The Telegraph has this headline in an email this afternoon:
I am not in any way condoning what Vylan said, but Starmer gave his 'island of strangers' speech recently and has never once apologised for actively supporting a government pursuing genocide. I suggest he needs to get his own act in order before jumping on the BBC, which was, no doubt, caught by surprise by what was said. Starmer acted with prior forethought.
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More and more back benchers are challenging the front benches of both parties. The political leadership is, increasingly, out of touch with public opinion.
Hypocrisy doesn’t begin to describe it.
Since December 2023 RAF Shadow R1 spy planes have flown 500-plus Gaza sorties out of Cyprus. Ministers say the data is “for hostage rescue”, but written answers confirm it’s passed straight to Israeli authorities. That’s actionable targeting intelligence whether Starmer admits it or not.
The government bragged last year that only “non-lethal aid” was going to Israel, yet import data show UK firms have shipped thousands of bomb parts, grenades, armoured-vehicle kits and F-35 components since 7 October 2023. A token suspension of 30 licences left roughly 200 others wide open.
In that infamous October 2023 LBC interview he said Israel had “the right” to cut off power and water to Gaza – a textbook war crime. He has never retracted the sentiment, let alone apologised.
Starmer so predictable getting things wrong. The stupid pop group calling for more death just plays into the government’s genocidal- facilitating hands.
Starmer shouldnt have called for Kneecap group to be banned – getting like Trump.
If he wanted to promote democracy he should be asking BBC why they have censored an independent objective documentary on the massacre of Gaza doctors.
Agreed
Good article in the Guardian: “Palestine Action is part of Britain’s proud history of protest. Proscribing it is an assault on democracy” by Suresh Grover (29 June 2025) https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/jun/29/palestine-action-protest-proscribing-assault-democracy
Last chance saloon…
The IDF is currently machine gunning civilians waiting in line for food.
And I checked — although the IDF does not allow non-Jewish foreigners to join it does have non-Jewish members who are Israeli citizens so Bobby Vylan’s chants were not inherently antisemitic.
I would however like to take this opportunity to distance myself from any calls to violence because the current problems can only be solved by peace, dialogue and democracy.
A problem solved with violence is still a problem.
Your conclusion is correct.
I in no way support incitement to violence, but Vylan’s calls could only be seen to be anti Semitic if the IDF is racist.
This isn’t cowardice and it’s not even hypocrisy.
This is Starmer looking after his sugar daddies – that’s all.
It is as simple as that.
BTW, you must read in the ‘new’ Observer and the article on ex ICC lawyer Andrew Cayley.
It is a real eye opener.
No
I hate itscwebsite that is almost impossible to navigate
From 2015-2019 Starmer belonged to Labour Friends of Palestine and the Middle East. Around the time he, McSweeney and the chosen few were plotting to take over the leadership (long before the 2024 election), Starmer quietly left LFP and joined Labour Friends of Israel. I’m sure it was nothing to do with the large donations from Trevor Chinn and other major pro-Israel donors.
Anyone who can change his stance from Palestine to Israel is, for me, beyond the pale. Why? Because it shows quite clearly that whatever values you said you espoused in one are utterly irreconcilable with the values you must espouse for the other.
I read the article about the Barrister, Andrew Cayley. Thanks, PSR @ 9.20pm. This is just a taster of the intolerable conditions that ICC employees live and work under:
“Cayley oversaw the investigation into alleged war crimes by Israel and Hamas for the ICC, a case that has presented a serious challenge for the world’s only permanent war crimes court”.
“He began receiving anonymous, threatening phone calls saying “you’re in a very dangerous position”. And last summer, the Dutch police and security services turned up at the court to warn that he was in considerable danger. “They said we need to look at your flat and we need to put alarms on all the French windows, bars across the skylights and you need a reinforced bulletproof door,” he recalls. “It was very frightening”.
“Beyond the physical danger, there was the ever-present threat of sanctions. The US was clear from the outset that if an arrest warrant was issued for the Israeli head of state, then sanctions against the court were a serious possibility.
For Cayley that would have been a disaster. His ex-wife is American and all four of his children live in the US – two are still in full-time education and require his financial support. Sanctions would have meant he couldn’t visit them or send money. It would most likely have affected his ability to function in the UK too”.
Imagine the security services turning up at your place of work and telling you, you need a reinforced bulletproof door to your flat!
Mr Cayley was made ill by the threats and resigned. He’s back working in the UK.
Mossad is nice, isnt it? Who else was behind this?
Mossad is probably the most dangerous intelligence and security organisation on the planet. In 1989, I met the then Head of Mossad, Nahum Admoni. He had overseen the massacre of Lebanese Palestinians by Phalangists; the running of the US Israeli spy who stole classified info and passed it to Israel; and the abduction of ? Mordechai Vanunu who revealed Israel’s nuclear weapons programme. He trained thousands of Mossad assassins.
Mossad is only responsible to the Israeli PM. A private killing machine.
I’m not easily unnerved. Admoni sent shivers down my spine.
Shouldn’t Keir Starmer now order Yvette Cooper to proscribe himself and Lisa Nandy for giving huge publicity to, and generating support for, a couple of pro-Palestinian music acts?
And the memory of a big festival crowd joyfully singing “Oh, Je-re-my Corbyn” a few years ago must be even more bitter for him, after what the Glasto crowd chanted about himself.
A schadenfreude moment, if ever there was one!
I heard on the news on BFBS radio last friday that Starmer appologised for the speech and said neither he nor the speech writer noticed the parallels.
Or maybe he just apologized for offending people with the speech, there were a lot of excuses in the statement.
I would have expected more news coverage of that though. It would fit right in with stories about his faux U turn on pip.
Lowkey has produced a video in which he calmly contrasts the hyperbolic rhetoric of politicians and commentators with what the IDF are actually doing in Gaza. By ranting about ‘hate speech’ and ‘incitement to genocide’ they are attempting to hide the actual hate actions that are taking place, now, continually.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IOk4kP8bxXM
Netanyahu’s systematic ‘collateral’ annihilation of the civilian Palestinian population must have created more anti-semites than ever there were before his war. Shouldn’t Starmer proscribe him along with his ‘regular’ anti-semites?
The hypocrisy of Starmer bleating about hate speech from a couple of bands at Glastonbury is breathtaking. Why no mention from him of the vile stream of hate speech towards the Palestinian people pouring from the Israeli government and military. I don’t in any way condone what happened at Glastonbury by the way.