On February 29, the official death toll from Gaza reached thirty thousand — a figure that is sure to be an underestimate, with countless bodies trapped under the rubble. The Israeli army marked the occasion by opening fire on a crowd of desperate, starving people before running them over with tanks.

Just as news of the massacre was beginning to appear in the British media, a by-election in the northern English town of Rochdale delivered a sharp rebuke to the two major parties for their complicity in Israel’s war crimes. The former Labour politician George Galloway successfully turned the contest into a referendum on Britain’s support for the onslaught against Gaza, taking a seat at Labour’s expense.

Labour’s average score in Rochdale for the last three general elections was 52 percent. This time it dropped below 8 percent, and the combined vote share for Labour and the Conservatives was less than 20 percent. There were twice as many votes cast for Galloway alone.