“Regarding the crisis in Gaza… I am ashamed of what is & is not being done in my name, in the name of my constituents, and in the name of this country.”
Clive Lewis MP has written to the Prime Minister demanding that the government takes concrete measures to help hold Israel to account and ends British complicity in the catastrophe being experienced by the people of Palestine – you can read the letter in full below.
Dear Prime Minister,
As a fellow Labour MP, I write to you regarding the crisis in Gaza, not with formality but in anguish. I am ashamed of what is and is not being done in my name, in the name of my constituents, and in the name of this country.
You have the power to act – but instead, our government, now under Labour leadership, is timid.
The unfolding catastrophe in Gaza – its scale, its cruelty, its deliberate, systemic destruction – is no longer simply a humanitarian crisis. It is a political and moral reckoning. Homes, hospitals, children’s bodies buried in rubble: this is not collateral damage. This is the annihilation of a people. And it continues, unabated, under our watch.
Amnesty International has concluded “that Israel has carried out acts prohibited under the Genocide Convention, with the specific intent to destroy Palestinians in Gaza”
Human Rights Watch has similarly concluded that “Israeli authorities are responsible for the crime against humanity of extermination and for acts of genocide.”
Just this month, UN experts warned that the “deliberate depletion of essential necessities, destroying of natural resources and calculated push to drive Gaza to the brink of collapse further corroborates its criminal responsibility” and “beyond constituting grave international crimes, follow alarming, documented patterns of genocidal conduct.”
Yes, our government issues statements distilled into sound bites. But we are not using the tools available to us: an arms embargo, economic sanctions, and international accountability. When history is written – and it will be – what will it say of us? Of you?
If you do not countenance using those tools for the sake of the Gazan people and the millions in our country who care about their fate – then at the very least, do it for your own reputation. One that I fear will not age well in a future shaped by truth and told by decent people who did not look away.
You are our Prime Minister. Do more. Do everything that can be done. And do it now.
Yours in sorrow and in shame,
Clive Lewis MP
Norwich South
- Clive Lewis is the Member of Parliament for Norwich South- you can follow him on Facebook, Twitter/X, Instagram, YouTube and TikTok. This letter was originally published on his social media accounts.
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