Why Keir Starmer's cynical recognition of Palestine is about as low he could go

The reality is that such performative yet empty gestures by Keir Starmer push the realisation of a Palestinian state even further away. He is not building peace but encouraging continued conflict, war and death.

Swinney has now created a bidding war, taking us further away from peace. That is not to say Starmer or Swinney want such an outcome, but such is their need to retain domestic power at any price for their own political sects that they are, wittingly or unwittingly, willing to be the midwives of further Middle East bloodshed.

They may convince themselves they are providing hope for Arabs who wish a peaceful path towards a Palestinian state, but in truth they are rewarding those who wish to achieve that outcome by the killing of unlimited numbers of peaceful Israelis, be they other Arabs, Druze, Christians or more often, Jews.

Starmer's action appears like nothing other than voter grooming – looking to tempt a small but crucial group of voters from deserting Labour to Jeremy Corbyn's nascent party and shore up his own backbench support. Meanwhile, Swinney apes Starmer by looking to do the same in Scotland, no doubt fearful Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar’s support for recognising Palestine will cost the SNP votes in the Holyrood elections.

Are such possible motives cynicism or mere coincidence? I doubt it is the latter when it so obviously stares one in the face. Such transparent and blatant posturing on an issue so complex and delicate is about as low as it can get for political leaders.

Swinney surely wants to talk about Palestine because he is a human being with compassion for the suffering of people around the world? Why then does he not push the plight of the Uyghurs in today’s China or its subjugation of Tibet? Why does he not protest about the 62,000 Christians killed in Nigeria since 2000? Maybe he will get round to it, but I rather doubt it.

The best plan for peace is that which Donald Trump has been pursuing and which some neighbouring states have shown a willingness to work with. Yet Starmer is undermining the peace process that Trump initiated in his first term by rewarding, yes rewarding, the actions of Hamas on October 7, 2023. No matter how much Starmer or Swinney deny it, Hamas’s leaders are already claiming the UK Government’s actions as a victory justifying the October 7 deaths at the hands of terrorists.

The two-state solution stares the world in its face; it is called Jordan and Israel, the two states that in 1946 and 1948 were born out of the Palestine Mandate that Britain took on in 1917 as the Ottoman Empire collapsed.

What is called the two-state solution is in fact the three-state solution: Israel, Jordan and an additional state of Palestine as a result of the expulsion of PLO supporters by Jordan in 1971.

The 2024 Labour election manifesto included support for recognition of a Palestinian state. Importantly, however, it was caveated by the need for it to be part of a peace-enhancing process. In the current circumstances, with some 48 hostages held by Hamas, including 28 believed to be dead, granting recognition to the state without the return of even dead bodies to grieving relatives does not advance peace.

The Abraham Accords peace process being pursued by President Trump from his first term, which was being continued through the Biden presidency, is being weakened by Starmer and Swinney. If either genuinely want peace and wish to help they should have put all their effort into supporting Trump, not giving succour to Hamas murderers by rewarding violence over peace.

Until the heinous 1,195 murders by Hamas on October 7, the Abraham Accords had seen formal diplomatic recognition given to Israel by the UAE in 2020, making it the third Arab country, after Egypt in 1979 and Jordan in 1994, to formally normalise relations with Israel.

The next likely addition to the peace-building process was Saudi Arabia formally recognising Israel. It is a widely accepted view that the invasion of the pro-peace music festival in Israel, resulting in the slaughter of innocents and the hunting down of families in their homes, including newborn babies, was timed to provoke a reaction from Israel that would make Saudi rapprochement impossible.

It had the desired effect and has, unsurprisingly, unleashed the consequences of war upon the people of Gaza. To end this process of escalating violence requires careful diplomacy involving the talking down of expectations that more deaths will somehow bring results.

Recognising a state that does not yet exist at this time is guaranteed to end in bloody failure. We must remember that there are those who reject Israel and will not be satisfied until the Jews are yet again expelled from their homeland.

The United Kingdom has bad form in its handling of the Palestine question, not least in being the first to recognise the annexation of half of the free city of Jerusalem by Jordan in 1947 that resulted in the bloody expulsion of Jews from the Jewish Quarter.

Starmer has added another stain on our record. It will not be forgotten, nor will Swinney’s craven attempt to outbid him.

Brian Monteith is a former member of the Scottish and European parliaments and editor of ThinkScotland.org