UK Tories draw dividing lines over Gaza conflict

LONDON — Britain’s political leaders have sought to speak with one voice on recent events in the Middle East. Scratch the surface, however, and the response to a conflict 2,000 miles from Westminster has become acutely political on the domestic front.

It has not escaped some in the ruling Conservatives that recent events in Israel and Gaza have far more divisive implications for Labour than for their own party.

This is not only because of demographics, with Labour tending to receive the majority of Muslims’ votes at elections as well as a strong tradition of Jewish support, but due to the party’s rootedness in human rights and justice causes.

“This is why a lot of people got involved in Labour in the first place,” as one moderate Labour MP put it. “It’s just not the same for the Tories.”

Labour leader Keir Starmer has faced a revolt from all levels of his party over his insistence that it is inappropriate to call for a cease-fire on the grounds that, as he said in a speech Tuesday, “this always freezes any conflict in the state where it currently lies.” On Friday, two council chiefs quit demanding Starmer resign.

The Conservatives, in contrast, maintain a broad level of unity on the Middle East that’s hard to find replicated on almost any of the major issues facing the government today.

As a result, with their ratings languishing in the polls, some Tory strategists sense an opening to put pressure on the bruise and create problems for Labour as both parties enter a key pre-election period. 

Slings and arrows

The sharpest moment of confrontation over the Middle East conflict came last week, when Andy McDonald, a Labour MP firmly on the left of the party, posted a video of himself telling a rally that he wanted “all people, Israelis and Palestinians, between the river and the sea” to “live in peaceful liberty.”

Tory MPs as well as some Jewish commentators and Labour figures condemned his speech as a reference to the slogan “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” which is often interpreted as calling for the eradication of Israel. 

A few days later, the Conservative MP Paul Bristow was sacked from his job as a parliamentary aide after writing to Rishi Sunak to call for a cease-fire, thereby diverging from the official government line (thus far he is the only Tory to take such a stance). McDonald was suspended as a Labour MP hours afterwards.

Behind the scenes and on social media, Conservative advisers and MPs drew a comparison between the treatment of the two MPs, suggesting Sunak had been more decisive — or even that the prime minister had forced Starmer’s hand, which Labour denies.

It was the latest attempt by the ruling party to single out the behavior of individual Labour MPs.

In the days after the Hamas attacks, Conservative Party Chairman Greg Hands was keen to highlight instances of Labour MPs appearing alongside the Palestine Solidarity Campaign — an outspoken lobby group for the Palestinian cause — at Labour Party conference.

A long-serving Labour MP given permission to maintain anonymity to freely discuss the matter argued this was a conscious attempt to “dredge up” missteps which “could be used against us.” 

Tensions between the two largest parties have been further ratcheted up by the government’s recent decision to bring back the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions Bill — designed to restrict boycotts of businesses and other organizations linked to Israel. 

A Labour aide, also given anonymity, said this was “100 percent” orchestrated by the Conservatives to exploit divisions in Labour, a claim dismissed by a government official as “total nonsense.”

BBC in focus

In the immediate aftermath of the October 7 attacks, high-profile Conservatives concentrated their anger on the BBC’s reporting, zeroing in on the corporation’s refusal to label Hamas “terrorists.”

Home Office Minister Robert Jenrick told a vigil that “these were barbarians” and the BBC “should say it as it is,” while Defense Secretary Grant Shapps confronted a presenter of the BBC’s flagship morning program Today live on-air about the reluctance to use the word.

For some, this was just another example of Tories seeking to open another front in the culture wars by taking potshots at an outlet about which they are deeply ambivalent at best, suspecting the BBC of left-wing bias.

Guto Harri, a former BBC correspondent who later became ex-Tory PM Boris Johnson’s director of communications, said: “I understand the politics that may lead some of them to think there’s a relative advantage [in attacking the BBC] but I think it’s cheap politics. It doesn’t help Britain in its traditional role of being a mature observer of catastrophic events in the world.”

However, a former senior BBC executive granted anonymity in order to speak freely suggested the organization had indeed mishandled its early reporting, which unfolded on a Saturday when the most senior editors were absent. 

They said that because of the frequency of attacks on the BBC, “you get to the point of just shrugging it off, but there’s a risk there as well that you’re then less alert to genuine problems.”

‘Weakening the UK’

Sunak’s party firmly denies making political capital from the crisis in the Middle East. 

“It’s a very serious international situation and the PM is focused on that,” said a senior Downing Street official speaking anonymously, nonetheless adding: “Starmer is weakening the U.K. position diplomatically. The message [has] gone out the U.K. goes wobbly on an ally who has suffered a terror attack.”

A serving minister insisted “we’re not ‘weaponizing’ the situation in Gaza” but “there’s a point where we say, is what someone is saying right or wrong and why aren’t those closest to him calling it out?”

A Foreign Office official given permission to speak anonymously said Labour has “caused this mess themselves” and “diplomatically and internationally it makes us weak when we’re not a united front, especially with most counterparts looking at them as the next government.”

The same official questioned the wisdom of Shadow Foreign Secretary David Lammy’s visit to Egypt this week, although a second official said the international community would not be paying especially close attention to the opposition.

Starmer’s critics and allies both pointed out, however, that he has been somewhat fortunate to deal with this crisis now — far enough into his leadership that he is pretty much secure, but not yet managing his party’s divisions as a world leader from No. 10.

A previous conflict far from home ultimately undermined the legacy of the last Labour governments, of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, which were dogged by the 2003 decision to invade Iraq. Starmer knows he can not afford to repeat the mistake.