Pro-Palestine activists believe ‘sea change’ coming in Labour’s approach to Middle East

Brian Brivati, a historian and the executive director of the British Palestine Project, is convinced steps will be taken. “There is a sea change about to happen inside government and it would be extraordinary if there was not, just because so much of the dynamic leads in one direction,” he said.

“[The former adviser] Morgan McSweeney has gone as Starmer’s gatekeeper in No 10 and he cut his teeth by linking Jeremy Corbyn to antisemitism. The electoral maths is obvious to MPs, including to new-intake MPs, who have woken up to what will happen in their seat after the Greens’ performance in the local elections.

“There is the contrast between the leadership shown on Ukraine with Palestine, and the failure to uphold international law. The poll of Labour party members by Medical Aid for Palestinians released last week showed 87% backing for a ban on trade with illegal settlements, while 78% back a total ban on all arms shipments to Israel.

“Then there is what is happening inside Gaza itself, including more than 900 deaths since the ceasefire and the absolute failure of the Board of Peace to achieve anything in six months. I would have expected Keir Starmer in the face of this just to do the bare minimum, but a [party] leadership election will mean a major shift in Labour’s approach, almost regardless of whether it is Burnham or Streeting, or anyone else.”

In startling remarks last week, Emily Thornberry, the chair of the foreign affairs select committee, said Labour had failed the Palestinians. After the act of recognition last autumn, the government had lost momentum while “the Trump peace plan has gone into the sand”, she said. “Recognition was a first step. Where is the second and 10th step?” she asked.

Emily Thornberry, the Labour MP for Islington South and Finsbury, said last week that her party had failed the Palestinians. Photograph: House of Commons/Reuters

“What is happening inside Gaza is intolerable yet we tolerate it,” she added. She asked why, with the threat of the West Bank being partitioned in the next two months, the government had not used its convening power to end the deadlock over Hamas disarmament and Israeli withdrawal.

At an all-day British Palestine Project (BPP) conference last week, Thornberry was heckled when she described herself as a Zionist, but her call for Labour to do more reflects a frustrated mood. Another MP said: “It’s not just the diplomacy. We have not got the politics of this right.”

The sobering truth about Israeli public opinion was conveyed to the BPP conference by the Israeli pollster Dr Dahlia Scheindlin, and much of the day was spent disentangling what a new Labour leader could do to convince Israelis that occupation did not bring security.

The consensus was that possible practical actions were a full trade ban or a ban on the trade of goods made in illegal settlements; the belated publication of a full government response to the international court of justice decision on the illegality of the occupation made in 2024; and urgent steps to deter British and European firms from bidding for tenders for the E1 settlement area, a development that severs the north of the West Bank from the south.

A letter signed by Labour select committee chairs contained some of these ideas, but the government this week instead imposed sanctions on more settler groups, saying it was hard practically to ban illegal settlement trade. Ministers also backed a new international peace fund to support grassroots initiatives aimed at building trust between communities.

More broadly, Vincent Fean, a former consul general in Jerusalem, said: “Europe has lost diplomatic control of the Palestinian issue to Trump, and it needs to get it back, and Britain should be playing a bigger part in that.”

Activists feel Starmer has been unwilling to reflect how Gaza had become a defining issue for a generation. It is the Greens that have called for the release of Marwan Barghouti, an imprisoned Palestinian political leader. Chris Doyle, the director of the Council for Arab-British Understanding, said: “We seem to have mastered the art of vacuous press releases that express concern, deep concern and then, drum roll, grave concern.”

Daniel Levy, a former Israeli negotiator, said Labour needed some hard analysis about how Israel’s leaders accrete power. Britain had to be laser-focused “on trying to impact what Israel can and cannot do, what Israel can get away with, and what hopefully it can be prevented from doing,” he said.

“Criminalising this or that settler misses the point,” Levy said. “Sanctioning [Benjamin] Netanyahu and [Israel’s finance minister Bezalel] Smotrich is a badge of pride for them. I have a news alert. They were not going to spend their summer in the Lake District anyway. Eurovision, football, basketball – those are the things that send signals to Israel.

“We are witnessing the tectonic plates shifting. The Israeli-US war on Iran is likely to accelerate a shift away from the US. You undermine Zionism by offering something else. Apartheid was undermined by proposing a freedom charter that offered something else to the Afrikaner and white population of South Africa. There is no kissing point between a regime based on ethno-supremacy and their need for security.”