Still looking for a ceasefire: Labour, Elections & Military action. The forgotten lessons of 2005
The House of Commons will vote on an SNP motion calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza on Wednesday. Protests are having their impact and that is underlined by Labour’s alternative motion which appears also to call for a ceasefire. The fact that Labour is whipping MPs to oppose the SNP call underlines that its not really doing so.
Of course whatever happens it won’t somehow magically lead to a ceasefire. However as Britain was the imperial power in the area after the First World War, what Parliament says is noticed.
There is a history here and its one Keir Starmer should really recall as he opposed the Iraq War in 2003.
In the 2001 General Election, nearly a repeat of the result of 1997 Labour had a majority of 167. At the next Election in 2005 Labour’s majority dropped to 66. Tony Blair was replaced by Gordon Brown as PM in 2006.
In between the two Elections was the Iraq War. It was opposed by a significant number of Labour MPs (Blair didn’t have quite such an authoritarian focus as Starmer, dissent was freely expressed) and saw the biggest ever protest march in UK history on 15th February 2003. The war has become even more unpopular since and has a limited number of warmongers who still think it was a good idea.
The drop in Labour’s majority was undoubtedly due in large part to opposition to the war. This focused on Muslim voters, and saw George Galloway win Bethnal Green and Bow from Labour on an anti-war platform. The vote was far wider than that however and undoubtedly included those just fed up with the difference between Labour’s plan to create a New Britain and the limited progress that was actually made.
Fast forward to 2024 and we find another Labour leader, Keir Starmer, equivocating at best about a genocide in Gaza. It is increasingly unpopular with the public, polls suggest around three quarters of the public want a ceasefire. Starmer is flat footed as a leader compared to Blair and doesn’t have a large majority to lose since he is in Opposition.
It’s unlikely particularly given the current debacle of an ever more right-wing and incompetent Tory Government that Labour will lose a 2024 Election which is just as well, despite Starmer. The lesson of 2005 and what followed is that in, at best, not calling clearly for an immediate stop to an unpopular and murderous genocide Starmer is doing very significant damage to his chances of hanging around as Labour leader and PM. Blair’s departure underlines the point
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