voters say the Israeli operation in Gaza after October 7 was unjustified, while 52 per cent of those voters say that Israel should stop the operation immediately without even a ceasefire deal that secures the release of the many Israelis who remain hostages.
Labour voters are more hostile to Israel’s actions than the public as a whole. Just under half of the UK adults surveyed by YouGov said that while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government was “right to send troops into Gaza initially”, they now believe it has gone too far and caused too many civilian casualties.
Mr Starmer’s Labour counters criticism of its vague position on the issue by pointing out that it withdrew objections from the International Court of Justice findings on Israel, restored funding to UNRWA and has adopted legal advice that allows for a partial ban on arms exports to Israel. It has said in recent days that while it will act in Israel’s defence when the country is under attack, it will not participate in the retaliation that Mr Netanyahu is preparing for last week’s missile onslaught from Iran. It has also firmed up language on the UK’s readiness to recognise a Palestinian state.
Politically, however, there is a feeling that the government’s position remains a work in progress.
The poll took responses on the emergence of a block of five independent MPs from the left who campaigned on Gaza-related issues. One third of Labour voters said the election of non-Labour dissidents was a positive development, compared to a quarter that viewed it negatively.
In an attempt to quash the first early signs of dissent from the party’s left flank, Mr Starmer suspended for six months a further nine MPs, many if not all of whom would hold positions very similar to the caucus of independents. The point here is that this is not just a legacy issue from Mr Starmer’s opposition battle to rid the Labour Party of anti-Semitism but a demonstration of the unresolved divisions across the movement that are unlikely to remain marginalised.
The gap between Labour voters that see Islamophobia as worse than anti-Semitism is 29 per cent of the base to just 4 per cent viewing it the other way. Overall, when asked directly if they favoured Israel or the Palestinians in some binary, undefined choice, the Labour voter goes for Palestinians by 44 per cent to 10 per cent.
Particularly on the anniversary of such a seismic event, the Labour reshuffle should not divert attention from how the government has handled its policy towards the region. In fact, the unveiling of a new central team in No 10 is a moment to question how Mr Starmer will sharpen his administration’s handling of the issue.
The pressures of government aside, there is something about Mr Starmer’s approach that appears to have caused discomfort among voters, especially on his own side.
