Andrew Feinstein, the South African politician, activist, filmmaker and author, who fought arms deal corruption as an ANC MP, ran as an independent for a parliamentary seat in the UK and lost to the new British prime minister, Keir Starmer.
Feinstein, while generally a supporter of the UK's Labour Party, took part in this week's British elections as an independent candidate for several reasons, but mainly because he is unhappy about the party's lukewarm reaction to the situation in Gaza.
In an interview with Middle East Eye's Unapologetic podcast last month, Feinstein accused Starmer of being “deeply unpopular”, “terrible on Gaza”, and possessing authoritarian and undemocratic qualities.
“His policies are very similar to the policies of the Conservative Party in many senses,” Feinstein said on the podcast.
Feinstein, who served as an ANC member of the South African parliament between 1994 and 2001, is angry because Starmer only called for a “sustainable ceasefire” and repeatedly said he supported Israel's right to self-defence in spite of Palestinians dying in their thousands.
The son of a Holocaust survivor, Feinstein resigned from his seat in the South African parliament in 2001 and moved to the UK, where he joined the Labour Party. He was a supporter of its left-wing faction under former leader Jeremy Corbyn.
Al Jazeera reported that according to a recent poll, commissioned by Medical Aid for Palestinians and the Council for Arab-British Understanding, 86% of Labour voters support an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.
When asked by Al Jazeera why he was running against his former party, Feinstein did not mince his words.
“For a whole range of reasons. The first is that, in my opinion, our politics is broken. I feel that at a local level, I feel it at a national level and at a global level. Keir Starmer is our MP in an area that I’ve lived in since I moved to the UK almost 23 years ago, and I’ve never seen the guy in the constituency.
“I’ve tried to talk to him about specific things that I have expertise in before parliamentary votes. If you’re lucky, you get a pro forma response that says, 'Thank you for your letter'. And that’s all you get.”
But Gaza was another reason for him leaving the Labour Party and contesting the Holborn and St Pancras seat in London.
“My political history is Gaza, where 76% of people want a ceasefire. Not one of our senior politicians can call for an unqualified ceasefire and a halt to arm sales to Israel,” Feinstein said during the run up to the election.
“I want to give people a real choice. I want people to have an option to vote for someone who is opposed to genocide, whoever perpetrates that genocide.”
Starmer won the London constituency with 18,884 votes, while Feinstein came second with 7,312 votes.
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