Last month, almost 200,000 people marched through London in solidarity with the Palestinian cause, in one of the largest anti-colonial marches in British history. Palestinians, who are rising up yet again against Israel’s reign of apartheid, colonialism, and state-sanctioned violence, are at the heart of a global rebellion.

‘In our thousands, in our millions, we are all Palestinians’ was the rallying cry in the capital, other UK cities, and across the world where similar marches were taking place. The atmosphere was electric with speeches from veteran and fresh-faced Labour MPs, trade unionists, human rights campaigners, Palestinians, Jews, and people of all backgrounds who believe in justice. This diverse coalition united to call for the end of more than seventy years of Israeli oppression, for justice for the Palestinians, and for a meaningful peace. Together with an evident sea of change in public opinion, it was a transformative moment that made the liberation of Palestine feel not just possible, but inevitable.

And yet, in the weeks since, the Labour Party has failed to articulate a clear stance on the events of the past month in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Rather than join international public opinion and unequivocally condemn Israel’s blatant and decades-long violations of international law, or acknowledge the vastly unequal death toll and the destruction that Palestinians are forced to endure again and again, Keir Starmer and Shadow Foreign Secretary Lisa Nandy have resorted to the tired clichés of condemning violence on ‘both sides’.

Why sit on the fence in an unequal confrontation when the party could draw strength from this popular movement and capitalise on a unique political moment? The obvious reason is the issue of antisemitism and the highly controversial IHRA definition of the term—adopted by the party in 2020—which has created an atmosphere of fear that silences speech on Palestine. Related to this, there is a received wisdom within the party that obscure, international causes like Palestine are irrelevant to the general public who care more about domestic issues like the NHS.

What has become clear following last month’s protests is that solidarity with Palestine is not a dying fringe movement, but rather a cause which enjoys huge and deep-rooted support across the UK, including in the ‘Red Wall’ areas Labour is desperate to win back.

When Palestinians embarked on a historic general strike on 18 May, they were supported by labour organisations all over the world, including the TUC, the largest federation of unions in the UK with around six million members. Unite, Labour’s biggest donor, called on its members to join the march to the Israeli embassy. And in heartening scenes, when the Leicestershire Fire Brigade was called to remove protesters at an Israeli weapons factory in the Midlands, they refused on humanitarian grounds.

Add to this the fact that party members adopted in 2018/19—by democratic vote—motions to support the Palestinian Right of Return, and to immediately halt arms sales to Israel, and the idea that workers or Labour voters are not interested in Palestine, as some commentators have claimed, is evidently untrue.

Many more are now being drawn to the Palestinian cause, in particular the millions of British Arabs and Muslims who reeled in horror as they witnessed the brutalisation of peaceful worshipers at the al-Aqsa mosque during Ramadan. We are already seeing that Labour’s failure to read the public mood on this issue will cost it at the ballot box. Muslim Labour voters who make up one fifth of the electorate in Batley and Spen are so hurt by their party’s inaction on this issue that they are taking their votes elsewhere in the upcoming by-election. Now imagine how many disaffected voters there will be in places like Bradford, Manchester, Sheffield, or Leeds, where significantly larger Arab and Muslim communities reside.

Ignoring the strength of feeling on Palestine is not only impractical for an opposition that is polling at historic lows – it’s also immoral. Even if we accept the falsehood that Palestine is irrelevant to the general public, Palestine still ‘matters’ when your country bears historic responsibility for the present-day situation. In 1936, faced with a general strike and unified Palestinian front, the British Mandate crushed Palestinian self-determination by force, mobilising 20,000 troops to liquidate the popular revolt. Now, facing a similar call for Palestinian liberty from Israeli apartheid, a British Labour Party can roll back the crimes of the colonial era by reaffirming the right of Palestinians to self-determination, their right to resist an illegal occupation, and the inalieable right of millions of Palestinian made refugees in the Nakba of 1948 to return to their homes. More immediately, they can take meaningful action by supporting sanctions against Israel at today’s parliamentary debate.

It is not only Palestine that is at stake. At every turn, Labour chooses to appease groups like the British arms industry or pro-Israel lobbyists, while ignoring calls for change and affirming the unjust status quo. In doing so, Labour, which is supposed to represent the disenfranchised, alienates popular constituencies. What does the leadership get in return? It certainly won’t be able to win elections with such anti-democratic positions that vitiate what the majority of Labour members and supporters want.

When the protests for Black Lives erupted last summer, Labour opted for a ‘balanced’ response and dismissed the movement’s radical demands. On internationalist issues too, like Kashmir, Labour has retreated on previous manifesto pledges in order to win favour with the British-Indian business community. But the leadership has forgotten that there are positive opportunities in supporting international causes, like the movement to end South African apartheid, which was for so many decades a pillar of left organising. Now Palestine is emerging as the anti-colonial struggle of this era, and Labour should be the natural home of this movement, not its adversary.

Ultimately, the strength of the Labour Party lies in the power of its unions and grassroots movements. More profoundly, the lessons to be learnt from Palestine are strategic and organisational. The systems of oppression that we are confronting are themselves global. Companies like G4S which operate violent immigration detention centres in the UK, as well as illegal Israeli prisons in the occupied West Bank, can only be challenged by forming broad, international alliances.

There is so much to be gained in organising internationally, in building broad alliances, in upholding human rights and international law all over the world, and in harnessing the power of the many millions who call for justice, freedom, and equality for all peoples everywhere.