MPs challenge UK Government – what are you doing to make Israel stop?
JVL Introduction
Tuesday’s Middle East debate in the UK Parliament should be a watershed moment in the Starmer government’s abject record of complicity in Israel’s war crimes. Hamish Falconer (Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs) had the thankless task of fielding a stream of questions from MPs of all parties, condemning Israel’s ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank and demanding action to end its war crimes and breaches of international law. Who could have anticipated a Tory MP (Sir Edward Leigh) saying angrily: “In the name of God, why can we not give the Palestinian people some hope?”
At the same time the Guardian revealed in the exclusive report we reproduce below that a group of seven Conservative MPs and six peers wrote to Keir Starmer when Israel breached the ceasefire in March urging him to defy Netanyahu (and President Trump) and formally recognise Palestine.
Below the Guardian piece you can see a selection of contributions to Tuesday’s debate as recorded in Hansard, which can be read in full here and watched on YouTube here.
Together with the Conservatives’ letter, they imply a shift towards recognising Israel’s genocide for what it is and growing impatience with the government’s futile gestures and expressions of “concern” about the fate of two million Palestinians. A scant handful of speakers in the debate adhered to the Israeli line, holding Hamas responsible for the death and destruction caused by IDF action.
Several of those who spoke on Tuesday are known as consistent friends of Palestine, but many are new kids on the block. Could it be that the latest pronouncements from Netanyahu and his allies have proved too much even for politicians predisposed to embracing Israel as the “only democracy in the Middle East” with its oh-so-moral army? Could some have been persuaded to “come out” as critics of Israel after last week’s elections demonstrated the fragility of their voter support?
Whatever their reasons, and however frustrating it may be to see the “two-state solution” mantra repeated while Palestine is being annihilated, the movement for Palestinian freedom must press ahead to make this shameless government listen to its critics and end Israeli impunity with an arms embargo, sanctions and diplomatic isolation.
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NWI
This article was originally published by The Guardian on Wed 7 May 2025. Read the original here.
Senior Tory MPs and peers break ranks to call for recognition of Palestine
Exclusive: Conservatives ask Keir Starmer to stand ‘against indefinite occupation’ and ‘reinforce international law’
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It’s a hard fight against dreadful odds to make our (allegedly democratic!) governments behave decently and side with international law.
We need to celebrate our victories, wherever they come from – partly to keep intact our own determination to fight on … for justice, freedom and reparations for the Palestinians; regained civil liberties for us; and full criminal, political and financial accountability for Israel.
In that light, please glance at the US fightbacks against the repression of pro-Palestinian university protests and of students’ efforts to stop their universities underpinning Israel’s aggression through their investments and research.
Some of these battles have already been won on campus and in the law courts.
Elsewhere the eventual outcome is still undecided, in spite of the grave power imbalance between the students and the establishment. The students, lawyers and judges’ refusal to be silenced and passive in the face of genocide itself provides hope that a better future is on its way.
The weblink is: https://www.democracynow.org/2025/5/6/headlines/advocates_id_israeli_officer_responsible_for_killing_of_5_year_old_hind_rajab_and_her_family
Mark Pritchard, Tory MP’s points included that “… for many years I have supported Israel—pretty much at all costs, quite frankly—but today I say that I got it wrong. I condemn Israel for what it is doing to the Palestinian people in Gaza and the west bank. I withdraw my support right now for the actions of Israel and what it is doing right now in Gaza. ” When will Starmer (and co) admit that “he has got it wrong” (so very wrong). It was nauseating listening to platitudes from the Minister and it was clear many MPs are also fed up with hearing words of condemnation and no action. It is scandalous that arms are still being sold to Israel and I trust that next week the High Court will also rule that it is illegal!
Thanks for this article.
I’d be interested to know which MPs opposed recognition of Palestine and if any actually supported Israel?
The Starmer government is colluding in the Israeli mass-murder and genocide of the indigenous people, whom it is betraying in our name. This is not too difficult to see. The overall situation is not actually excessively complicated.
The problem is that the British Establishment is inherently pro-Israel, however bad it may be, and it doesn’t recognise what power is all about.
In crude terms, when you have a bully like Israel that is still living in the era of the Malachites, and is not amenable to observing human rights for everybody and will not listen to good sense and the rest of the world, you have to kick them very, very hard in the balls. Israel would have no problem with sending Mossad into action to do more than that job, but at least most of the west would respect human life and only install the most severe sanctions.
It is complete rubbish for the UK to supply bits for the F35s, using “bla-bla” to justify and a complete embargo is what is needed. An embargo on lots of other things should take place. A big effort is needed to establish job opportunities in other fields than the arms industry.
In addition to this, identification of all individuals complicit in Israel’s political activity and imposing social isolation and prosecution, if ever they set foot outside Israel, is needed. Fortunately, non-government entities are starting to do this. To have secretive visits by Israeli ministers to Britain shows the lack of respect for the law by the British government and is wrong. Hopefully, we may not have to wait for 2028 or 2029 for a change of government to take place. The non-Tory, non-Labour, non-Farage elements of the electorate have to get together to sort out, for each constituency, a way forward.
