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Keir Starmer has always known that Monday’s visit to Egypt was going to be the Donald Trump Show. After all, almost every day is the Donald Trump Show and there was no way the US president was going to share the limelight on this of all days. The day when the living Israeli hostages were freed, 1,900 Palestinian detainees were freed and the first aid trucks entered Gaza.
This was The Donald’s peace deal. A narcissist is going to narcissise. Everyone else reduced to supporting actors. At best. Keir was relegated to a non-speaking walk on part as an extra. Pushed away after a couple of seconds. Probably preferable to being arm-wrestled like Emmanuel Macron. Though not much.
Come Tuesday, Starmer was back in the UK and ready to make a statement to the Commons on the situation in Gaza. One that was altogether more nuanced than much that had been said the day before. One where the celebrations were tempered with a cautious pragmatism. The ceasefire was only the first tentative, necessary step on the way to a permanent peace. No one could take anything for granted. War had become a way of life in the Middle East. It was still possible for everything to turn to dust in a matter of weeks.
First though, a shout out to Donald Trump. Through whom all things are possible. Everyone is obliged to thank The Donald for everything these days. He has spies who are paid to keep tabs on all his mentions. Any mentions that are less than hagiographical are regarded with disapproval. On the president’s hitlist.
Here’s the thing. The Donald hasn’t orchestrated a ceasefire because he regards it as a moral duty. Part of his office. But because he is doing the world a favour. Everything is transactional. He needs adoration. And a Nobel peace prize.
That done, Starmer could move on. Britain had offered its full support to the peace process. Had worked tirelessly behind the scenes, with no need of recognition. Because it was our job. Recognising a Palestinian state had allowed other Arab nations to condemn Hamas. And we knew a thing or two about decommissioning weapons from the Good Friday agreement. But it was going to be a long haul.
The Donald wasn’t the first person to come to the Middle-East promising “Everlasting Peace” and that hadn’t worked out especially well. You can have too many Messiahs.
What to say about Kemi Badenoch’s reply? Obviously, Kemi comes with one severe psychological impairment. Everything for her is a fight. Her against the world. Her against the Labour party. She looks on any form of agreement as a sign of profound weakness. She just can’t go there. But there’s also another possible explanation for her behaviour. That she is nowhere near as bright as she imagines herself to be. If she finds a stick, she has the uncanny knack of always picking the wrong end.
After a fairly neutral opening couple of sentences in which she welcomed the return of the hostages – she had nothing to say about the return of the Palestinians or the reconstruction of Gaza: she takes her partisanship seriously – Kemi started launching an attack on Starmer and the country’s status in the world.
For someone who often likes to say how much she loves the UK, she sure spends a lot of time talking it down. And if she really thinks the country is beyond saving, then maybe she and the Tory party could take some responsibility.
The prime minister was just welcoming the terrorists back into Gaza, she said. Except he wasn’t. He had spoken at length about Hamas having no part in a future Palestinian state. Kemi was not to be denied. Starmer had damaged relations with Israel. We had played no part in the ceasefire agreement. Mike Huckabee, the US ambassador to Israel, had said it was delusional to imagine we had. She didn’t seem to have clocked the Steve Witkoff tweet praising the efforts of the national security adviser, Jonathan Powell.
It was all properly batshit. Here was parliament discussing the most promising peace initiative in the Middle East for the best part of three decades and Kemi just wanted to try to score points off the Labour party.
More worryingly, she appeared to have no idea how peace negotiations actually worked. That you needed a plan to which both sides could agree. There had to be something in it for everyone. And sometimes you need to be able to tell your allies some home truths. That something has got to give. That it might have helped the process for the US and the UK to have disagreed on some matters. Sometimes, you have to wonder if Kemi is a serious politician.
That was certainly the conclusion all her backbenchers seemed to have reached. All those who spoke after her ignored what she had said. They weren’t going to stoop to her level. This was a time for them to be better than that. After all, what chance was there for a lasting peace in the Middle East if the Commons couldn’t even reach some kind of consensus?
One after the other, the Tory MPs lined up to implicitly condemn their leader. Edward Leigh was first to speak. He was concerned not just that Hamas were openly executing Palestinians, but that nothing had been agreed either on ending the illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank or on the formation of a Palestinian state. Kemi would have just been happy for the Palestinians to live among the rubble for eternity.
Others soon followed. Andrew Mitchell, Julian Lewis, Kit Malthouse. Even Oliver Dowden couldn’t find a nice word to say in support of Kemi. Their contributions were all measured and constructive. Rising to the occasion. Keir made a point of thanking each and everyone of them. They were from a former Conservative party which he had once known and respected. Another world.
Even Richard Tice came across as the voice of reason. A surreal moment for all of us. You get the feeling that deep down, Dicky is an establishment man through and through. Much more of this and he will be out on his ear from Reform. The only MP to channel his inner Kemi was the DUP’s Sammy Wilson. Kemi should think long and hard about this. If your target audience is Sammy, you’ve almost certainly picked the wrong side.
