Few trust either, however
The awakened Israel-Palestine conflict this month has caused ructions within the Labour party, with Keir Starmer’s refusal to demand a ceasefire from Israel being seen as an anti-Palestinian stance by others in the party.
While the party’s infighting has been top political news over the last few weeks, it is not the all-encompassing political battle that some involved might believe.
New YouGov research today shows that two thirds of Britons (68%) say they have paid little to no attention to Keir Starmer’s response to the Israel-Palestine conflict.
Only 7% of Britons say they’ve paid “a lot” of attention, including 9% of 2019 Labour voters. A further 25% of Britons (and 37% of Labour voters) say they have paid “a fair amount” of attention.
The disagreement is seen by some as one between the leadership approach and ideology under Starmer versus that followed by his predecessor Jeremy Corbyn.
The former Labour leader has criticised his successor’s statement that Israel ‘has the right’ to cut off power and water to the Gaza Strip. Starmer has branded Hamas’s attacked “terrorism”, while Corbyn has stopped short of condemning the group.
Neither are trusted on the conflict, however. Only 26% of Britons say they trust Keir Starmer to make the right decisions on the Israel-Palestine conflict, although fewer still trust Jeremy Corbyn (18%). (For comparison, 27% of Britons said they trusted Rishi Sunak on this issue a week and a half ago).
Among 2019 Labour voters, Starmer is also more likely to be trusted, by 49% to Corbyn’s 41%. It should be noted that the number who trust Corbyn “a lot” is higher, at 22% to 15% - although the number who do not trust him “at all” is also higher than for Starmer, at 23% to 14%.
Photo: Getty
