THINK of Keir Starmer for a minute as a bishop. No, not a Church of England deliberative, liberal sort of bishop — more like a dogmatic Irish Catholic bishop in the early part of the 20th century. 

During that period a progressive thinking politician in the south of Ireland might venture something that didn’t quite fit with the church’s thinking — like state provision of health, for example. This would almost certainly see the recalcitrant politician hooked into see the bishop who would set the straying soul back on the right path. These encounters were known “as a belt of the bishop’s crozier.” For the ungodly, a crozier is a symbolic shepherd’s staff carried by bishops.

Over the last few weeks, Anas Sarwar, leader of the Scottish Labour Party, drew a lot of praise from the left and progressive movement in Britain, including this newspaper, for criticising Starmer and calling for a ceasefire, despite Starmer’s insistence that such a call was futile and would allow Hamas to regroup. 

In the run-up to the vote on the SNP amendment to the King’s Speech on Wednesday, which called for a ceasefire, Sarwar was unsurprisingly the object of media attention, given that the two Scottish Labour MPs now had a Scottish leader arguing that they should support the call for a ceasefire. Except he didn’t. Echoing Starmer’s position, Sarwar seemed to accept that calling for a ceasefire was now unrealistic. 

Interviewed in the advance of the Westminster vote, Sarwar said: “I think the wider challenge is — for those of us who want a ceasefire — how do we create the conditions to make it a reality? 

“The tragedy we have right now is Benjamin Netanyahu has made it very clear he is not willing to countenance a ceasefire, Hamas have made clear they are not willing to countenance a ceasefire, so how do we work with international partners to create the conditions on the ground to be able to achieve a ceasefire?

“In terms of the vote this evening our Labour colleagues have made a decision to put forward their own amendment … rather than the SNP amendment.”

In the event both Scottish Labour MPs, Ian Murray and Michael Shanks, toed the Starmer line by abstaining on the SNP vote and backing Labour’s amendment which called for longer humanitarian pauses instead of a ceasefire.

There are a number of problems with the position outlined by Sarwar in this interview. The first is that the whole point of demanding a ceasefire is to help create the very conditions that are necessary to bring it about by insisting that what Israel is doing is not acceptable and must stop. 

And, yes, I mean Israel, for the second colossal error of Sarwar’s statement is treating Hamas and the IDF as equal forces and that a ceasefire without Hamas’s assent is unworkable. 

They are very different in two key ways. The first is simply the power at Israel’s disposal. Considered by the US State Department as the US’s “most reliable partner in the Middle East,” Israel is one of the 10 most powerful, politically influential and militarily strong countries in the world, as reported in the Times of Israel.  

Its highest ranking across a number of criteria, the paper reports, is for its military might. It is placed fourth behind Russia, the US and China. But more importantly and related to its power, Israel is an occupying power. This is not a conflict between two equal states; this is an oppressed people resisting their oppression. 

In any case, if Sarwar really believes that it is Hamas’s refusal to give up its right to military resistance that is the key impediment to a ceasefire, then you wouldn’t put him in charge of a kazoo band, never mind a country. 

Of course, Sarwar doesn’t believe that, not for a second. His statement, crafted to give cover to Starmer, was no doubt the result of a secular version of “a belt of the bishop’s crozier.”

He continues to insist that he wants a ceasefire and today in the Scottish Parliament that is how Scottish Labour MSPs are expected to vote. 

However, over the weekend the Scotsman newspaper called this into question. It reported that Labour will seek to amend the SNP motion by diluting the call for an immediate ceasefire thus: “In order for any ceasefire to work it requires both sides to be willing to comply. Sadly, Benjamin Netanyahu has made clear he will not support a ceasefire and Hamas too have said they intend to continue rocket fire and would commit to repeat the October 7 attacks again and again.”

Whatever position Scottish Labour MSPs eventually take there remain two serious problems for Sarwar. 

Firstly, there is the question of the democratic legitimacy of the position he is espousing, however delighted we might be that he is adopting it. 

No democratic organ of the Scottish Labour Party, executive or special conference has taken a position on the current crisis and since the formal advice from both the UK Labour general secretary David Evans and “Team Labour Scotland” forbidding discussion on the matter remains in place, that is unsurprising. Party members, it would appear, are not to be trusted with debating controversial issues. 

Here at least, there is some light on the horizon. I understand that the Scottish Labour women’s conference held this month, will debate a motion that calls for a ceasefire in Israel and Palestine. It comes from the constituency of South of Scotland MSP, Carol Mochan, known for her refusal to bow to pressure.

The second problem may have longer-term implications. It is the question of whether the Scottish Labour Party and its leader really are autonomous. It doesn’t help that last week the Scottish general secretary John Paul McHugh sent a message to the party’s executive, saying: “The UK rule book with changes agreed at annual conference trumps all other rules in the party. Scotland has devolved powers with regards to things such as selections. It does not have devolved powers on CLP rules.”

It would appear that charges that the Scottish Labour Party has neither real administrative, nor political, autonomy are difficult to answer. But answer them, we must and perhaps we should once again look to Ireland. 

In Ireland in 2011 the taoiseach Enda Kenny on the question of child abuse effectively told the bishops where they could stick their croziers and Ireland hasn’t looked back since.