In praise of shifty, calculating and hopelessly compromised politicians
How Sir Keir Starmer defeated left-wing antisemitism by biding his time
I argued with myself all through the writing of this piece. I love the grand romantic gesture and admired without qualification the politicians who resigned in protest against anti-Jewish racism. I still do. But the fact remains that it was Sir Keir Starmer, the compromised insider, who bit his tongue and bided his time until he could transform the Labour party.
Keir Starmer and Jeremy Corbyn looking like comrades in 2017. CREDIT BEN STANSALL/AFP
In March 2021, I wrote an article for the Jewish Chronicle arguing that Keir Starmer had made it safe for Jews to vote Labour again. It brought me more complaints than anything I had written before. When I mentioned the protests to the then editor Stephen Pollard, he gave a pitch perfect imitation of an exasperated Jewish mother: “You had complaints? You? What about the complaints to Me?”
To this day, I hear friends use an admirably principled argument. Sir Keir and many others served in Jeremy Corbyn’s shadow cabinet. They went along with anti-Jewish racism when better and braver people walked out of a party that, in the words of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, “did not do enough to prevent antisemitism and, at worst, could be seen to accept it”.
How, they ask, can we trust him?
The politicians who resigned add with real bitterness that they are pleased Sir Keir and his colleagues reformed Labour, but that the leadership’s moralising infuriates them. Sir Keir didn’t speak out when speaking out would have harmed his career. He lacked the courage.
When the far-left controlled the party, I had anguished conversations with members. They had a choice. They could walk out and issue their j’accuses as Luciana Berger, Chuka Umunna, and other MPs did, when they showed true bravery by leaving Labour to form Change UK. They gambled their careers — and lost. Not one held on to their seat in the 2019 general election.[i]
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