Support for Palestine in Britain is not limited to Muslim voters

New Statesman​

4 days ago

Photo by Adrian Dennis/AFP
'By September, there will be nothing left to recognise.'
These are the words of a right-wing Israeli journalist, posted in response to the British government's announcement that it would recognise Palestine as an independent state in September if Israel did not meet certain conditions, including agreeing a ceasefire and reviving the prospect of a two-state solution.
The Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was no less coy, accusing Keir Starmer of 'rewarding monstrous terrorism'.
Dramatic language, but an alien sentiment to the median British voter, and indeed westerners, who, it seems, have an increasingly lost love for the Israeli state.
Across Europe the voters' view of Israel has fallen to a new low. While a majority in every major European state agree that Israel was right to respond to the Hamas attacks of October 2023, the scale of its assault on Gaza has been disproportionate, and unforgiveable.
At the start of this conflict I noted how, for the most part, Britons wanted no part in picking sides. That still holds. British enthusiasm for Israel is a minority view, and is falling with every passing month. British enthusiasm for Palestine is also minority view, but has strengthened, relatively, in recent months.
But when it comes to the prospect of recognition, a plurality of voters now back recognising a Palestinian state. YouGov's latest poll on the issue finds almost half of Brits (45 per cent) back the stance set out by the UK government. Just 14 per cent are against it. The rest – a hefty 41 per cent – aren't quite so sure.
Sympathy for Palestine is by no means limited to Britain's Muslim population. While it doesn't sit high as a voter motivating issue for many, the plurality view in a majority of constituencies now is that Palestinian statehood is a necessity.
But where?
I've taken the YouGov headline figures and applied them to a demographic and election forecast model I've built of Britain. It factors for religion, age, and voting intention.
And it shows us that much of the enthusiasm for Palestinian statehood does come from the more built-up, urban areas of Britain. But it's also a little more widespread than that.
Chester North backs a Palestinian state in plurality terms, while Liverpool Riverside backs it in absolute terms – almost six in ten. Neither hold significant Muslim populations.
Meanwhile, 71 per cent of voters in Blackburn, a seat which saw a hefty Labour majority felled in favour of a so-called Gaza Independent in last summer's general election, backs recognising a Palestinian state outright.
Clacton, Nigel Farage's own seat, isn't quite so sure. Because within the YouGov cross-breaks you find only 15 per cent of current Reform voters backing the idea of Palestinian statehood. Also worth noting is that 68 per cent of Green voters back recognising Palestine.
These two findings from the more shoe-end parts of the horse-shoe parties in Britain today expose a persistent truth about UK public opinion. Reform, polling 30 per cent right now, does speak for a body of Britain that would rather stay out of anything and everything overseas. Less the successor party to Winston Churchill, Reform has become the poor-man's reboot of Neville Chamberlain-type indulgent isolationism. 'Not in my back yard? Not interested.'
Whereas when it comes to Green voters, unsurprisingly a majority would back Palestinian statehood, but it is not absolute. The notion that Green supporters are all a bunch of activists is very much an online view. The Greens are not sloppy seconds for disgruntled Labour members. Their appeal speaks to a voter base in rural England, one that is not especially enthusiastic for Zack Polanski's eco-populism.
The findings from this model projection tell us the following. Enthusiasm for a Palestinian state will, naturally, be concentrated in Muslim-majority areas – areas that gave Starmer's Labour outsized defeats in council and parliamentary elections. But there is a growing number of voters who believe that Palestinian statehood must be recognised in Merseyside, in County Cheshire, in Wrexham, in the Central Belt of Scotland and indeed, even in Home Counties England.
[See also: How do we keep the lid on race-related violence?]
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