Labour’s shoddy politics on Israel risks feeding dangerous sectarianism, says Northern Irish MP

To a time-traveller from 2015, the image of Jeremy Corbyn and Nigel Farage sitting close together on the opposition benches of Parliament might seem a tad odd.

Behind the Liberal Democrats, SNP and Welsh nationalists Plaid Cymru are smaller parties who sit, literally, shoulder to shoulder – despite some key differences in outlook and personality.

Reform UK MPs sit next to the pro-Gaza independent MPs. They are, in turn, packed in next to MPs from the vocally pro-Israel Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), who sit next to MPs from rival unionist parties, as well as former Reform MP (now independent) Rupert Lowe.

Things can get tense, says the DUP’s Sammy Wilson, especially when the Middle East is brought up.

“Sometimes, especially after you've intervened, and there's been a bit of a shouting match, you get people being very cold or staring hard.”

But the on-camera hostility that we see does not tell the full picture and does not mean they cannot find agreement on other areas.

“By and large, I've found in here that people can have quite violent disagreements with each other and afterwards … it doesn't hold beyond the chamber.”

Perhaps it is because the former economics teacher and Belfast City Councillor during the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s is used to more explicit threats: verbal altercations do not seem to bother him.

Sammy Wilson MP (Photo by Charles McQuillan/Getty Images)Getty Images

Over the years he says he has had death threats and warnings from the police of a plan to assassinate him, but to Wilson, the biggest threat is to democracy: “I really do find it difficult that people who believe something can't stand up and say it.”

He has spoken up in Israel’s defence in the Commons, resulting in his inbox filling up with both “lovely letters from people right across the United Kingdom” as well as “some really vicious stuff”.

And while some MPs have campaigned against the abuse that some politicians are subject to, Wilson sees it as part and parcel of the job: “Why did you stand for election if you don't believe what you have said to people that you will do?”

With both tending towards social conservatism, the DUP and pro-Gaza independents have found some commonalities. Wilson says: “I look at some of those who shouted me down a couple weeks ago. They were actually supporting the stance that we took on the abortion vote.” Last Tuesday, both opposed an amendment to decriminalise abortion at any point up to birth in England and Wales.

The 72-year-old, who serves as the DUP’s chief whip in Westminster, even says there is a bizarre sense of fellowship among the smaller parties, despite their often-conflicting views.

“You're small, a small minority in a Parliament where you've got a tsunami of votes on the other side against you on every issue, and you lose on every issue – and you don't even lose marginally,” he says.

“Among the smaller parties, there is that camaraderie, or at least an identification that you’re here, you've been elected, and yet you feel very powerless in trying to get anything that you want achieved, or persuade the government of things which you want them to take pay attention to.”

That is not to say that the disagreements they have are in any way performative.

The differences, when it comes to Israel in particular, are huge. “They genuinely get angry. You know they're angry when they're shouting behind you,” he says.

But it is not the shouts from behind him that Wilson, who has served as MP for East Antrim since 2005, feels strongest about.

Sammy Wilson at a pro-Brexit rally in 2018 (Image: Getty).AFP via Getty Images

“The people I have real difficulty with are the ones on the other side in the Labour Party. Many of whom – indeed government ministers now – are only taking the stance that they do not because they believe it but because they have got a big Muslim population in their constituency and feel that they have to do this,” he claims.

“I find that much more difficult, at least the guys behind me believe what they say.”

Wilson is disheartened by what he sees as the government’s withdrawal of support for Israel, which, he says, is driven by “shoddy local political reasons”.

“Don't forget, the government actually did start off very well. In fact, I can remember standing up in the House of Commons and congratulating them on keeping a continuity in the policy that there was.

“Israel's doing nothing it wasn't doing before, but now, because there's an internal political motivation, they have changed their mind on many things and as I've said many times in the House of Commons, the only people who will take encouragement from that are Hamas.”

Since being elected to government in July last year, Labour has imposed a partial suspension of arms sales on Israel, summoned Israel’s ambassador and imposed sanctions on Israeli government ministers – an unprecedented move.

Despite this, large numbers of Labour backbenchers are demanding tougher action from the government on Israel. That includes recognition of a Palestinian state, a more comprehensive ban on arms sales and more sanctions against Israeli government ministers.

Wilson claims that one reason for the repeated interventions by Labour MPs on Palestine is the desire to generate on the sort of content that will do well on social media: “They’ll get a good reaction… it’s short-termism”, that may not even win over the voters the MPs are targeting.

“I listen to the guys behind me (the pro-Gaza independents), they're convinced that come another election, there's about 30 Labour seats that they will take regardless of what the government has done,” he said.

Wilson warns the government that they should be wary of granting any further compromises in the hope of placating the pro-Palestine voices on their benches.

“The government should be aware that making concessions only either makes you look hypocritical. ‘Why did you not do it before?’ Or ‘you don't really believe it, and you'll swing around just as quick the other direction when it suits you’. And that's always bad. A government that gets that image will find it very difficult to maintain support.”

He explains his and unionist support for Israel as one of empathy and familiarity: “Coming from Northern Ireland, where we had 30 years of terrorism conducted by people who wish to destroy our state … I think we can identify with Israel.

“We're surrounded by enemies, surrounded by people who say that they don't even want to see the country existing and then carrying out brutal acts of terrorism. And we also admire the Israeli government, because it has actually taken on the basic responsibility any government has, and that is to protect and defend its people, which is more than sometimes what our own government did in Northern Ireland,” he added.

The salience of Gaza as a political issue – a mobilising issue at general elections, local elections as well as weekly rallies on the topic – has prompted talk of a Northern Ireland-type sectarianism emerging in the British mainland.

It is a comparison that Wilson says is not entirely unfair, based on conversations he has had with members of the Jewish community.

“I do think that we are reaching a point where, like we had in Northern Ireland, where children going home from school were afraid because people would see the badge of the school it went to and attack them. There have been parts of London where school children had to be or told not to wear their uniform out of school because that identified them and was likely to lead them being hassled at least, and maybe worse than that.”

To him, authorities, from the Home Office to the police, have not taken enough action to restore order and give the perception of policing without fear or favour.

“I can see, again, the parallels that we had in Northern Ireland, where at the start of the Troubles, where vulnerable enclaves of unionists – or indeed, in some case, nationalists – were not given protection, and where they then lost respect for the law, lost respect and confidence in the structures of the state”, which Wilson warned would be dangerous.