Deal With It

Oh, the names that you called us for advocating a ceasefire in Gaza. You need not pretend now that you had ever been in favour of one before today. Until the moment that it was announced, then you were still trying to bully the Police into banning a march for it.

You are being as dishonest about this as you are about the Chagos Islands, of which you had never heard a few months ago. It is we who have always held that the Chagossians deserved the same self-determination as, say, the Falkland Islanders. Or the Greenlanders. Unless you believe in all three of those causes, among others, then you do not believe in any of them. See also the Palestinians.

Argentina is an American ally, and Javier Milei has very much the same fan base as Donald Trump, so how would you react if the fate of the Falkland Islanders were to be referred to Trump, as that of the Chagossians has been? How would you have reacted if that reference had been to Joe Biden or Kamala Harris? So much for your patriotism.

But the deal over Gaza does vindicate the Arabs and Muslims of Michigan who swung that swing state for Trump, just as it vindicates all voters for Cornel West, Jill Stein, and the others whose supporters' votes the Democratic Party thought that it owned.

And of course it vindicates Jeremy Corbyn, who is still fighting the good fight for the Chagossians, too. Corbyn never "invited" Gerry Adams to the Palace of Westminster. As an abstentionist MP at the time, Adams did as Sinn Féin's seven MPs, two more than the ubiquitous Reform UK, do now, coming and going regularly (these days, daily), only without entering the chamber.

When Ireland is to have a government supported by the Healy-Raes, and quite possibly with Michael Healy-Rae as a Minister, but without Sinn Féin, then that party needs to wake up and hear the Hum. As do those who still go round the bend at the mention of its once grand old men. Every party in Northern Ireland opposed the Legacy Act, but members of the DUP and, be in no doubt, UUP electorates will be on course for payouts to rank with Adams's. Even when it was done to bad people, internment without charge was still wrong.

Adams is the least of anyone's worries now. If it is not the Awami League, then it is the supporters of Trump's putative annexation of Canada, Greenland, the Panama Canal Zone, and wherever else, some of whom want him to take over Britain. Both of those opposed a Gaza ceasefire vehemently until this evening, including by placing RAF Akrotiri at Israel's disposal, free of charge. And they do indeed take their seats in the House of Commons. Among other places.