A response from David TC Davies regarding Gaza, and my response back

 This email from my MP, David TC Davies, was in response to my email to him on 6th February.

Dear Mr Millman,

Thank you for contacting me about the UK’s decision to pause future funding to United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine refugees (UNRWA.)

The Government wants to see an end to the fighting in Gaza as soon as possible and is calling for an immediate pause to get aid in and hostages out, then progress towards a sustainable, permanent ceasefire, without a return to destruction, fighting and loss of life.

I agree with the UK Government that South Africa’s case at the ICJ is not helping to achieve the goal of a sustainable ceasefire. Israel has the right to defend itself against Hamas in line with international humanitarian law (IHL) as the UK Government has made clear from the outset. I share the Government’s view that Israel’s actions in Gaza cannot be described as genocide, and believed South Africa’s decision to bring the case was wrong and provocative.

Of course, I respect the role and independence of the ICJ. I welcome the court’s call for the immediate release of hostages and the need to get more aid into Gaza.

On UNRWA, I am appalled by allegations that any agency staff were involved in the 7 October attack against Israel, a heinous act of terrorism. I support the UK's decision to pause any future funding of UNRWA whilst these concerning allegations are reviewed. The United States, Germany, Australia, Italy, Canada, Finland, Switzerland and the Netherlands have all temporarily paused funding too.

I want to make clear that the UK remains committed to getting humanitarian aid to the people in Gaza who desperately need it. The Government is getting on with aid delivery, funding multiple implementing partners including other UN agencies and international and UK NGOs. This support is helping people in Gaza get food, water, shelter and medicines.

The commitment to trebling aid to Gaza still stands and the UK is providing £60 million in humanitarian assistance to support partners including the British Red Cross, UNICEF, the UN World Food Programme and Egyptian Red Crescent Society to respond to critical food, fuel, water, health, shelter and security needs in Gaza.

Indeed, the UK will continue to support the United Nations World Food Programme to deliver a new humanitarian land corridor from Jordan into Gaza. 750 tonnes of life-saving food aid arrived in the first delivery and 315 tonnes in the second delivery.

Finally, the Government regularly reviews Israel’s capability and commitment to IHL and acts in accordance with that advice, for example when considering export licences.

Thank you again for taking the time to contact me.

Regards,

David TC Davies

-----

My response back:

Dear David,

Thank you for your reply. I am extremely saddened by your view, although given the track record of the party you represent it is not exactly a surprise to me.

I'm going to start with your point about UNRWA. There is as far as I can make out, no evidence whatsoever to support Israel's claim about agency staff being involved with the October 7th attacks. Especially given that this allegation was made the day after the ICJ's ruling, I think the suggestion that this was merely a piece of propaganda to distract the world is very plausible. But even if I'm wrong on this, and Israel's word turns out to be true, these allegations are against twelve members of staff. Twelve. Out of 30,000 staff members in total. To put those figures into perspective, the NHS employs around 1.7 million people. When last year Lucy Letby was charged with the murders of seven babies on the maternity ward in which she worked, would your proposed solution have been to withhold funding from the entirety of the NHS?

This is not a hyperbolic comparison. I learned today that three months ago, there were 36 hospitals in Gaza. Today there are none. Every single hospital in the region has been bombed by Israel. In January 2024, CNN reported that about one in 100 civilians in Gaza have been killed since October 7th. This was in January, so now we're almost at the end of February, it is almost certainly substantially more than that. These are war crimes, and cutting off aid from the organisation charged with providing it is fundamentally immoral.

Now let's move onto whether it's a genocide. The ICJ's ruling is that this is 'plausible'. Personally I'd have liked a more concrete conclusion, but I appreciate that within the legal world it's important that every officially recorded statement is explicit and provable. But I do have something to say regarding that. The Nakba occurred in 1948, and the living situation for Palestinians in the region has been becoming increasingly restrictive since 1967. Hamas was formed in 1987, and has only been held office since 2007. Israel, and much of the Western media, would claim that this is about stamping out Hamas - but this is not the truth. If it were the truth, it would make no sense, as this situation has existed for far longer than Hamas has.

