UNABLE to win arguments, centrists like to rely on “the rules” instead — even if that means making up “the rules.”

Take the attempt to stop the End the Siege of Gaza march this Saturday. The leadership of the Labour and Conservative parties and much of the national media want to back the IDF’s war on Gaza, so they oppose the march.

But they are struggling to find persuasive arguments to get people to back a war which so clearly seems to kill so many more civilians — including children — than Hamas fighters.

The siege of Gaza looks like a terrible response to the terrible events of the Hamas massacre, just as the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq looked like bad responses to the bad events of September 11.

Tory and Labour leaders and much of the media are united in a position rejected by most of the population. The polls show majority backing for “ceasefire” among British voters, with only a very small minority supporting the IDF assault on Gaza.

Unable to win this argument, they decided to make up some “rules” about demonstrations instead: it is now “disrespectful” to have an anti-war demonstration which might disrupt the Armistice Day ceremony at the Cenotaph.

This argument soon tripped up: the Armistice Day event centres around a two-minute silence at 11am at the Cenotaph. The End the Siege of Gaza march assembles an hour later and nearly three miles away, marching from Hyde Park to the US Embassy at around 1pm has nothing to do with the Cenotaph event, which as anyone who cares about it knows happens on the “eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month” to commemorate the end of WWI.

So the “respect the rules” brigade decided to, er, make up some new rules: the newspapers tried saying the Stop the War march must not take place on something called “Armistice Weekend,” because the march is taking place an hour or two after the armistice event, in a different location, the papers tried to extend an event on 11am on Saturday to a whole 48 hours of super patriotic feeling that must exclude any anti-war demos.

The previously two separate events — the secular Armistice Day on Saturday and the more religious Remembrance Sunday the day after — have been blurred into a whole weekend.

However, for some reason, this new solemn weekend doesn’t affect the Lord Mayor’s Parade on Saturday morning, with its 150 floats and 7,000 people in a procession through the City of London, or the football matches and concerts, which all carry on through the afternoon and evening and always have. The new “rule” only affected this one demonstration.

The BBC, Sky News, most newspapers and even the Metropolitan Police (under pressure from Suella Braverman) all started talking about “the Armistice Weekend.”

Let’s check this “tradition.” I searched the database of the Times newspaper. Since the end of WWI, the Times has used the phrase “Armistice Weekend” precisely seven times.

In the same period, they used the phrase “Armistice Day” 3,261 times. Our MPs in the House of Commons have used the phrase “Armistice Weekend” precisely twice since 1918. They have used the phrase “Armistice Day” 400 times. “Armistice Weekend” isn’t really a thing.

As well as inventing new traditions, like “Armistice Weekend,” centrists seem to be inventing new definitions of words to try to force people into agreeing with them.

Shocked that the majority of the population agrees with the protesters that Britain should back a “ceasefire” rather than the “humanitarian pause” promoted by Joe Biden, Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer, lots of mainstream commentators are tearing up the dictionaries.

Nick Robinson on Radio 4’s Today programme took up the argument promoted by many centrists, saying there shouldn’t really be dissent inside Labour over Starmer’s stance because there is very little in “the difference between a humanitarian pause and a ceasefire.”

If Starmer is promoting a pause, shouldn’t the ceasefire folk be grateful, and accept that’s enough?

Journalists are supposed to be good with words, but this is lexical vandalism. If somebody asks you “Would you like me to pause punching you in the face, or cease punching you in the face,” the difference in meaning is obvious.

In the real world, “pause” can become an instrument of ethnic cleansing: the IDF clearly are interested in stopping bombing for four-hour gaps to clear civilians from areas to which they may never return.

Centrists are also inventing new political “rules.” One is that it doesn’t matter what the Labour Party leader says about a “faraway country,” so why argue about it?

Again BBC Radio 4’s Robinson made this point to Afrasaib Anwar, the leader of Burnley Council who resigned from Labour over Starmer’s refusal to back the ceasefire.

Robinson said: “Can I gently put it to you that Benjamin Netanyahu is not really interested in whether the Labour Party commits one way or another, it’s not going to make the blindest bit of difference, is it?”

Andrew Rawnsley made the same point about ceasefire calls in the Observer, saying: “Allies of Sir Keir see the calls for one as virtue-signalling by British politicians who have no traction over either Hamas or Israel.”

The idea that the foreign policy views of the leader of the Labour Party are irrelevant is a very new rule: when Corbyn was leader, every historic position he had ever taken on foreign policy was picked over in minute detail for any sign — real or imagined — of “wrong thinking.” It’s also illogical: if it doesn’t matter whether Labour commits to “pause” or “ceasefire,” then why not commit to a ceasefire anyway?

It’s also not true. Israel depends very heavily on the US for military, economic and diplomatic support.

The US itself needs political support to do this, including from Britain, which is a UN security council member. The position of the Labour Party — and likely future British government — really does count, which is why the government of Israel puts a very large diplomatic and PR effort to put their case in British politics.

Follow Solomon Hughes on X at @SolHughesWriter.