“KEIR STARMER is worse than the Tories. They hit pensioners by taking away their winter fuel allowance and now they’re going to hit disabled people … while wasting billions of pounds on a war in Ukraine.”

Thus John Caldwell explains his views to the Financial Times this week. He is a voter in Runcorn and Helsby, which chooses a new MP in a by-election on Thursday.

Caldwell’s quoted opinions could be summed up as “welfare not warfare.” Yet he plans to vote for Reform.

Socialists are missing a key connection in the political turmoil if they do not address the Caldwell conundrum.

It is correct to point out that Nigel Farage is a Thatcherite whose declarations of support for working people is mere cosplay.

Also true that Reform thrives on the scapegoating of migrants and minorities for Britain’s social crisis.

And it is right to argue that Labour is empowering Reform through its cuts programme and its hostility to migrants. It will not embrace Caldwell’s agenda and seeks to outbid Farage in populist posturing instead.

But the more important truth is that many of those voting Reform do so because they want change and have despaired of Labour or the Tories offering it.  These sentiments have powered nearly a decade of voter rebellion.

The change Caldwell and many others want is fully consistent with policies promoted by the left.

Indeed, in his explicit linking of austerity here with war-mongering abroad, he is in advance of some on the left too mealy-mouthed to make the connection.

If such men and women are not to be abandoned to the Farage gang and right-wing populism then the left must find the means to appeal to them directly, outwith the incubus of decaying Starmerism.

New allies should be welcomed

IT WOULD be wrong for pro-Palestinian campaigners to ignore the split in the Board of Deputies of British Jews over Israel’s escalating aggression.

Thirty-six deputies, more than 10 per cent of the total, went public denouncing Israel’s unilateral breach of the ceasefire agreement in Gaza, and pointing out that it was driven by appeasement of the far right in Benjamin Netanyahu’s governing coalition.

The deputies wrote they could no longer “turn a blind eye or remain silent” over what is happening in Gaza. “Israel’s soul is being ripped out,” they said, adding that “our Jewish values compel us to stand up and to speak out.”

Thirty rabbis have since publicly expressed their own support for the letter.

The board has responded by launching a disciplinary inquiry into the 36 and has already suspended one from her official position. 

It will brook no criticism of Israel, just as it has worked with the police to try to suppress pro-Palestinian protests. Its actions in both cases underline how support for Israel is antithetical to democracy.

Some will argue that this dissent is much too little, far too late. That would be short-sighted.

Yes, the world has been watching a genocide for 18 months. Nor should it be forgotten that thousands of Jewish men and women have attended the mass Palestinian solidarity protests without soliciting the board’s opinions.

But the letter indicates a widening fissure in the ranks of Israel’s supporters. Even those supportive of Israel’s existence can no longer stomach the atrocities being committed.

The supposed “unity” of the Jewish community under the board’s mis-leadership was a stick to beat the Corbyn leadership of Labour. It is likewise used today to smear criticisms of Israel’s genocide as “anti-semitic.”

That becomes harder the more Jewish people make critical views heard. The board’s authoritarian over-reaction will only widen the rift. Supporters of the Palestinians should welcome their new allies.