Sarker, a contributing editor at Novara Media, spoke to Al Jazeera about Starmer’s policy on Israel’s war on the Palestinian territories.
“Keir Starmer has made it very clear that his position on Israeli genocide and the war in Gaza is completely indistinguishable from that of Biden in the White House. When Biden changes his position, Keir Starmer magically changes it too,” she told Al Jazeera.
“In October, at the start of the war, Keir Starmer said that Israel had the right to cut off food, fuel, electricity, water and medicines to the people of Gaza. He later said his comments had been taken out of context and that this was not what he meant, but in fact his shadow cabinet ministers defended the comments. When this caused problems in the election and cost him the Muslim vote, he decided to backtrack,” Sarkar said.
“Labour said it would recognise a Palestinian state, then again walked back on that idea, so I don’t think we’re going to see any major changes on foreign policy. This has deeply angered and motivated voters in this country, particularly young, left-wing and areas with large numbers of Muslim voters, who are utterly disgusted that the consensus position of the media establishment that has enabled this genocide is so far removed from the moral position in the hearts of most people in this country.”