Hamas exists as a result of the living standards that the Israeli state is enforcing on the people of Palestine. I read a statistic that around 85% of Hamas' soldiers are orphans, having lost their parents to this war. It's natural that people are drawn to more extremist views the more miserable their own lives are, which is the reason for the rise of Hamas - but I don't really want to talk about Hamas. I don't think Hamas is especially important. It's all a smokescreen. If Israel was interested purely in stamping out Hamas, it wouldn't be targeting civilians in the way that it is. A good analogy I came across was that if a gunman was in a school and all the children and teachers were being held hostage, at what point would it become acceptable to bomb the school in order to neutralise the gunman? I don't think any reasonable human being would think that an acceptable thing to do, and surely you don't either. But this is the logic that Israel uses, and the reason for this is that the Israeli state believes itself to have the right to determine who is allowed to live and who is not. So sure, call it a more cuddly word than 'genocide' if you like. But things are not going to get any better by calling it something else.

As I said at the beginning, your response is not really a surprise given the party you represent. I have found the Conservative Party to have been a substantial threat to the values I hold and the hopes and dreams I have for life since they came to Government when I was 16. However, I also think it's really important to hold each individual politician accountable for their own views and their own actions, and I really hoped that irrespective of your political persuasion you would prove yourself to be one of the exceptions (thankfully, we seem to be seeing increasing numbers of exceptions at the moment - it's a shame you don't seem to be one of them). I've only just moved here, and given that it's an election year I'm putting a lot of thought into who I should vote for. But I cannot in good conscience lend you any support with the positions you've expressed to me in your email. I feel that it defends the indefensible, and frankly I find your complacency frightening.

Yours,

George Harold Millman

My Facebook My Twitter

Why standing against a toxic Labour MP will not let the Tories in

 Last weekend, it was announced that Andrew Feinstein will stand against Keir Starmer in his constituency of Holborn and St Pancras. Feinstein is a Jewish anti-apartheid activist, the son of a Holocaust survivor, who is currently based in London but is originally from South Africa and served in Nelson Mandela's Government in the 1990s. Although he is an independent candidate, his candidacy is being supported and funded by the socialist campaign group OCISA (Organise Corbyn Inspired Socialist Alliance), which I've been involved with over the last year. The group has inspired many other independents to stand against certain high-profile MPs.

I'm personally really excited to see Andrew Feinstein standing. Firstly, I think it's really appropriate that it's a Jewish candidate, given Keir Starmer's frequent misuse of the Jewish community to present himself (falsely) as an anti-racist, and I also think it's really appropriate that it's someone from South Africa, given South Africa's amazing role in leading the way in standing up to the genocidal behaviour of the Israeli state. I'm not normally in favour of identity politics, I find that it usually results in people with extremely harmful views coming across as being more forward-thinking and progressive than they actually are, but all principles have exceptions and this is one of them. But more importantly, I've been really excited to learn about Andrew Feinstein's history, his work with Nelson Mandela, his efforts to keep an awareness of the history of colonialism into politics, his calls to regulate the world's arms trade, and more besides. I'm really quite interested to see how this is going to go.

But, one thing I've come across on Twitter is quite a lot of people saying 'this will just split the left-wing vote and get the Tories in'. This is something we hear quite a lot in relation to any candidate besides Labour or Conservative, and like many oft-repeated political statements, it has an edge of truth to it but completely ignores any contextual circumstances, to the point of becoming completely inaccurate. And it's made me realise that we're so lacking in political education in the UK that many people do not fully appreciate how the system works. So here are some important things you need to remember:

1) Andrew Feinstein standing against Keir Starmer will not make any difference to which party is in Government in the next Parliament. The only way it will make a difference on the national scale is if Feinstein defeats Starmer, and Labour gets a majority nationwide. If this happens, Angela Rayner, the deputy leader of the party, will become Prime Minister by default (assuming that she keeps her seat in Ashton-under-Lyne). How long she stays in that position will depend on whether she's able to command a majority in the House of Commons. But either way, it won't make a difference to which actual party is in charge. That is a matter determined by the number of seats won nationwide, which is irrelevant to the outcome in one particular person's seat, even if that person is the leader.

2) Barring unprecedented acts of God, the MP for Holborn and St Pancras after the next general election will be either Keir Starmer or Andrew Feinstein. There is no other alternative. The Conservative Party has never held that seat since it was established in 1983, and in the most recent general election only had 15.6% of the vote, compared to Labour's 64.5% (more on that in point 4). The assumption that voting for a candidate other than Labour or Conservative is a waste completely disregards the context of any one particular seat, which is something that has to be considered in one's voting choice because that's the only bit of politics we're actually allowed to vote for.

