Is peace ever a bad thing?

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Sir Keir Starmer sems to have got both himself and his party into something of a twist over calls for a ceasefire in Gaza, preferring merely to support a ‘humanitarian pause’. From the point of view of those being killed, any halt to the shooting has to be better than nothing, but the two things are entirely different. A pause suggests that the killing will be resumed once the potential victims have had their deliveries of food, water and medicines – more a case of providing a final meal for the condemned than of granting them a reprieve. Principled it is not, and it’s been a pleasant surprise to see the extent of pushback against him from his party’s members.

His argument is an ‘interesting’ one. There is no point calling for a ceasefire, he says, when neither side is going to agree at this stage. It may well be true that they won’t agree, but it’s a curious argument against seeking a ceasefire, and he doesn’t seem to understand that it renders much of what he says on other issues completely pointless as well. If you believe that Sunak is not going to agree to an early election, then it’s pointless Labour calling for one. Indeed, there’s little point in the opposition ever calling for anything if they know that the government isn’t going to agree. They could probably sack half their press team if they stopped calling for things to which those to whom the call is made aren’t going to agree. Worse, he and many of the senior members of his party seem to have fallen into the trap of believing that anyone calling for a ceasefire is necessarily supporting one side in the conflict – and from his perspective, that would be the wrong side. The idea that some people might just want to stop the slaughter is clearly alien to him.

There’s something equally strange about the government’s obsession with trying to prevent any marches on Remembrance Day, because they would be somehow inappropriate. On my understanding of history, the whole point of Remembrance Day is to remember the fallen, celebrate the subsequent peace, and remind ourselves that we should never let it happen again. It’s hard to understand why calling for peace is in any way at odds with those sentiments. Except that the act of remembrance has been increasingly hijacked as a celebration of British exceptionalism, nationalism and military victory, rather than a tribute to those who lost so much. It’s true, of course, that not all of those marching are limiting their demands to a ceasefire, and that there are elements who are calling for a victory for one side in a long-standing and complex conflict. But most just want to stop the killing – is that really so inappropriate on the day we remember the fallen in so many other wars?