David Lammy CONFRONTED Over Labour’s Palestine Policy

Shadow Foreign Secretary David Lammy was interrupted three times by pro-Palestinian protests during a speech this weekend. Sky News captured the second and third interruptions here. I want change through power, not through protest. So let me pick up where I left off. Crisis entered our language. Rather, the moment when the patient either begins to recover or begins to slip away. And the word itself, crisis. You know, change through power, not protest, my friend. We all want a sustainable ceasefire. Now, I get the power, not protest line, right? I'm fine with that. I'm fine for them to say, we're not here to protest. We want to get into government. We want to have power. The issue I have with this, though, from this Labour front bench, what will they do with that power, right? There was, you'll remember, a vote in Parliament on whether to call for a ceasefire in Gaza, and David Lammy abstained. So why is he happy to call for a ceasefire on stage to a crowd of supporters, but not to do so in the actual halls of power, right? That's not power over protest. That's protest over power. And I'm also worried that Labour have more interest in being in office than being in power. They're different things, let's remember. Now, here's another intervention from David Lammy this weekend during an interview with Michelle Hussein. Would Labour be prepared to recognise a Palestinian state independently of what the Israeli government is doing? Yes, we are committed to the recognition of a Palestinian state. We want to work with international partners to achieve that. And there are a number of countries in the developed world saying that they believe the time has come as well. But obviously, you're doing that in conjunction with that two-state solution that is required. And this is a critical moment that comes out of this crisis. And we've got to seize that opportunity. So I think that Biden is right. And I have to say, I think Netanyahu's words were unacceptable. Of course, the Palestinian people deserve a state. And if they don't, then the consequence of that is either one state in which Benjamin Netanyahu would have to explain how Palestinians and Israelis live side by side with equal rights, or no state in which what he's really saying is occupation and siege continues. And I think the whole international world will say that's unacceptable. Now that analysis is fine, right? I don't really agree or disagree, sorry, with anything you said there. But it doesn't answer the question. If a two-state solution is Labour's stated goal, how would they actually exert power to make it happen, right? And they already appear to be going backwards on this question. Labour under Corbyn spoke about a boycott of settlement goods. That would exert power on Israel. Under Corbyn, Labour's policy was also to immediately recognise a Palestinian state, not defer that recognition until some undefined set of international negotiations. Under Starmer, and of course, under David Lamey, those two policies have been dropped. Under Starmer, Labour will simply condemn Netanyahu's words. Lamey is very happy to say, I disagree with what he said, but that won't make him face any consequences. So I'd say, David, that's the definition of protest, not power, right? You're not exerting power, not protest. You are protesting. Yes, on national radio. Oh, I condemn what Netanyahu has said. Oh, very, I'm going to be real with him. I'm going to put my foot down. That was not the right thing to say. Well, force some consequences, use some power, or are you afraid to? And there's another problem with David Lamey's interventions on this topic. And that's because even as a form of protest, the force of his proclamations are considerably weakened due to them changing from one day to the next. This was David Lamey on Channel 4 this weekend. When Benjamin Netanyahu says no to a two-state solution, we challenge him, because the consequences of that would be one state, where people are not living, able to live equally side by side, or no state at all, where occupation continues. And we stand against that. We know what he would also say to you calling now, very vociferously, as I've said, for this immediate truth. Because what does Israel do? Which of its war objectives does it give up? Does it leave hostages behind? Does it accept that the bombing must end before eliminating Hamas? We know that only a truce, only the weapons and bombs being put down, will allow hostages to come out safely and allow women and children to live the lives that we all want them to see. But you want the truce first, and Israel won't do that, will they? I am with the breadth of global opinion that wants to see the fighting end. Again, that's decent analysis, right? That was a fine answer to those questions. It's of course true, there is no military means to successfully returning hostages. It's been clear ever since they were taken on October the 7th that the way to get back hostages is through negotiation, not through indiscriminate bombing. It wasn't clear to David Lamey though, because here's what he said to Trevor Phillips