3) This should be obvious from what I said in point1, but I'll reiterate it: Andrew Feinstein is not trying to become UK Prime Minister. This will not happen even if he wins the seat. What he is trying to do is unseat Keir Starmer, and the reason he is trying to unseat Keir Starmer is that under his leadership the Labour Party has become increasingly confused, at war with itself and with its own members, anti-socialist, and, with recent events in Gaza, apologists for genocide.

4) One criticism I've heard is that with such a high majority (64.5%), Keir Starmer is seen as unlikely to lose his seat. Personally I have no idea of the likelihood at all - I don't live in the constituency of Holborn and St Pancras, and I'm not aware of even having visited there. That's a matter for the residents, which I am not. However, what I can say is that the concept of a Labour safe seat means safe from the Tories. It doesn't necessarily mean it's safe from a concerted campaign from the left. And besides, even if Starmer manages to hold onto it, Andrew Feinstein's candidacy by itself can change the conversation a bit. It will be far harder for Starmer to claim to be staunchly opposed to anti-Semitism, for example, when a highly experienced Jewish candidate in his own constituency is expressing the opposite position.

5) Another criticism I've heard is that even if this campaign does succeed, it won't solve the problems in the Labour Party - they'll just pick another toxic leader and carry on. This one I'll acknowledge is true. I don't think anyone on the campaign to get Andrew in will pause to celebrate too hard, even if it does work. This is merely the first challenge in what is going to be a long and drawn-out mission to return a bit of democracy to British politics and create more of a natural home for socialists in this country. I think it's important to remember this even if the campaign against Starmer is unsuccessful - if it doesn't work out, we'll think it a shame, but we won't waste time mourning. We'll regroup and work out what to do next.

My Facebook My Twitter

An open letter to David TC Davies, regarding Parliamentary debate on humanitarian aid in Gaza

I wrote this email to Conservative David TC Davies, who has recently become my local MP. Given the party he represents and his previous record I am somewhat sceptical about his likelihood of impressing me on this - but maybe he'll surprise me, stranger things have happened!

 Dear David TC Davies MP,

My name is George Harold Millman. I'm an actor, scriptwriter and political activist.

Firstly, I'd like to say hello to you. I've only recently moved into your constituency and I'm delighted to make your acquaintance - we haven't met, but I believe you know my partner Owen, who is a prominent disability rights campaigner in the Abergavenny area. I have no doubt I'll be writing to you often about various political matters that I'm concerned about (just to keep things transparent, I also generally publish letters to my MP and their responses on my blog, The Rebel Without A Clause).

This first letter I'm writing to you is in relation to the debate that the Labour MP Apsana Begum has secured for this coming Thursday, 8th February, concerning humanitarian aid and children in Gaza. I wanted to ask if you're planning to attend? I sincerely hope that you are.

This year marks ten years that I've been actively involved in the campaign for the freedom of Palestinians. It's a matter that is very close to my heart, and I've been dismayed to see how the situation seems to have become actively worse since 2014, which is when I first realised the extent of it. I am additionally horrified by how much Western powers have turned a blind eye to the scale of the situation for Palestinians since October, and how this has manifested itself in ways such as withholding funding for UNWRA, the UN agency charged with making life a bit more bearable for civilians in the region.

I'll be truthful in that I haven't been at all impressed with your party's actions in relation to this subject - however, I know from experience that my opinions of a party as a whole are not necessarily the same as my opinions of individual MPs (I have been just as disappointed by Labour on this as I have with the Conservatives, and yet this naturally doesn't extend to Apsana Begum, who seems to be really going above and beyond to help). I really hope that I'll be able to see the same from you.

Best wishes,

George Harold Millman

My Facebook My Twitter

An open letter to Angela Rayner MP, Deputy Leader of the Labour Party, regarding the Palestine genocide (yes, genocide)

 Dear Angela Rayner MP,

My name is George Harold Millman. I'm an actor, scriptwriter and political activist.

I am writing to you concerning the current situation in the Gaza Strip and elsewhere in Palestine, and particularly in relation to two matters. Firstly, I was very disturbed by a recent video, filmed on 25 January, in which you were confronted by a number of protesters during a speech in your constituency. The protesters were ejected by security whilst you looked on and said 'thank you' repeatedly.

