Just three weeks ago, Sir Keir Starmer was master of all he surveyed. The Labour Party conference in Liverpool was the dictionary definition of message discipline. Everyone from shadow cabinet ministers to ordinary party members appeared in lockstep behind the leader, while the hard-Left was barely a rump. Hamas’s terrorist attack on Israel, and the Israeli military’s response, have changed all that.
London Mayor Sadiq Khan, Manchester Metro Mayor Andy Burnham and Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar are three of the most high-profile figures to have called for a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas. In other words, the backlash is not confined to the Corbynite Left. The party’s current position is for a humanitarian pause. But Starmer appears increasingly unlikely to take action against frontbenchers who contradict this position.
