“The world map will not change if all the people of Gaza cease to exist…Neither America nor Europe cares about Gaza in any way. Even your Arab countries, which are now our allies, provide us with money and weapons while sending you only shrouds.”

(From a flyer dropped on the Gaza Strip by the Israeli Shin Bet Secret Service, 2025)

At Kensington & Chelsea’s January Full Council Meeting, independent councillor Mona Ahmed called for the borough to support a ceasefire in Gaza and divest from arms companies complicit in Israel’s wars and occupations. Cllr Ahmed’s motion was premised on the assumptions that Palestinians are equal to other people and entitled to rights as enshrined under international law, but it was voted down by the two big parties, Conservative and Labour. Their disregard for Palestinian humanity and international law was a perfect replica of the political duopoly that rules Britain.

Conservatives

As we detailed in our previous article, the Tories responded to the call for peace with their usual pro-Israel and anti-Palestinian bias. We wrote to Cllr Johnny Thalassites, Chief Whip of the Conservatives, pointing out that he used the same passive voice to downplay Israel’s violence (“events that unfolded”) that is routinely used by British politicians and the media. Cllr Thalassites did not respond.

The Kensington Conservatives’ ambivalence towards Palestinians reflects a national party where consecutive leaders have pushed Zionism’s racist, expansionist agenda. The Zionist movement has such a chokehold on the Tories that it appears able to veto ministerial-level appointments.

At national level, the Conservatives’ deference to Zionism has continued despite the party being voted out of office. Last year Cemi Badenoch said she would be “congratulating Prime Minister Netanyahu” on the way he had dealt with “enemies of the West.” That Badenoch and Netanyahu’s “enemies of the West” are mostly women and children is rarely mentioned, nor does it make any difference to the Tories at Kensington Town Hall.

Labour

Like the Tories, the Kensington Labour group has aped the approach of their comrades in parliament, where the party’s loyalty to Zionism deepens despite them now being in power and able to materially affect the situation on the ground. A scrap of paper was passed around the Labour councillors instructing them to abstain in the divestment vote and not to contribute to the debate – they obeyed. This was despite local party members being in favour of a ceasefire and against arms sales, as demonstrated when they passed their own motion recently.

Cllr Ahmed spoke to Urban Dandy after her motion was voted down by the duopoly. On the Labour group’s abstention and silence, she said, “The big question is the failure of local democracy here. We know how local members feel about this issue. Who are the councillors representing? They shirked a responsibility to represent local people.”

We put this point to the Chair of the Constituency Labour Party, Monica Press who replied to explain that, like the government, Kensington Labour “support a ceasefire and support a two state solution.”

But the Labour government has continued the Conservatives’ material and political support for Israel’s genocide and expansionism, which foreclose the possibility of a lasting ceasefire and a two-state solution.

Zeal

In October 2023 Keir Starmer said that Israel had the “right” to cut water and power supplies to the Gaza Strip, a war crime. Alongside Starmer as he further entwines British policy with Zionism is Foreign Secretary David Lammy, who has yet to explain why he told Sky News that same month that Hamas fighters had “raped babies” in Israel. In apparent desperation to prove his Zionist credentials on Sky, Lammy sounded mentally deranged. While Starmer’s wooden delivery will never sound deranged, its content is equally fanatical when it comes to Israel. These two politicians set the parameters for debate within a party that has marginalised and excluded those within its ranks who advocate for – or might one day potentially advocate for – Palestinian rights. Kensington Labour is a perfect example of this, see this article, or this one.

Despite Lammy’s evident bias, the Chair of Kensington Labour, Monica Press, sent us a link to a recent speech by the Foreign Secretary and quotes from him about the importance of aid getting into Gaza and the need to help the Palestinian Authority[i] “lay the groundwork for inclusive Palestinian governance in Gaza.” In other words, the Palestinians will remain as charity cases and bloated Western leaders like Lammy will presume they can dictate how the Palestinian government should be constructed[ii]. Lammy recently used the same phrase – “inclusive government” – in relation to Syria.

Labour’s Kensington Leader

We also put Cllr Ahmed’s question (“who are they representing?”) to Cllr Kasim Ali, Leader of the Labour Group in Kensington, and asked him if there would have been disciplinary action taken against Labour councillors supporting, or even engaging with, the anti-war motion. Instead of answering the question about who the Labour councillors represent or taking the opportunity to offer a nuanced approach that might explain why they abstained, Cllr Ali doubled down, saying that David Lammy’s views represented those of the local party.

The Labour Chair told us that Labour councillors have “autonomy in deciding their responses and voting on motions at full council” but we heard from sources that Labour councillors feared they would lose the whip if they supported the divestment motion, believing that any criticism of the Prime Minister would upset decision makers at Labour’s London Region office. The regional party HQ took control of the local party’s apparatus in the run-up to the general election, taking over the selection process of the parliamentary candidate to ensure that an anti-war or potentially anti-war candidate did not secure the nomination.

The domination of Kensington Labour by London Region, and by extension the national party, mirrors the wider change in Labour since Jeremy Corbyn stood down as leader in 2020. Under Keir Starmer, the party has abandoned its commitment to justice in the Middle East, and has even appointed a former Israeli spy to help Labour influence “events or narratives online” and “track” party members.

Despite the (prima facie) complicity of the Prime Minister in genocide, Cllr Ahmed’s divestment motion does not mention his role, aside from stating the fact that “the prime minister (is) looking to lift the partial ban that had been applied to arms exports to Israel” and asking the leader of the council to write to the Starmer to encourage him to uphold international law. Apparently, this was too controversial for Kensington Labour to engage with.

Duopoly

Cllr Ahmed is free to table motions in favour of Palestinian rights because she operates independent of the duopoly. Kensington’s Labour councillors sit mute while a former colleague tries to persuade the Tory council to take some simple steps towards opposing mass slaughter. The Labour politicians represent – wittingly or unwittingly – a cult in which it is impossible to criticise the party leader or the wider Zionist movement. 

Zionism relies on a range of allies to enable it to survive and mutate – weapons exporters, journalists, fanatical politicians and politicians who are too conformist or too cowed to speak up when they have the chance. The quote from Shin Bet at the top of this article reflects the reality: The Palestinians in Gaza are being exterminated and European and Arab politicians don’t care; the Kensington duopoly is a case in point. 

by Tom Charles @tomhcharles @UrbanDandyLDN

Endnotes

[i] The Palestinian Authority under Mahmoud Abbas is a Quisling government in the occupied West Bank that works on behalf of American interests, including providing a security force for Israel’s illegal military occupation. Note for the Zionists who occasionally snipe at me, I do know what I am talking about, I have been to Palestine, met the PA and seen how craven they are.

[ii] The Palestinians held elections in 2006, but when the West decided it didn’t like the outcome, it initiated civil strife in an attempt to overthrow the election winners, who pre-empted a western-backed coup and seized control of Gaza, leading to the ongoing geographical schism between the two parts of Palestine, which has been a great gift to Israel and its supporters.