Keir Starmer’s Gaza test and the ghost of Tony Blair

One of Keir Starmer’s favourite lines is that whenever he sees a problem, he wants to fix it, not “walk around it”. Except today, when faced with a serious challenge to his leadership, during questions in the House of Commons about the Israel-Hamas conflict, he definitely had his walking boots on.

During PMQs, he devoted all six of his questions to the prime minister to the thesis that the defeated Conservative candidate in the Tamworth by-election was merely expressing government policy when he told families unable to feed their children to “eff off”. Other MPs were keener to oppose Rishi Sunak’s policy of standing with Israel.

Stuart McDonald and Mhairi Black for the Scottish National Party called for a ceasefire. So did Colum Eastwood of the Northern Irish Social Democratic and Labour Party, who added another code phrase of the emerging opposition to the common position of the Tory and Labour front benches, accusing Israel of inflicting “collective punishment” on the people of Gaza.

More significantly for Starmer, though, was the final question of the session, which came from Yasmin Qureshi, who is a Labour shadow minister. She deployed both the call for ceasefire and the accusation of collective punishment. Her question was addressed to the prime minister, but it was aimed at the leader of the opposition, or leader of the so-called opposition as several MPs obviously thought, who was sitting in front of her, facing impassively away.

Qureshi’s words were a direct challenge to her leader’s policy. On Monday, when Florence Eshalomi, another shadow minister, used the word “ceasefire” in the Commons, she later changed Hansard, the official record, to say “humanitarian corridor” instead. Qureshi, on the other hand, intended to defy Starmer, and intends to stand by the word.

The Labour leader’s policy was set out on his behalf by Sunak: he is in favour of “specific pauses as distinct from a ceasefire”, and he refuses to describe Israeli policy as collective punishment, which could be a war crime. “We do have to remember,” the prime minister said, “that Israel has suffered a shockingly brutal terrorist attack.” He said that the hostages must be returned, and pointed out that you cannot both call for a ceasefire and say that Israel has a right to defend itself.

Starmer sat mutely through these exchanges. Afterwards, his spokesperson was equally unforthcoming about whether Qureshi would be allowed to remain on the front bench, which appeared to be a question to which the answer was yes.

Starmer then had to face the unease of Muslim Labour MPs and peers in a meeting in the shadow cabinet room. He brought Angela Rayner, his deputy and left-wing shield, with him.

He knows that he has a problem with his party and with many of its voters, but he cannot afford to allow any gap between him and Sunak on this issue. If he tried to be more critical of Israel, he would allow the Conservatives to portray him as soft on Hamas, soft on terrorism and soft on antisemitism. He knows better than anyone how much Jeremy Corbyn poisoned the well of well-intentioned support for the Palestinian cause.

This means that in this respect, as in so many others, he finds himself refighting Tony Blair’s battles with his own party.

Blair’s support for Israel was the straw that broke the back of Labour MPs’ support for him. His resignation as prime minister was triggered on 12 July 2006, when Israel retaliated against Hezbollah’s kidnapping of two soldiers in a cross-border raid from Lebanon. Blair refused to condemn Israel or to call for a ceasefire, as he wrote in his memoir: “By then, I felt truly uneasy compromising on it. If I had condemned Israel, it would have been more than dishonest; it would have undermined the worldview I had come to hold passionately. So I didn’t, but I could feel the PLP [Parliamentary Labour Party] move more or less en masse to a querulous position.”

Labour MPs are in a “querulous position” again. At last week’s shadow cabinet meeting, Wes Streeting and Shabana Mahmood, both loyalists, are said to have warned that the party’s stance on Gaza must not appear “callous”.

But there is a difference between querulous now and querulous then. Then, Blair had been prime minister for nine years, and had joined the US invasion of Iraq against the instincts of most Labour MPs. Now, Starmer stands on the threshold of power, with Labour MPs so close to the prospect of ministerial office after 13 years in opposition that they can almost feel the weight of those red boxes.

Muslim MPs, and MPs with large Muslim populations, are nervous about the possible electoral effects of conflict in Gaza, but with Labour so far ahead in the opinion polls, the threat of a George Galloway revival hardly seems real. And even Galloway was only ever one MP – in Bethnal Green and Bow (2005-10) and Bradford West (2012-15).

So far, the 30 or so local councillors who have resigned from Labour in protest against Starmer’s stance on Gaza have only exposed their weakness, in many cases being merely the latest examples of the amazing self-purging Corbynites.

Starmer faces a test over Gaza, and he shows none of Blair’s bravery in arguing for what he believes. His preferred way of dealing with his party’s queasiness is to stick closely to the government line and to say as little as possible.

But he will pass the test because he is in such a strong position in the Labour Party.