on Sky on October the 15th. The Foreign Secretary James Cleverly says in the National Newspaper this morning that there will be no resiling from support for Israel. Do you agree with that? I think that must be right. Look, I'm thinking of Celine Ben-Nagar, a young woman who should be completing her maternity leave and is a hostage at this point in Gaza, having left behind her husband and her new young baby. Israel has a right to go and get those hostages. Lamey agrees there will be no resiling from support for Israel and he says that's because Israel has a right to go and get those hostages. It's a shame it took three months and 25,000 dead Palestinians for David Lamey to realise the error of his ways. Ash, I'm sure David Lamey will say, that first clip or that last clip that I just showed there, that was from October the 15th. It was just eight days after the attacks of October the 7th. Of course, I've changed my mind since then. I've got two problems with that. One, the principle has been the same all along, which is that you don't bomb to get your hostages back. A negotiation was possible from day one. My bigger problem is that it took three months for Labour to shift their position on that. Obviously, the vote in Parliament on a ceasefire was way after October the 15th when he was saying that. We still had Labour saying, oh no, Israel have every right to continue bombing. They need to get their hostages back. They need to destroy Hamas. Why has David Lamey suddenly changed his tune? Have the facts on the ground changed or does he now suddenly feel that there's enough diplomatic and political cover that he can say different things? To me, this seems like someone who is, not only is he not willing to exert power when he gets, if he becomes foreign secretary, but he doesn't seem to know what he would do with it if he had it. What does he believe? It changes from one day to the next. Basically, based on what it seems what other people are saying, what people more powerful than him are saying, what the White House is saying. What do you think this tells us about what he would be like as a foreign secretary if he does end up in that job? Well, I think that in some ways David Lamey would be a cookie cutter foreign secretary for the UK because he's shown himself to be totally lacking in integrity, totally lacking in sincerity and happy to merely go along with whatever the main narratives that are coming out of the United States are. So from lots of people in the world of foreign policy, that's the ideal. That's as good as you can get from a foreign secretary. Now, obviously, I don't think that's a particularly good foreign secretary, but I think that that fulfills the main concerns that Keir Starmer has had when it comes to dealing with Israel and Palestine under his leadership because he's got two main things that are shaping how the Labour Party respond. The first is domestic politics. Labour don't want to get called anti-Semites again. So quite frankly, Israel gets way more of a pass on committing atrocities because the Labour Party is triangulated on this issue. It's signed up to an IHRA definition of antisemitism, which makes it incredibly difficult to criticise Israel when it is committing atrocities and also is so broadly defined that if you're being criticised and the IHRA is being invoked, really it depends on whether or not people like you, whether people think you're part of the club, whether you're part of the establishment, whether that's going to have a political impact on you. So that's the first thing, triangulating around antisemitism in the mind of Keir Starmer and I think David Lammy as well, it just means going easy on Israel. The second thing is completely abandoning whatever vestiges of anti-imperialism remained in the Labour Party after Jeremy Corbyn stood down as leader. I think this is the real reason why Corbyn was so dangerous to the establishment. It wasn't so much about his domestic economic policies. It wouldn't put the UK that far out of step with Scandinavian countries or even Germany. No, I think it was about the fact that there would be a significant reorientation of the UK's foreign and defence policy. There would certainly, I think, be action on Israel's failure to move towards a two-state solution. It's continual flouting of international law with the expansion of legal settlements and maintaining a blockade on Gaza. And I think that there would be an ending of a version of the special relationship with America where we're, you know, their most special little guy because we're effectively a lapdog. What Keir Starmer and David Lammy want to do is restore the credibility, quote-unquote, of the UK in the eyes of, I think, establishment foreign policy circles, which goes, look, wherever America leads, we'll follow. And we've seen that happen in quite practical ways. So this isn't just about what is sayable, what is thinkable, what is politically convenient to either ignore or admit at different times. We're seeing that in terms of the UK participating in airstrikes on Yemen. And this is, I think, a completely bananas military operation. Very, very open-ended. Very, very, I