Burnham is Attacking Local Councils to Defend Israel

Por Tom Blackburn — Tribune

The Labour Party has issued an extraordinary ultimatum. It has ordered its councillors to withdraw from any power-sharing deals with the Greens unless local Green parties renounce the ‘Zionism is Racism’ motion passed at their national conference last month. The edict could affect as many as 19 councils, including Sheffield and Warwick, causing administrative gridlock and disruption to local services. At Prime Minister’s Questions this week, Andy Burnham also ruled out any coalition or co-operation agreement with the Greens at national level — putting paid to the notion of a progressive pact against Reform — on the grounds that the motion is ‘antisemitic’ and ‘wrong’.This was a strange about-face. Burnham had previously been trying to distance himself from his predecessor on the issue of Palestine. He apologised for Labour’s handling of Gaza under Starmer (while stopping short of describing the genocide as such), and last month imposed limited sanctions on Israel’s illegal West Bank settlements.Now, the ultimatum threatens to undo that careful positioning. Burnham is imposing a purity test that requires Greens who wish to work with his party to drop any anti-Zionist commitments. For those who ditched Labour over Gaza, this will be a stark reminder of its complicity in the genocide — giving the lie to any notion that it has meaningfully changed.The fact is that Labour was dragged kicking and screaming into even token sanctions against Israeli settler violence in the occupied West Bank. The measures, imposed after years of persistent pressure, do not represent any fundamental change in policy; British diplomats reportedly reassured the Trump administration that they were merely ‘symbolic’.The passing of the Zionism is Racism motion has since sent Labour scuttling back to its political comfort zone: running cover for Zionism and demonising its opponents. Under Burnham, the occasional rebuke to ‘illegal settlers’ or expression of concern about Palestinian casualties might be just about acceptable. But questioning the ideology that motivates the atrocities is not. Those who support the Palestinian freedom struggle are often accused of having an ‘obsession’ or ‘fixation’, as if there were something pathological about refusing to look away from the destruction of a people. Yet we can now see that it is Labour which is returning again and again to Zionism, like a dog to its vomit. It will continue to fly the flag for this cause, even when it undermines its own attempts to win back voters and plunges its councils into crisis. Let’s be clear on that last point: Labour is so committed to the founding ideology of a foreign state that it will put it ahead of the needs of local residents and the services on which they rely. Who are the real obsessives here?The turn of events has also once again exposed the dangerous and cynical weaponisation of antisemitism. First Corbyn, now Polanski: any force that challenges the Westminster consensus, even if it happens to be the only British political party with a Jewish leader, will be smeared as a threat to Jews. There is no means of placating these hostile forces; were the Greens to renounce Zionism is Racism, the goalposts would be shifted once again, and they would be placed at the centre of some other concocted crisis. Thus does history repeat itself. But what’s most astonishing this time is the unbridled arrogance of a Labour Party that has spent three years of backing Israel’s genocide to the hilt now presuming to give morality lectures to the Greens. The viciousness of its attack proves the emptiness of its contrition over Gaza.All this may well turn out to be an overreach. Even voters who know little about Palestine or Zionism will struggle to understand why Labour is turning on its own local administrations. The impression it creates is not of a party that’s been renewed as a force for ‘hope’, but of one that remains petty, vindictive, opportunistic and self-serving.

Fonte: Tribune