Clement Attlee’s post-war Labour government (1945-51) is routinely celebrated by the British left for its reforms. The creation of the welfare state, its expansion of social housing, and the founding of the National Health Service. These reforms are held up as the pinnacle of socialist achievement in Britain. Yet conspicuously absent from this praise is any serious condemnation of Labour’s role in laying the groundwork for post-war imperialism—chief among them, its central role in founding the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) in 1949.
While Attlee’s domestic reforms provided limited concessions to a war weary British working class, his government simultaneously tied Britain to a permanent military alliance with the United States, processed as being designed for defence, but in reality it was created for the preservation and projection of the European (including USA) capitalist powers. NATO was never a peacekeeping force; it was, from the outset, an instrument of Cold War aggression—backing coups, invasions, and occupations across the globe in defence of capitalist interests. The cost has been borne by the global working class, with millions dead in Korea, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Libya and elsewhere, all under NATO’s watch.
Labour’s imperialist legacy did not end with Attlee. Every Labour government since—Wilson, Callaghan, Blair, Brown—has remained firmly committed to NATO. Not one has ever seriously questioned Britain’s membership, let alone proposed withdrawal. Even the so-called “left” leadership of Jeremy Corbyn, despite apparently being anti-war, pledged support for NATO in the 2017 and 2019 manifestos.
The reality is inescapable: every Labour government, regardless of rhetoric, has been a willing collaborator in NATO’s global dominance. The party’s allegiance lies not with international working-class, but is an active machinism of British capitalism.
Starmer, sorry, Sir Starmer, will do absolutely nothing.
Is it not possible for like minded LP members to bring a motion of no confidence against Starmer? Labour needs a new leader NOW before he agrees to the slaughter of another 60,000 Palestinians.
One thing became clear: much of we are saying outside that Westminster bubble is clearly reflected by some in there, who don’t believe the lies and catastrophe propaganda of Israel, its fellow travellers and apparatchiks. It is even clearer after watching that debate, that both Lamby and Starmer are up to their necks, actively participating in the bombing, maiming and murder of innocent Palestinians: the daily intelligence flights from RAF Akrotiri from day one, the supply of thousands of parts for the deadly fighter jets and logistical support to the Zionists criminals. They know what’s happening as the genocide is live-streamed 24/7. They should be in The Hague.
Starmer is worse than Thatcher. At least she imposed an arms embargo on Israel in 1982 when it invaded Lebanon.
Every week a group of us hold a vigil in Coleford in the Forest of Dean to remind people of the slaughter going on in Gaza and this is happening up and down the country. We ask people to hoot for Gaza and about half the people do. But time is running out. This really is now a fight against sheer evil. When Tories begin to speak as some of them do now, we know that things are changing but never before have we been in a situation such as this in which the oppressor has openly declared its intention to exterminate and remove almost 2 million people. British troops shouldn’t be sent to Ukraine: they should be sent to stop what Israel is doing in Gaza. Thank God for PSC and Jewish Voice for Labour!!
Just about every comment from Hamish Falconer was ‘mantra’, because his brief was clearly to do nothing but take up time between the ferocious criticisms of so many MPs across the entire political spectrum bar Reform. By contrast, there were some brilliant and very heartfelt contributions from MPs, with many of them taking lumps out of this wet and rather witless junior minister who keeps being sent out to absorb the blows instead of Lammy and Starmer. Some of these critical MPs called for recognition of Palestine – which is, effectively, a call for two states. I didn’t think that any of these MPs repeated ‘the two-state solution (as a) mantra’ – just about all demanded that the government stop handwringing and take concrete action (which they specified). I trust that the introductory criticism about the ‘two-state mantra’ was not directed at them.
“Labour needs a new leader NOW”
The problems the party Dee Howard, not just the leader.
Over the course of this inevitable conflict between the State of Israel and the Palestinians in both Gaza and the West Bank, I have watched with increasing despair and anguish at the excesses of the Netanyahu Zionist regime. What we are and indeed have for some time been witnessing, is the systematic starvation, degradation and dehumanising of the Gaza population. Actually, let’s call in what it is-Genocide.
How many more children with broken bodies and minds must we witness before all civilised Western Government’s call out Netanyahu for what he is and the atrocities he is afflicting on the defenceless population.
Our PM must act now:
Demand an immediate unconditional ceasefire
Stop all military assistance
Sanction Netanyahu and his Zionist cronies
Recognise the existence of a Palestinian State.
I have been urging my Labour MP, Blair McDougall, to call for action on the cessation of UK arms and military support to Israel, the cessation of all trade, sanctions against leading Israelis, the freezing of Israeli assets in Britain, recognition of the State of Palestine, and the expulsion of Israel from the UN. Like his leader, on the rare occasion when he responds, it’s with platitudes about his concern. Like so many of his fellow Labour MPs, he is more concerned about his political career than about mass murder. Those few who have spoken out in Parliament are in an honourable , but sadly tiny minority. All those with a voice in Parlaiment who have failed to call for action against Israel should be recorded in history as genocide -enablers, starting with the two most egregious: Starmer and Lammy.