Previously I’ve mentioned that as one who has admired the Jewish people all my life (my book, “Unchosen: The Memoirs of a Philo-Semite,” is available from Amazon), I’ve sometimes been gently annoyed by their extreme loyalty to Britain. How many times at pro-Israel rallies have I tapped my foot impatiently through the U.K. National Anthem wishing we could get to “Hatikvah.” So I’m interested in how leaders of this country have responded to this uniquely loyal constituency over the decades.

In the wake of the war, in the shadow of the Shoah, it would have been impossible for a leader to be against what was viewed as Plucky Little Israel, whereas before World War II antisemitic attitudes were expressed openly in the House of Commons, especially by the Tories. In 1953, Churchill (always a great friend of the Jews) wrote, “Ever since the Balfour Declaration, I have been a faithful supporter of the Zionist cause … the great Zionist conception of a home for this historic people, where they live on the land of their ancestors, may eventually receive its full fruition.”

Anthony Eden went from typical Foreign Office Arabist to the first fellow of the Conservative Friends of Israel after his nasty spat with Nasser over Suez. Sadly, by the 1970s the all-round second-rater Edward Heath was refusing to sell arms to Israel during the Yom Kippur war due to fear of an Arab oil embargo, while Egyptian pilots were being trained in the U.K.

Thankfully, the 1960s, ’70s, and ’80s were blessed by two of the great philo-Semitic PMs of British politics. Harold Wilson was the only modern-day Brit prime minister to win four elections; thought to be a wily opportunist, he remained loyal to one cause, as the left-wing Jewish Labor MP, Ian Mikardo, said: ‘I don’t think Harold had any doctrinal beliefs at all. Except for one, which I find utterly incomprehensible, which is his devotion to the cause of Israel.”

Like Wilson, Margaret Thatcher, who led Britain between 1979 and 1990, surrounded herself with Jewish associates, but her admiration was more pragmatic than his. “They don’t pay people for being idle in Israel,” she told a meeting in her constituency after visiting the Jewish state for the first time in 1965, praising their “tremendous courage and self-reliance.” As Tablet put it: “Once she became prime minister, Thatcher appointed a government of outsiders.” 

“The thing about Margaret’s Cabinet,” Macmillan would later say, “is that it includes more Old Estonians than it does Old Etonians.” Eton, the famous prep school, required that its students’ fathers be British by birth, so as to keep out the Jews. British politics had always been a club for genteel gentiles; Thatcher wanted to make it a meritocracy. After Thatcher, Tory PMs — Major, Cameron, May — were lukewarm about Israel, to say the least, until Rishi Sunak came along.

Like many Britons of Indian heritage, Mr. Sunak appears to find a natural affinity with the Jewish people, pledging “unequivocal” support for Israel “not just today, not just tomorrow, but always … we will do everything we possibly can to protect Jewish people in our country. And if anything is standing in the way of keeping the Jewish community safe, we will fix it.”

Then last year the long Conservative rule was ended by Sir Keir Starmer, in  the “loveless landslide” and now about as popular as shingles. Coming to lead a party that had been served with an unlawful act notice after an investigation into antisemitism by the Equality and Human Rights Commission found it responsible for “unlawful acts of harassment and discrimination,” his beautiful Jewish wife, Victoria, might have been sent as a blessing from Central Casting as Sir Keir proceeded to cleanse the Labor Party of the antisemitism which had rendered it unelectable, staggering under its greatest ever defeat under the left-wing Israel-hater Jeremy Corbyn in 2020. 

Now Mr. Corbyn is back, though his new faction, “Your Party,” is off to a rocky start. His is an alliance with a gang of fellow “independents” and Greens, all Muslims, who due to the density of their demographic have managed to grab a handful of previously safe Labor seats in local elections; one newly elected U.K. councillor dedicated his win to “the people of Gaza.” 

Desperate to hold onto every last vote, and recognizing that the U.K. has a Muslim population of just under four million compared with around  270,000 Jews, Sir Keir has “done the math,” as the Americans say, and acted accordingly toward recognizing a Palestinian Arab state. It’s a long way from the wistful beauty of “Hatikvah” to victorious cries of “Allahu Akbar” at the ballot box as the expression of a duel loyalty in poor benighted Blighty.