How seriously does Keir Starmer take the Gaza crisis engulfing his party? Could it cost Labour a lot of seats at the next election and, therefore, in a close contest, electoral triumph? Perhaps belatedly the party leader gets how dangerous a moment this could be for him. It is the biggest crisis of Starmer’s leadership.
Two things must be said straight away. One, he is personally against a ceasefire until Hamas has been defanged; this is not the background whisperings of old Blairites but what he really thinks. Two, he badly misspoke in an 11 October LBC interview by saying Israel had the right to withhold power and water from Gazans, and was too slow to correct himself. This is political inexperience, flat-footedness – not heartlessness.
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