So What Do We Do Now?

Gaza and our Degrading Politics

Our current politics is taking place – and degrading – in the midst of genocide, starvation and destruction in Gaza. It carries on as our land and oceans burn and falter. Yet our politics is not only under threat from the deep moral and actual hollows of Gaza and climate change but also from other internal failings, our media, our far right, attacks from the galumphing interference in European politics from the increasingly authoritarian US and more.

And it’s hard to centre yourself in daily life or know what small act to take in the face of all this. But we know giving up cannot be the alternative. And our democracies need criticising and, equally, protecting.

And Palestinians have not given up amidst the horror. This weekend, I visited the Palestine Museum Scotland, based in Edinburgh, that opened a month ago. All photos here are from the museum.

Its director, Faisal Saleh , told PA that: “We want people to see our artwork and to see that Palestinians are human.

All these efforts to dehumanise and to erase the Palestinians are not working, and we are hereby opening a museum that is full of beautiful artwork.”

The museum was busy. The artwork is beautiful, profound, and thought-provoking. It is so much more than only a light in the darkness.

And the Gaza Poets Society, too, speaks out through poetry in the face of genocide:

And yet, here in the UK, our politics has descended into a sort of double-speak, where Keir Starmer will talk up the UK’s need to increase defence spending, where: “every part of society, every citizen of this country has a role to play” while planning to cut disability payments, and still sending arms to Israel. Imagine if, instead, Starmer called to everyone to play a part in tackling climate change, to stand together against genocide in Gaza.

Starmer and David Lammy have recently used much harsher language to criticise Israel, and suspended talks on a free trade agreement (a puny measure). But how can Lammy call the IDF’s planned/current military measures “morally unjustifiable, wholly disproportionate and utterly counterproductive” while still supplying 90% of the arms, the UK has provided since October 2023. And the hundreds of UK military reconnaissance flights over Gaza continue. When charges of UK complicity come, they will not be able to say they did not know.

Even the BBC has now dared to mention genocide in an article yesterday by its international editor, Jeremy Bowen. And former Supreme Court judge Lord Sumption told Channel 4 news that genocide is “the most plausible explanation of what is happening”.

EU member states and leaders are, to some extent, speaking out more. Germany’s Chancellor Friedrich Merz, two weeks’ ago, said: “To harm the civilian population to such an extent, as has increasingly been the case in recent days, can no longer be justified as a fight against Hamas terrorism.”

Yet, Germany is by far the largest arms supplier to Israel after the US, providing around 30% of its arms imports. And while the EU is now, so very belatedly, reviewing its Association Agreement with Israel, Germany and Italy opposed even this review happening. Hypocrisy is too small a word to describe this. And EU leaders’ words now cannot shield themselves from charges of complicity.

We do not live in normal times. President Trump sends the national guard into California and his sorry set of underlings speak up on European politics when they want to back the far right in whichever country (Poland, Romania and more) is currently holding an election.

Trump has been even more permissive to Israel than president Biden. And, unlike Biden, he is letting fossil fuel production rip. Yet, in the UK and EU, too – despite many positive climate measures still – there is a right-wing rejection, by Starmer, Merz and others, of much of existing, vital climate and nature legislation. Deregulation is their word of the day – when regulation provides inadequate but vital nature and climate protection.

We have to reject this deep debasement of our politics, the complicity in genocide and in the worsening of the climate and biodiversity crisis. We do need to pull together for our defence, as Starmer says, but in defence of decency, humanity, morality, rights and our one planet.

And if the artists and poets can show us the way, then we can take whatever small, honest actions we too can find.