Starmer joke to Palestine protester shows indifference to genocide

  • Post last modified:September 24, 2024
  • Reading time:10 mins read


There’s not much to say on prime minister Keir Starmer’s speech at the Labour Party conference since the stale Starmerbot is more sleaze than substance when all is said and done. The Labour leader’s strange slip of tongue over the “return of the sausages” instead of “hostages” (yes, genuinely) has had social media in a storm.

However, there was one joke in his odious spiel that frankly wasn’t remotely funny. That’s because it quite literally concerned over 15,000 Palestinian children Israel has brutally murdered.

It happened when another protester stood up and challenged Starmer over the party’s arms sales to Israel.

Starmer’s conference speech: Palestine protester speaks out again

Starmer – who withdrew the Labour whip from MPs that voted against the two child limit on benefits that’s keeping kids in abject poverty – first said without a shred of irony:

Every child, every person, deserves to be respected for the contribution they make

At this point, the activist interrupted, and reminded the conference floor that he clearly also wasn’t referring to the children Israel is brutally murdering in Gaza either. He shouted:

Does that include the children of Gaza?

In a display so very characteristic of Starmer and his disingenuous shower of genocide-supporting stooges, he brushed it off, saying:

This guy has obviously got a pass from the 2019 conference.

Yes, that’s right, faced with an honest, urgent question about over 15,000 murdered Palestinian children, and the new prime minister took it as a moment to take a cheap potshot at his Labour leader predecessor Jeremy Corbyn. That is, the former Labour leader who has been consistently, vocally speaking out against Israel’s apartheid occupation of Palestine and ongoing genocide in Gaza.

People on X were rightly incensed at the prime minister making a joke out of it:

Some directed their ire at the Starmerites coldly clapping and cheering his disgraceful dig:

Sickening indifference to violence

Of course, Starmer’s total and sickening indifference echoed the similar politician apathy pokerface of his chancellor Rachel Reeves only the day prior. As the Canary’s Steve Topple reported:

activists from campaign group Climate Resistance infiltrated the Labour conference audience. They unfurled a banner reading “Still backing polluters, still arming Israel – we voted for change”.

“We are still selling arms to Israel! I thought we voted for change, Rachel!” the protestor shouted.

He was violently apprehended by the security and removed from the Labour conference

Security guards responded with a disgraceful show of force. They gripped the activist in a chokehold to remove him from the conference floor. Topple later wrote how:

footage emerged on BBC News that showed in detail how private security dealt with the two activists – with the now-widely shared chokehold incident being on top of goons throwing the other activist into a wall – and dragging the other out while telling someone else to stop filming; like these security bods are fucking cops – not jumped-up blue bibs

Almost as shocking was Reeves’s similarly rigid, unempathetic reaction. She shouted back as the security guards violently ejected him from the hall:

This is a changed Labour Party, not the party of protest.

Naturally, the two disruptors in the conference hall also haven’t been the only ones taking action. Outside, two Youth Demand activists called out the party’s despicable complicity in Israel’s ongoing onslaught on the strip. Prior to Starmer’s speech on 24 September, they daubed the front entrance to Labour’s conference with the words: “GENOCIDE CONFERENCE”.

Silencing those speaking out

However, Labour’s callous, repressive response to Palestine protesters is also hardly surprising either. That’s because they came amidst a conference brimming with arms companies complicit in Israel’s genocide. For instance, BAE Systems sponsored a talk on the ‘Future challenges to defence”. But as as Declassified and former Canary journalist John McEvoy – who Labour also unceremoniously banned from attending this year’s conference – pointed out:

Besides this, Labour has banned the use of the words “genocide” and “apartheid” in publicity materials for events at conference.

Of course, it all shows the so-called “changed” Labour Party government moving to silence anyone speaking out against Israel’s continuing genocide. In particular, activists and journalists have been calling out the fact that the UK has refused to suspend 90% of arms licences to Israel. This is in spite of the ongoing investigation by the International Criminal Court (ICC) into its “War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity”. Alongside this, there’s also the ICC’s arrest warrants for both Israel’s president, Netanyahu, and his defence minister, Gallant.

Meeting with Israel’s genocide-mongers at conference

Meanwhile, its complicity was very visible at the conference:

This would be former IDF major general Yair Golan, who as Electronic Intifada has previously highlighted:

commanded the occupation forces that impose Israel’s oppressive military rule on Palestinians in the West Bank.

As commander of Israeli forces on the borders with Lebanon and Syria’s occupied Golan Heights a decade ago, Yair Golan played a significant role in Israel’s support – which ultimately included weapons and funding – for al-Qaida-linked jihadist armed groups in Syria.

And less than a week ago, Golan was calling for Israel to invade and occupy Lebanon:

Now, as Israeli leader of the opposition party, the Democrats, Golan was set to meet with Starmer too. What was he talking to the new UK prime minister and defence secretary about exactly? That would be the removal of the UK’s pitiful few arms embargoes on Israel.

Yet, it’s little wonder. As Declassified’s McEvoy revealed in July, half of Starmer’s cabinet has taken donations from pro-Israel lobbyists. These amount to hundreds of thousands of pounds.

Starmer might never live down his sausage cock-up. However, it’s his cold-hearted reply to the Palestine protester – and his government’s despicable complicity in Israel’s genocide – that we should never let him forget.

Feature image via X – Sky News/ the Canary





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