think, broadly drawn objectives. Huge significance for escalation and further destabilisation of the region. You're playing, I think, a very dangerous game when it comes to, you know, making Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabian infrastructure more likely, which breaks the datum between Saudi Arabia and Iran. It also ratchets up the stakes of a potential direct confrontation with Iran, which nobody serious actually wants in either Britain or America. This was a very, very badly planned, you know, military incursion into Yemeni sovereignty. But the position of Keir Starmer and David Lammy was, well, we want to do the bombs first, because that's what America wants to do. And then we're going to raise the really important questions about why we're doing it in parliament later. Now, that is the very definition of not even bolting the sable door after the horse has already gone. It's sort of like debating whether or not you should bolt the door after the horse is already halfway to Harrogate. It's completely ridiculous. That's what they think being a serious political operator means. Sure, you'll get the applause of, you know, The Times and The Guardian and The Observer. But ultimately, I think you're consigning Britain to more of, you know, it's kind of international death spiral that we've been in for decades, where we have, I think, done things which have destabilised the Middle East, and ultimately have had significant blowback on us as well. And I don't see the judgment of David Lammy as being particularly insightful or countervailing to that tendency. You had a brief break with it with Jeremy Corbyn, and now it's back to regular scheduled programming. When people talk about new labour, I mean, you can criticise them in loads of ways, but it's all like, you know, they were fine for the NHS, right? The waiting list did go down. Education got more money, right? There are a number of arguments you can make where new labour did some decent stuff. The one thing I think pretty much everyone in the country agrees with, nearly everyone, at least a super majority, is that the foreign policy of doing whatever the United States wanted to do, which led us into the illegal war in Iraq, with catastrophic consequences for the region and for us, frankly, right? That was the worst decision Tony Blair and New Labour ever made. And now, in the first international crisis sort of in the Middle East since Keir Starmer was elected, they've made it their mantra, we will do whatever the United States does, right? So if you had any sort of concern, distrust, sort of worry, oh god, you know, Labour, they must be better than the Tories. And, you know, Keir Starmer, I can't imagine he'll be as gung-ho as Tony Blair when it comes to sort of starting new wars, right? Then you've got this opposition, sorry, Keir Starmer and all of his front benchers who, any kind of military action, they're willing to sort of rub a stamp that the Tories want to enter into. And they're very explicitly saying, we just follow the United States when it comes to foreign policy, right? Like that hasn't gone catastrophically wrong before. If I was trying to reassure people, I would be, you know, putting out the precise opposite message, right? We'll be like New Labour but without the Iraq war, right? That to me would seem like a fairly popular offer, right? But it's just completely bizarre. I don't know who this is for. And, I mean, we said this before on this show. So, when it comes to sort of Keir Starmer being, you know, very, very reluctant to say he'll increase taxes on the wealthy and in fact, you know, Rachel Reeves now sort of suggesting they might reduce taxes on the rich. That is not for the electorate. The electorate don't want lower taxes on the rich. They want higher taxes on the rich. That is for the business elite and the Murdoch press, right? That is to say, we are reassuring the business elites that Labour are not going to do anything, let alone to harm you, to even inconvenience you, right? Labour are not going to do that. And this signposting, when it comes to sort of following America to do anything, right? That's not to the public. Again, the public do not say, you know what I want to do? I want to elect a government that just does whatever the Americans do regardless of the consequences, right? That's not what the median voter wants. What he is doing is he's signposting to the military establishment, right? To, I mean, you could say to the deep state, but also to some of these sort of establishment newspapers and the like. He's saying, you don't have to worry about us. We are not going to rock the boat. We are going to do whatever the military establishment wants to be done, right? That's us. You don't have to fear us. So sort of while they say this is so that we can sort of win round voters, Jeremy Corbyn didn't speak to ordinary people. In many ways, he did end up being alienated from ordinary people, right? But not really when it came from his reluctance to enter wars in the Middle East, right? That was one of his popular policies. Very, very keen to dump that now that Keir Starmer is in charge.