“Palestine has become the defining test of whether Labour still believes that international law applies equally to everyone.”
By Kim Johnson MP
If the Labour Party wants to restore trust, it has to confront the damage the Starmer years have done – and nowhere is that reckoning more urgent than on Palestine.
For many members and communities across Britain, Labour’s response to Gaza represented a profound moral and political failure. As the world witnessed the relentless bombardment, deliberate starvation, destruction of homes, hospitals and schools, and the targeting of innocent Gazan civilians, Labour abandoned its proud traditions of internationalism and that has come at an enormous cost.
As Andy Burnham leads our party into a new chapter, there must be a decisive break from the legacy of Starmerism.
I welcome the fact that Burnham has already recognised this reality. Reflecting on Labour’s position, he said:
“Labour’s initial response to the treatment of Gaza caused huge hurt. We got it wrong and I am sorry for that.”
Those words matter. But if a Burnham government is to represent genuine change, they must now be matched with a fundamentally different approach to foreign policy.
The failure of Starmerism was not simply one of communication. It reflected a broader political instinct that sought to conceal difficult truths rather than confronting them. That approach is no longer tenable because the evidence before us is impossible to ignore.
The UN Independent Commission of Inquiry has concluded that Israel is committing an ongoing genocide in Gaza, with its findings among the most devastating ever published by a UN body. The Commission documented evidence that Israel’s actions deliberately target Palestinian children, determining that these acts form “part of a deliberate strategy to destroy the future of the Palestinians in Gaza by targeting their children.”
How can the international community claim to stand for human rights and allow such findings to be met with little more than expressions of concern?
As a signatory to the Genocide Convention, we have a legal obligation to act to prevent genocide as soon as there is a serious risk that one is occurring. That duty does not begin only once every international court has reached a final judgment. The Convention requires governments to act to prevent genocide, not simply to acknowledge it after the fact.
Waiting for further legal proceedings before acting would not be caution; it would be a failure to meet Britain’s international obligations. Yet that is precisely what the previous administration did.
Two years after the ICJ ruled that Israel’s occupation of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank is unlawful, Britain has still failed to issue a formal response. The Court also found Israel in breach of the international prohibition against racial segregation and apartheid.
The significance of that judgment cannot be overstated.
The ICJ made clear that all states, including Britain, have a duty to cease any actions that aid or assist these grave violations of international law. Yet despite the clarity of the ruling, successive governments have failed to change course.
That is not the principled foreign policy I want my party to stand for.
A Burnham government has the responsibility to turn the page.
There are examples of what principled leadership looks like. Spain, under Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, has been willing to make support for Palestinian statehood a defining feature of its international engagement, while challenging Europe’s double standards and calling for meaningful action rather than passive concern. Britain should aspire to show the same moral leadership and that begins with honesty.
If independent UN investigators have concluded that genocide is taking place, our leaders – including new Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband – should have the courage to use the word. Refusing to acknowledge reality does not save lives. It merely weakens Britain’s commitment to international law and sends a dangerous signal that some victims are less deserving of protection than others.
But words alone are not enough.
A Burnham government should commit to implementing the ICJ’s July 2024 ruling in full. Further steps must include imposing comprehensive sanctions on Israel, implementing a full arms embargo, banning all trade in goods and services originating from Israel’s illegal settlements, and ending any trade that aids or assists Israel’s unlawful presence in the occupied Palestinian territory. Over 75 MPs and Peers have signed my letter to the Prime Minister calling for immediate action on these issues.
As a party, we cannot rebuild trust by asking voters to move on. Polling commissioned by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign found that 53 per cent of voters who switched from Labour to other progressive candidates said Labour’s position on Gaza was either a factor or a major factor in their decision. That itself should serve as a warning. The route back to those voters is not through better messaging. It is through politics rooted in principle rather than political expediency.
Palestine has become the defining test of whether Labour still believes that international law applies equally to everyone. If we condemn violations in one part of the world while excusing or ignoring them elsewhere, we undermine the very rules-based international order that Britain claims to defend.
Burnham tells us he has a plan to renew confidence in Labour. If that renewal is to mean anything, it must begin by making a clean break with the failures of Starmerism on Palestine. If we are truly serious about turning the page, there could be no clearer place to begin.
- Kim Johnson MP is the MP for Liverpool Riverside, you can follow her on Facebook, Twitter/X, Instagram and TikTok.
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