UK Zionist lobby heaps praise on Starmer

Barely four days into the job as Labour party leader and Keir Starmer has reached out to the Zionist lobby in the UK in an effort to consolidate his leadership.

According to multiple reports, Starmer and his deputy, Angela Rayner, held a video conference with four Jewish groups immediately after Starmer’s ascension to the leadership.

During the video conference Starmer and his deputy vowed to establish an “independent complaints process” to look into allegations of anti-Semitism within the party and asked for a report on all outstanding cases within a week.  

The video conference replaced a face-to-face meeting because of restrictions put in place to combat the coronavirus outbreak.

The four groups then issued a statement praising Starmer for making a “good start” to his leadership.

Even before the virtual meeting with the Jewish groups, during his leadership acceptance speech on April 04, Starmer had gone out of his way to apologize to pro-Israeli sections of the Jewish community for the supposed anti-Semitism in the Labour party.

Starmer – who is determined to demonstrate a decisive shift away from the Jeremy Corbyn era – appears keen to cultivate the Zionist lobby as part of that process.

Writing in the Evening Standard on April 07, Starmer went out of his way to appease the Zionist lobby. The fact that this is his first major political statement since becoming party leader speaks volumes about his political priorities.  

Former labour leader, Corbyn, came under intense pressure during his leadership (September 2015 to April 2020) to root out alleged anti-Semitism within the party.

But a Labour party inquiry into anti-Semitism in 2016, chaired by the former shadow Attorney General Shami Chakrabarti (who is also a barrister and human rights activist), found that many of the allegations were unfounded.

Many pro-Palestinian activists in the Labour party complain of being falsely labeled anti-Semitic because of their opposition to Israel and Zionism.

These activists argue that leading Zionist publications such as the Jewish Chronicle falsely frame their narrative as pan-Jewish in order to conceal their Zionist agenda.

Meanwhile, in yet another attempt to break with the Corbyn era, Starmer replaced Chakrabarti as the shadow Attorney General with Lord Charlie Falconer.

Whilst Chakrabarti was close to Corbyn, Falconer is a long-standing ally of former Labour Prime Minister, Tony Blair.

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