THE crisis playing out in Westminster is the desperate thrashing around of the obtuse, entitled, unprincipled and dangerous faction which seized control of the Labour Party in 2020.

It did so on a fraudulent political prospectus, buttressed by deceit and law-breaking. In opposition it discarded everything which made the party distinctive as well as hundreds of thousands of members. It was, and is, animated solely by hatred of socialism.

It failed to win over voters, polling three million fewer than Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour in 2017 and profiting solely from a deeply divided right in 2024.

It entered office with no plan or programme. It has operated since strictly within prevailing orthodoxies in economic and international politics, and in doing so has sacrificed not just any possibility of meaningful change but even its moral integrity.

And for all the “country before party” rhetoric it has ruled in the interests of its own small faction, a fact underlined by the disastrous appointment of Peter Mandelson as ambassador to Washington.

It is a faction devoid of ideas and strategy. Even when an entirely foreseeable election disaster came to pass, Starmer’s Downing Street had nothing new to offer, a study in political hopelessness.

But the Labour right is not proposing to go quietly. The Starmer-Streeting stand-off is a spectacle which offers no hope of change.

Indeed, it is precisely designed to pre-empt the shift needed.  Labour MPs must demand a timetable for Starmer’s departure which allows the space for proper debate and a choice which includes the full range of possibilities.

Starmer’s exit must mean a fresh start for Labour, not another spray-job for the same clapped-out faction.

A Whitehall rally and selective solidarity 

THIS paper has campaigned against antisemitism throughout its history. Today that is as urgent as ever. We have repeatedly urged the left to treat the issue of hatred against Jews as seriously as any other form of racism.

We are therefore entitled to say that not only was last weekend’s rally in Whitehall against antisemitism a missed opportunity, it was a case study in how not to oppose this rising evil.

The organisers — the leading communal bodies the Board of Deputies and the Jewish Leadership Council — said they wanted the rally to celebrate “British values.” 

Yet it was festooned with the flags of Israel, a state involved in aggression and ethnic cleansing opposed by most British people, including many Jews.

They said they wanted to oppose racism. Yet they gave a platform to Reform deputy leader Richard Tice, fresh from refusing to denounce one of his party’s councillors who called for Nigerians to be melted down to fill in potholes.

They claimed inclusivity — yet human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell was beset, and progressive rabbis booed by the crowd.

They refused to give a platform to the one major party with a Jewish leader — the Greens — on the grounds it had not tackled antisemitism in its ranks, while waving through Reform, saturated in antisemitism as it is.

They urged non-partisanship, yet not only were Labour and Liberal Democrat speakers shouted down, a platform was provided to the misnamed “Campaign Against Antisemitism,” infamous for its right-wing bias and pro-Israel advocacy.

This is no way to run the broad campaign needed, and many significant Jewish commentators have since acknowledged it.

The Board of Deputies and the rest need to decide whether their priority is fighting antisemitism or championing Israel, whether they want to speak for all Jews on this issue or just the political right.

If they wish to reject the millions of progressives who are opposed to antisemitism, it is Jews in Britain who will pay the price.