The Sheffield Palestine Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid will be protesting at the regional Labour Party conference. Here is why.
It is clear that Starmer’s Labour sides with the rich and powerful here in the UK and internationally. It defends a tax regime that protects the wealthy while demonising those on benefits and deporting migrants who seek a place of safety in the UK. Those who dare to protest against climate injustice and Israel’s genocidal war against the Palestinians are met with repression.
At home: When Labour came to power, 14.3 million people were in poverty, 4.3 million of them children. In the absence of policies to redistribute wealth by taxing the rich, Labour joins Farage and Reform, dividing communities by pushing the same false narrative that people seeking asylum are to blame for the inability of consecutive Tory and Labour governments to tackle inequality. It is unforgivable that Labour has chosen to dehumanise people fleeing war and persecution, to boast about deportations and barring citizenship, whilst refusing to provide safe and legal routes.
In Palestine: for 15 months, Labour has not said a word to condemn Israel’s genocide in Gaza. Instead, it has made itself complicit in war crimes through military aid to Israel. It has given diplomatic cover to the massacre of at least 61,000 people, the forcible displacement of Gazans and the ruination of their land. Labour remains silent on the escalating ethnic cleansing of the West Bank – another war crime. Sanctions, which were so quickly imposed on Russia for attacking Ukraine are nowhere on Labour’s agenda. Labour is complicit in Israel’s war crimes.
