George Galloway’s shock return is clear sign Gaza conflict has changed public mood… Keir Starmer now faces stark choice

“DO you have anywhere to go?” I was asked last week.

The question had nothing to do with my social life.

It was posed by an old friend with knowledge of UK security and community relations after a chat about Gaza and the October 7 massacre in Israel.

This was my first inkling of the way Middle East politics has so deeply affected the public mood here in Britain today.

Amid MI5 warnings of increased terror threats, friends and acquaintances have begun to inquire about migrating to Canada, New Zealand or Australia, where I once lived.

A sensible and politically astute mother of two tells me she has thought about moving her family to the tropical island of Dominica.

Dubai has been suggested as another safe haven.

These are straws in the wind, casual conversations, and maybe not to be taken too seriously.

But they indicate how the Gaza conflict — perhaps more than the invasion of Ukraine and the threat from Kremlin tyrant Vlad Putin of nuclear war — has unsettled many ordinary people.

Ex-Soviet Ukraine was a faraway place of which we knew little.

Gaza may be 2,000 miles distant as the crow flies but its fallout is here and now on the streets of London and across the UK every single weekend.

People are genuinely alarmed that tens of thousands of protesters are allowed to intimidate and indeed terrify other law-abiding citizens, as they did again on Saturday.

The shocking return to Parliament of serial mischief-maker George Galloway underlines concern that everything has changed — and won’t change back again any time soon.

Pro-Palestine marches have been hijacked by Islamist and political extremists on both the far left and far right.

Galloway’s disinterment from the political graveyard is applauded by ex-British National Party leader Nick Griffin.

But Griffin’s fascist following is dwarfed by rentamob Trots who have seized the pro-Hamas banner.

PM Rishi Sunak spoke for millions on Friday, warning the demos were an attempt to “impose mob rule on democracy”.

“We cannot allow this pattern of increasingly violent and intimidatory behaviour . . . to shout down free debate and stop elected rep-resentatives doing their job,” he said.

But the biggest challenge lies not with the Tories, but with Sir Keir Starmer, leader of the Labour Party and, if the polls prove right, our next PM.

The ex-human rights lawyer is deeply conflicted.

Stark choice

His wife is Jewish yet he served loyally under anti-Semitic Jeremy Corbyn while more principled shadow ministers walked out.

He is pro-Israel but, like Corbyn, has spoken publicly at far-left rallies for the Palestinian cause.

Starmer now faces a stark choice — to stand firmly by his statesmanlike support of Israel’s right to defend itself or cave in to the extremists who beat Labour in Rochdale and now, under Galloway, threaten 47 Labour-held seats with large Muslim populations.

Starmer last month caused uproar in the Commons by reportedly arm-twisting Speaker Lindsay Hoyle into a meaningless ceasefire motion so as to head off a revolt by 90 Labour MPs.

Now, following last week’s Rochdale humiliation, he risks losing seats in the North, the Midlands and across London unless he trims his sails in favour of the protesters.

He enraged hardliners in an interview with LBC’s Nick Ferrari when he agreed Israel “does have that right” to cut off food, water and electricity to Gaza.

Starmer backtracked furiously under a storm of criticism, but is now blamed, alongside the Tories, for having “blood on his hands”.

This leaves him in a double bind.

Broken promises

He can carry on supporting Israel, the only genuine democracy in the Middle East, in its battle for survival.

Or he can add to a string of broken promises, call for Israel to surrender by laying down their arms and sealing his reputation for unscrupulous U-turns and back-flips.

Finally, in answer to my friend, yes, I do have somewhere to go.

I have Australian citizenship. But I’m going nowhere.

Britain is where I was born and I will not be driven out by a rabble of faceless fanatics waving the flag of a troubled land where most have never set foot.