The gears were grinding hard at PMQs. Sir Keir Starmer shifted his party decisively away from its Corbynista past and pledged full support for Israel after the recent atrocities. He said he was ‘still mourning the terrorist attacks’. And having met relatives of British hostages held by Hamas, he was unequivocal. ‘Release them immediately.’
Sunak hid behind legal sophistries
It’s a shame that his rhetoric felt so polished and poetic. Almost like song lyrics. ‘Too much blood, too much darkness,’ he crooned. ‘The lights are going out and innocent citizens are terrified they will die in the darkness, out of sight.’ And he indulged in a lot of glib verbal counterpoint. ‘Hamas are not the Palestinian people and the Palestinian people are not Hamas.’ His aim was to pose as a visionary peacenik who still believed in ‘a two-state solution’ at some unnamed future date. ‘When hope is at its thinnest, we must work hardest.’ It could have been written by Tony Blair. Maybe it was.
Sajid Javid, a former home secretary who knows how the cops work, (or don’t work, according to some), deplored the ‘foul abuse’ faced by Jews at demonstrations. He asked for ‘a specific policy of revoking the visa of any foreign national who commits an act of anti-Semitism.’ Note the words. ‘A policy’, not a law. Presumably such laws exist already. And his suggestion that racism should be tackled on the streets received a soapy reply from the PM. ‘I completely agree’, said Sunak, as he pledged an extra ‘three million pounds’ for something or other. Here’s the question. How many visas of foreign nationals have been revoked? Probably none. And the absence of law enforcement may explain Sunak’s weird attitude to the Metropolitan police. He spoke of them as if they were a brotherhood of Quakers with tambourines and free soup.
‘We will remain in contact with the police,’ he said, ‘to ensure that they are aware of the full set of tools available to them.’ Essentially, he admitted that the police aren’t policing criminality.
Desmond Swayne brought up the vast sums of aid remitted to Gaza since Israel withdrew in 2005. ‘Enlightened governance would have made a success of it. Hamas has turned it into hell’.
Stephen Crabb mentioned the hospital struck by explosives overnight. Responsibility for the attack has yet to be established but Israel was blamed early on.
‘The outpouring of Jew-hate on social media was vile,’ said Crabb. Sunak saluted this as ‘an excellent intervention.’
Stephen Flynn of the SNP condemned the ‘terrorist attacks on Jewish people and on the state of Israel.’ But he called for ‘ceasefire’ which some interpret as a denial that Israel has a right to defend itself. And he suggested that Palestinians might enjoy ‘a refugee settlement scheme’ in Britain.
That won’t play well in Hartlepool whose MP, Jill Mortimer, named an elderly male constituent who recently lost his life after a stabbing incident. An asylum-seeker is suspected. Mortimer spoke of the ‘intimidation’ endured by her constituency staff. ‘Most are young men who should be expelled’, she said, and she added that the townsfolk feel scared and angry. ‘I want these people out of Hartlepool now.’
Hearing this, Sunak hid behind legal sophistries. ‘I’m unable to comment on cases currently before the court,’ he said, fully aware that no such interference had been requested. He then moved from blatant misdirection to vacuous platitudes.
‘The government is doing everything to tackle illegal migration.’
So there it is. On immigration, ‘everything’ means nothing.
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