“War crime after war crime is being committed and a genocide is taking place.”
Richard Burgon MP
By Ben Folley
Following a meeting of the UN Security Council on Tuesday night, where the senior UN official for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief, Tom Fletcher, asked states to act decisively to prevent genocide in Gaza, in Westminster a Foreign Office Minister was forced to take questions from MPs on Wednesday.
With Palestinians in Gaza facing increasingly desperate conditions as a result of the now ten week total Israeli blockade of aid supplies and intensifying military action, the discussion in the Commons demonstrated growing criticism from Members of Parliament of the UK Government’s actions.
Most notably, following Fletcher’s remarks, was the elevation of the issue of genocide and the extent to which it was being addressed seriously by MPs.
Last Autumn both Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Foreign Secretary David Lammy, rejected the use of the term ‘genocide’ to describe Israel’s actions against the people of Gaza.
In October, Lammy argued, ‘These are legal terms, and they must be determined by international courts’ and faced subsequent criticism for stating, ‘those terms were largely used when millions of people lost their lives in crises such as Rwanda and the Holocaust … the way that people are now using those terms undermines their seriousness.’
Similarly, Starmer said only days later that, ‘I have never described what is going on in Gaza as genocide’, and then two weeks later again stated, ‘I am well aware of the definition of genocide, and that is why I have never described this or referred to it as genocide.’
In the debate this week, the term was used 60 times in the Chamber with 25 MPs using it in urging the Government to take action and stand by its obligations under the Genocide Convention to prevent it occurring.
The Foreign Office Minister at the Despatch Box, Hamish Falconer, expressed UK Government support for the International Court of Justice ongoing case brought by South Africa, and that the government supported the provisional measures announced by the court in January 2024 and required of Israel and member states to prevent genocide in Gaza.
He also reiterated however that the UK Government’s long-standing position was that any formal determination as to whether genocide has occurred is a matter for a competent court, not for Governments or non-judicial bodies, and noted the case was ongoing.
This approach however was one challenged by the UN’s Fletcher at the Security Council on Tuesday night, when he said, ‘the ICJ is considering whether a genocide is taking place in Gaza. It will weigh the testimony that we have shared. But it will be too late.’
He further said, ‘Previous reviews of the UN’s conduct in cases of large-scale violations of international human rights and humanitarian law – reports on Myanmar, 2019; Sri Lanka, 2012; Srebrenica and Rwanda, both in 1999 – pointed to our collective failure to speak to the scale of violations while they were committed.’
It was significant therefore that in contrast to David Lammy in October, who said Gaza could not be called a genocide because of the scale of deaths did not yet match those of Rwanda, Fletcher said the experience of Rwanda was entirely relevant to Gaza because it demonstrated the cost of prevarication and inaction by states with the power to prevent such atrocities.
It was welcome therefore to hear an increasing number of MPs in the Chamber pressuring the Minister to demonstrate greater urgency and make greater use of levers available to UK Government to prevent genocide occurring, with many highlighting the continued supply by the UK of maintenance parts to Israel’s F-35 military jets and the failure to impose further sanctions, as has occurred with Russia over its Ukraine invasion.
Left Labour MPs included Andy McDonald, who said, ‘we are not complying with our obligations if we continue to supply parts for the F-35 programme …we cannot say that we are observing the Geneva conventions, the genocide convention and Rome statute if we continue to supply those goods.’
Richard Burgon said, ‘war crime after war crime is being committed and a genocide is taking place’ and condemned government double standards on sanction imposition on Russia compared to Israel.
Imran Hussain condemned the Minister for failing to address ‘the central issue, which is that our obligation to prevent genocide under the Rome statute has already been triggered by the ample evidence of Israeli war crimes in Gaza.’
Rachael Maskell and Ian Byrne both raised the issue of the UK’s continued supply of component parts to Israel’s F-35 military jets, with Maskell asserting those parts could be GPS tracked and therefore the UK could seek changes to the F-35 programme, whilst Byrne asserted that Israel’s access to the F-35 supply pool as a result of its attacks on civilians.
On the opposition benches, criticism ranged from Green Adrian Ramsay who secured the debate, Brendan O’Hara and independent Iqbal Mohammed reporting from the High Court case where the UK’s supply of arms is being challenged, that Government lawyers were asserting no such genocide is taking place, and even Conservatives such as Kit Malthouse and Edward Leigh.
But it was notable on the Labour benches that there is a growing pressure on the government to acknowledge the risk of genocide from Israel’s actions in Gaza. Other Labour MPs referring to the need to prevent genocide came from across the Parliamentary Labour Party including Flo Eshalomi, Rachel Hopkins, Warinder Juss, Tony Vaughan, Paul Waugh and Matt Western.
What is clear now is that when six months ago, the Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary weighed against the use of the term genocide, the reality of it occurring is now a real live concern amongst MPs and the government will face increasing pressure to demonstrate it is acting to prevent it.
- Ben Folley writes for Labour Outlook and is on x/twitter and on bsky.
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We need to remember we hung the leading Nazis for crimes against humanity – the word genocide was never mentioned at Nuremberg. So Starmer and co saying ‘it isn’t genocide’ ( which it technically is, the numbers argument does not wash) gets them out of nothing. No one is saying It isn’t Crimes Against Humanity. So let’s stick with that. Still the worst crimes in the book.
We need to do more. The government must be pressured by everyone to call what is happening by its name. Genocide