“Israel’s war on Gaza has been a testing ground for the destruction of the international legal system itself.”
Richard Burgon MP wrote a piece for the Socialist Campaign Group’s 2026 pamphlet ‘The Socialist Policies We Need’. You can read the pamphlet in full below.
Twice in recent decades, Labour leaders have taken disastrous positions on wars in the Middle East. The invasion of Iraq and the response to Israel’s war on Gaza have been profound moral failures. They also shattered public trust and caused lasting damage to Labour’s standing.
Learning those lessons must be a central task for Labour’s new leadership. Robin Cook famously argued for an ethical foreign policy. Labour’s new leadership should build on that tradition with a foreign policy rooted in international law.
Nowhere is that more urgent than in Palestine.
The International Court of Justice (ICJ), the world’s highest court, concluded in 2024 that Israel’s continued presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory is unlawful. The International Criminal Court has issued an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity. The UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry concluded that Israel has committed genocide in Gaza following the killing of over 70,000 Palestinians, the displacement of millions, and the widespread destruction of key civilian infrastructure.
If international law is to retain any meaning, these findings must have consequences. There must be accountability. International law cannot survive if governments apply it only against certain states and ignore it elsewhere.
Widespread sanctions on Israel to uphold international law
That is why the recent announcement by the new Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband recognising the ICJ ruling and declaring Israel’s occupation unlawful is so significant.
In line with the ICJ ruling, the Government now rightly intends to introduce a “comprehensive sanctions regime”. This will ban imports of goods from illegal settlements, enable sanctions against companies and individuals who support or facilitate settlement activity, and restrict arms exports, among other steps.
But these measures, as welcome as they are, can only be a beginning. The ICJ ruling also makes clear that states must cease all financial, trade, investment and economic relations that help maintain Israel’s unlawful presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory. So, more is needed to fulfil our legal obligations as well as our moral ones.
In 2025, I launched the Westminster Working Group for Sanctions on Israel with my Socialist Campaign Group colleague Imran Hussain MP precisely to push for the clear set of policies our Government must implement to comply with the ICJ ruling and ensure accountability for Israel’s war crimes. Around 100 MPs over the past year have backed the wider package of sanctions required to meet our obligations, including:
- A ban on all trade in goods and services with illegal Israeli settlements and action against companies that profit from or contribute to the unlawful occupation.
- Travel bans and asset freezes on all those complicit in sustaining the unlawful occupation, including political leaders.
- The suspension of the UK-Israel trade agreement until Israel complies with international law.
- An end to all arms transfers to Israel that uphold the occupation.
Such sanctions do not seek exceptional treatment for Israel. They seek to hold it to the same standards as any other state. Indeed, the scale of sanctions that UK governments have rightly imposed on Russian individuals, companies and institutions following the illegal invasion of Ukraine offers a blueprint for the further action needed on Israel.
Trump’s war on international law
While nothing compares with the unimaginable human suffering inflicted during Israel’s genocide in Gaza, the consequences have extended far beyond Palestine. Israel’s war on Gaza has been a testing ground for the destruction of the international legal system itself.
As one Palestinian lawyer warned MPs in a parliamentary evidence-gathering session I organised, the willingness of so many governments to turn a blind eye to Israel’s actions would undermine international law.
That warning is now being borne out. By allowing a powerful ally to act with impunity, Western governments have helped weaken the very institutions and principles that Trump is now openly attacking.
Trump’s Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, for example, pledged to dismantle the International Criminal Court “brick by brick, if necessary”.
That is part of a much wider agenda, made explicit in Trump’s National Security Strategy published last year. It sets out a vision that would tear up international law and replace it with a world shaped increasingly by raw power and gangster politics.
Trump quickly turned that worldview into action through the bombing of Venezuela and the kidnapping of its president; threats against Greenland and Canada; and a devastating US war on Iran that has brought immense suffering to the Iranian people while driving up prices across the globe.
Trump has also tried to strangle Cuba by cutting off all fuel. When I visited Cuba on a humanitarian mission earlier this year to deliver aid to a cancer hospital, not a drop of fuel had entered the island for months. The situation is now even worse. Four members of the US Congress who visited this summer described the energy blockade as turning the island into a “silent Gaza”.
At the heart of Trump’s approach is the belief that might is right and that the UN Charter and the international rules established after the Second World War can simply be discarded when they stand in the way of US power.
That post-war system was far from perfect, but Trump’s alternative would make the world even more dangerous.
Another key element of Trump’s strategy is pressuring other countries into eyewatering increases in military spending.
Of course, we must address threats facing our country. But that does not mean simply pouring ever more money into the military, which has already received significant funding increases in recent years. Doing so would inevitably mean less for our public services and infrastructure on which people depend. The trade union campaign against this push for ever-higher military spending, now backed twice by the TUC, should be supported.
Nor would it address many of the greatest threats we face. National security is broader than military security. The Government’s own assessments identify pandemics, cyberattacks, failures of critical infrastructure such as the electricity grid and climate-related emergencies as being among the most serious threats facing Britain.
Addressing these threats requires major investment: in public services, critical infrastructure and national resilience, so that we can cope with crises and keep society functioning.
Israel’s war on Gaza has underlined the wider choice we face: a dangerous return to a world governed not by law, but by brute force, militarism and impunity. Or one based on global cooperation, justice and respect for international law. Labour’s new leadership must break decisively with the failures of the past and choose the latter path.
- Richard Burgon is the MP for Leeds East, the Secretary of the Socialist Campaign Group of MPs and a regular contributor to Labour Outlook. You can follow him on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and TikTok.
- You can read the SCG pamphlet ‘The Socialist Policies We Need’ in full here. The foreword says that “We hope this contributes to a debate across the Labour Party, trade unions and the wider movement about the political programme needed to deliver the change people voted for, to build a better future for our communities and to prevent the rise of a Trump-style government here in Britain.“
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