IF 2023 was a year to remember, it was largely for the wrong reasons. This is especially true for the Palestinian people or for anyone who favours peace over war, or human development over massacres.

But if we are looking for some grounds for optimism, it seems very likely that the assault on Gaza will end in 2024. If that is not the case then, through a combination of bombardment, starvation and disease, there will be almost nothing left of the Palestinian people.

All those political leaders and parties, mainly in the Nato countries, who oppose a ceasefire now will bear their share of responsibility for this. Of course, there have been forced expulsions and genocides before, unfortunately including many on a much larger scale than Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians now. The Nakba itself was on a much greater scale.

But never before have we seen the effects of this type of colonial oppression on our nightly news, captured by thousands of mobile phones. Surely there will be an enormous political price paid by those who refused to lift a finger to stop these massacres. There certainly ought to be.

The complete removal of Palestinians and their forced displacement into the Sinai desert is now a stated war aim across the Israeli leadership. The distinct possibility is that they will do it if they can. But even this US president may struggle to justify that in an election year.

Joe Biden could of course end the whole Israeli offensive tomorrow. It is the US backing that allows Israel to treat the Palestinian people and many of its neighbours in such a disgraceful way. If there was a restraining US hand on Israel, there would be some sign of restraint. But there is none.

Instead, the much-discussed widening of the conflict is mainly from the US itself. It has appointed itself as the military police for the Red Sea and has conducted air strikes in both Iraq and Syria. It should be recalled that the US illegally occupies portions of both countries and commits grand larceny against them both by stealing their oil.

Yet 2024 is an election year in the US and in many other countries, including our own. Biden is deeply unpopular, so much so that he could even lose to the dangerous ignoramus that is Donald Trump.

It is reported that Biden berates his officials for his terrible poll ratings. Not only is Biden persistently behind Trump by small margins in national polls, he is way behind in many of the large swing states, where the electoral college outcome is decided.

There seems to be no self-reflection at all. Biden has enacted the Trump agenda wholesale. From the stupid economic policy of stoking inflation which cut living standards, to the murderous policy of attacking migrants and “building the wall,” this is Trump’s domestic agenda.

On foreign policy, it seems hard to believe that any previous US president since 1948 would have backed Israel so wholeheartedly in this onslaught. The one exception is probably Trump, the author of the Abraham Accords, who shifted the US embassy to Jerusalem.

Biden has also followed the Trump line of disregarding and undermining US allies in Europe while expecting them to menace China rather than economically co-operate with it. All of this is in addition to the biggest ground war in Europe since the end of the second world war.

There seems to be no end to the fighting in Ukraine in 2024. However that too will eventually end, and most likely through peace negotiations and not overwhelming victory.

Regrettably, we live in an era of wars. Since the first Gulf war in 1990, the US has been continuously in armed conflict. We can count Iraq, the former Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Yemen, the second Iraq war, Libya and Syria, as well as numerous smaller-scale military interventions including Haiti, Somalia and others. All are supported in this country.

There are few grounds for optimism that the era will come to an end any time soon and certainly not in 2024. Despite a lukewarm public and opposition in Congress, the Biden administration continues to fight for an additional $110 billion military aid package, to stoke conflict in Israel-Palestine, Ukraine and Taiwan.

Of course, political party leaders in this country continue to operate as nodding dogs to every new US military venture, and even to every new nuance of US military rhetoric. The settled position of the British Establishment is that there must not be a cigarette paper between this country and the US. This became a shibboleth of British policy shortly after the Suez debacle.

Therefore a second Trump presidency is highly unlikely to cause a breach in the “special relationship” as fondly imagined by British diplomats, no matter how uncomfortable Trump makes them, and no matter what reckless adventures he (or a re-elected Biden) wishes to pursue.

Literally billions of people will be going to the polls in 2024. Britain is just one of many countries that might expect a change of government.

But there is a key lesson for many of them from the woes of the Biden administration. Biden did not win as a progressive. He simply ran as the “not-Trump” candidate and the tailwinds of the Black Lives Matter movement did the rest. He did win handsomely though, with 51.3 per cent of the popular vote.

The parallels with the situation here are obvious. The deep unpopularity of the Tories is Keir Starmer’s main asset, although he confuses matters by running as the anti-Corbyn candidate rather than the anti-Sunak one, which may yet cost Labour when the actual votes are cast.

Yet we can be reasonably confident that Starmer will be the next prime minister (unless there is another Tory charlatan in the interim). It is then that the glaring problem of Labour having no substantial agenda of its own will come to the forefront.

More wars, falling living standards, and whipping up racism by using immigration as a distraction is not a recipe for success, as any honest appraisal of Biden’s performance shows.

Adding to that a U-turn on desperately needed green investment as well as the continued underfunding of public services, especially the NHS and schools, and combining that with a dearth of homebuilding is not going to work, as Rishi Sunak for one can testify.

Instead, the social and political consequences will be deeply negative. Politically, a government from the centre left implementing the agenda of the right and even far right lays the path for their comeback, as Trump’s lead shows.

All of this is contingent on the reaction to the social crisis; whether unions, a mass anti-racist, or anti-war movement or some other forces leading the fightback. It doesn’t have to be this way. But the prospects for 2024 show that the fightback is already necessary.

Diane Abbott is MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington. Follow her on X @HackneyAbbott.