I'm always upset to see people treated in this way when trying to express dissatisfaction with their elected representatives, even if that dissatisfaction is being expressed in a confrontational way - I think that the public would generally be more satisfied with their politicians if they felt that said politicians were listening to them and respectful of them. However, there was one particular protester for whom I was particularly shocked and disturbed by your reaction. His name is Dalloul al-Neder, and recently his family in Palestine were killed in the ongoing Israeli campaign against the Palestinian people.

Dalloul was trying to show pictures of his family members who had been killed. You had the opportunity to demonstrate the Labour Party as a party of the people, and yourself as a politician of great empathy and compassion. But you did not do this. You stood there, emotionless and silent, and watched him being removed from the venue. I want to ask, in as polite a way as I can, how you were capable of showing this little feeling when faced with a fellow human being in pain? You are a mother and a grandmother; I'd like you to think about how you would feel if you had been killed, and one of your grieving relatives was treated like this when trying to talk about you. Even if as a senior Labour politician you weren't able to help him in that precise moment, you could have asked him to stay and talk to you afterwards so that you could listen to him talk and represent his feelings back to the heart of the Labour Party - or at the very least, asked security not to be so rough with him. Why did you not do that?

In your reaction to Dalloul, you demonstrated to me that you are not who I thought you were. When Jeremy Corbyn was the leader of the Labour Party, you were always my favourite member of the Shadow Cabinet. I thought you were a phenomenal Shadow Education Secretary at that time, and I even remember confessing to friends around that point that I respected you more even more than I respected Jeremy. When Keir Starmer took over as leader in 2020, I quickly came to realise that I couldn't support a lot of his actions as leader - but I took some solace in the fact that we still had you as Deputy Leader. As a working-class woman who left school with no qualifications, was a teenage mum and had a lot of experience working with the trade unions, I had no doubt that you'd be a wonderfully warm and tough Deputy Leader, keeping the party in shape and reminding those in the top positions that ultimately you're a party of the many, not the few. I have truly never been as ashamed of having faith in any politician - I think the only other time since I've been politically active was with Nick Clegg over university tuition fees in 2010, but I actually think the callousness of your reaction to Dalloul al-Neder is greater than anything I saw from Clegg. In Clegg, I just see a very poor strategist who perhaps didn't fully understand the harm that he was doing. In your case, I know that you do understand. Following this confrontation, it was revealed on social that you have actually met Dalloul in the past; in 2019, you visited his shop, posed for a picture with him and told him that you believed in the unequivocal freedom of Palestinians. Did you ever truly believe that, or did you just say in in 2019 because that was Labour's position at the time?

Talking of Labour's position at the time, I want to ask more generally what Labour's position over this genocide is (and I use the word genocide consciously, as I believe that what we're seeing is a genocide). On a recent talk show, you were asked if the Labour Party believes that what we're seeing is a genocide. You responded that you don't know, but that the ICJ made a good case for that fact. I would have preferred you to say publicly that it is a genocide; however, I do respect your diplomatic answer in this case, especially as we have an international court case to work alongside. I am at least glad that you acknowledged that it could be. However, your Labour colleague Kate Osamor, the MP for Edmonton, was recently suspended from the party after she included Gaza in a list of genocides in a letter for Holocaust Memorial Day (alongside Cambodia, Rwanda and Bosnia). If, as you inferred on that talk show, what we're seeing is perhaps a genocide and that we need to remain open to the possibility it might be, does this not mean that Labour MPs should be free to say that they believe it is if they so wish? Are Labour MPs free to say this? If not, why not, if this position is in line with the ICJ's findings?

Labour's position on what is happening in the Gaza Strip is something that I have found it very distressing to watch, as have many others that I've spoken to. Especially given that this is an election year, I think this is something that Labour should think about very carefully. Having said that, I think Labour should take policy positions more because they're morally right than because they're vote winners - but in any case, I don't believe that Labour's current position is a vote winner. The only way I could ever consider voting Labour at the next election would be if my own local candidate was prepared to publicly condemn Israel for what they're currently doing - I do not know at the time of writing if that is the case.

Best wishes,

George Harold Millman

I wrote this to Angela Rayner MP, the Shadow Deputy Prime Minister and current Deputy Leader of the Labour Party, at the time of publication. I will update this blog with any reply I receive.