When Donald Trump attacked Iran, Labour PM Keir Starmer stayed out of it. Perhaps he was right. Trump’s war was badly planned, and it hasn’t gone well. But it was still a big decision to snub our long-standing ally. Now the Labour Party has taken aim at another ally, by imposing sanctions on Israeli settlers in the Palestinian West Bank. Miliband may have a point. It’s a land grab. But again, it’s another big decision.
Labour lost huge numbers of Muslim voters over Keir Starmer’s handling of Gaza. Now it will do or say anything to get them back. Even if it risks fraying relations with Israel, a country that shares intelligence with us, makes vital technology for our armed forces, and has helped prevent a string of Islamist attacks on these shores. Burnham and Miliband are approaching foreign policy like student activists. In doing so, they’re threatening British interests.
Trump has made it clear that he won’t help us defend the Falklands if Argentina was to attack. We can hardly complain about that. I’m no fan of Trump or Benjamin Netanyahu. But I’m no fan of the people Labour is bending the knee to here either: hard-left activists, Gaza obsessives and Islamic entryists who make up most of the Green Party vote today.
Labour wants them back. And it will do or say anything to get them, including selling out free speech with new Islamophobia laws. Along with Zack Polanski, it’s dragging Britain every deeper into sectarian politics, with terrifying consequences.
An article by Labour peer Maurice Glasman in The Times has highlighted something Westminster seems remarkably reluctant to discuss: the huge uprising against Iran’s Islamic Republic and the murderous response that followed, with tens of thousands killed for demanding democracy.
Iran has spent decades exporting terror, supporting proxy groups and threatening its neighbours. In contrast to Gaza, nobody is marching through the streets of our cities to protest against its sickening regime. Glasman says in Westminster, MPs don’t want to know.
Labour is remarkably reluctant to fund our defence. Former defence secretary John Healey resigned over it. It turned out that was just a ruse to get rid of Starmer. Now he’s chancellor, “he’s forgotten all about it”. He was just playing internal party politics.
Labour wants the Muslim vote back. It wants to keep the hard Left quiet. It wants to stop the Greens eating further into its support. And those are the factors driving our foreign policy today. It’s shameful. Britain needs to know who its friends are and who its enemies are. For all its faults, Israel is our friend. Iran is our enemy. Burnham and Miliband don’t seem to know the difference.
