2024-07-08

Elections Have Consequences for Blogging

So Labour won a monster landslide victory in the UK general elections, and they did so with Keith "I think Israel does have that right" Starmer running on a pretty expressly pro-Israel platform. So much so that they faced multiple challenges from pro-Palestine independent candidates. Four or five of them (depending on whether you include Jeremy Corbyn in this group) won, including shadow minister Jonathan Ashworth losing to a first time independent candidate. Another senior Labour shadow minister came within 528 votes to losing to a 23 year old independent candidate.

This has forced them to shift their stance on the genocide. One of the last things the Conservative government did was to intervene in the request for war crimes warrants against Netanyahu and Gallant. Well, now the word is the incoming Labour government is dropping that request. Now to be sure, we won't know if this is real until the warrants are issued and governments love to talk about how they are concerned with the ongoing massive casualties and destruction in Gaza all while steadfastly doing nothing to prevent it. Also on the "possible good news but I won't believe it until I see it" front - the UK is reviewing their decision to cut off UNRWA funding and to continue supplying military equipment to Israel.

Meanwhile in France, the left wing coalition that just won the most seats is talking about recognizing Palestinian statehood.

Is this all massively inadequate to meet the moment? Yes. But also, it is a big difference - tiny steps in the right direction don't seem like much until you notice that the prior trend was just plummeting down a hole into normalizing ethnic cleansing.

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