Britain’s Conservative government is currently facing several overlapping crises, from the ongoing pandemic to a fresh standoff with the European Union and a self-inflicted controversy about political sleaze. Boris Johnson himself is right at the center of all these controversies, supplying his opponents with plenty of ammunition to use against him. A parliamentary report on Britain’s pandemic response published in October this year found that Johnson’s negligence was responsible for “many thousands of deaths which could have been avoided.”

At a moment like this, you might expect Britain’s main opposition party to have a laser-like focus on the government and its many failings. But this is Keir Starmer and his allies that we are talking about, after all. With the Tories looking vulnerable, Starmer’s front-bench team still found the time to link arms with senior Conservatives in defense of Tzipi Hotovely, a far-right Israeli politician whose anti-Palestinian views are well documented.

Starmer, Labour’s shadow foreign secretary Lisa Nandy, and its shadow home secretary Nick Thomas-Symonds bitterly denounced protests against Hotovely at the London School of Economics (LSE). Some Labour MPs even called for the protesters to be arrested.