Labour leader Keir Starmer addressing 400 business leaders at the Kia Oval, London, during the launch of Labour Party’s plan for business, February 1, 2024
BRITAIN’S ruling class is eager to carry on the pretence that there is real choice under their political system.
Capitalism promises us that it’s the politicians that call the shots, there are real differences between those politicians and that we’re the ones that elect the politicians and they’re answerable to us.
But as with most tricks, when looked at too closely, reality and the nature of the fraud become clear.
Nowhere is it clearer that there is no real difference between the ruling-class parties than the imperialist consensus on questions of foreign policy, militarism and war.
Rather than questioning the Tory government’s policy or strategy on the burning issues of Palestine or Ukraine, Keir Starmer has bent over backwards (not hard when you’re spineless) at each and every turn to not only stymie any criticism, but to heartily endorse Tory policy.
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Britain is a proud western democracy — the oldest in the world in fact: you can stand as a candidate for whoever you want; you can vote for whoever you want; just as long as they enthusiastically cheerlead genocide in 2024.
Image of UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak. UK halts aid to UNRWA in Gaza over Israeli allegations that 12 staff from a total of 13,000 were involved in the 7 October 2024 attack on Israel.Zionist Keir Starmer supports Israel’s Gaza genocide.
Labour MPs on a “solidarity mission” with Israel’s president. (Photo: LFI / X)
Twenty percent of Labour’s sitting MPs have been funded by pro-Israel groups or individuals – including 15 who have been directly funded by the Israeli state.
Israel lobbyists have paid for Labour MPs to travel to Israel on over 50 occasions
Remarkably, the number of MPs supporting Labour Friends of Israel has increased amid the Gaza genocide
Some 41 of Labour’s 197 sitting MPs have accepted money from the Israel lobby, Declassified has found.
The value of the donations amounts to over £280,000, with Israel lobby groups paying for Labour MPs to visit Israel on over 50 occasions since 1999.
The funders include parliamentary group Labour Friends of Israel (LFI), pro-Israel figures such as Trevor Chinn, and governmental bodies including the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Amid Israel’s genocide on Gaza, at least one Labour MP, Margaret Hodge, has continued to accept Israel lobby funds to travel to the country.
Labour Friends of Israel
LFI has described itself as a “Westminster based lobby group working with the British Labour Party to promote the State of Israel”.
The organisation does not disclose its sources of funding, but is closely associated with the Israeli state.
LFI currently counts 75 Labour MPs as parliamentary supporters or officers – a number which, remarkably, has risen since the onset of Israel’s war on Gaza.
One of LFI’s main activities is taking Labour MPs on “fact finding” missions to Israel.
The organisation has paid for 32 of Labour’s sitting MPs to travel to Israel since they were first elected to parliament, Declassified has found.
The value of these donations is over £64,000, with the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs often covering additional costs in Israel.
Fifteen Labour MPs have accepted financial assistance directly from the Israeli state for these and other visits.
RAFAH, GAZA – JANUARY 04: UNRWA personnel distribute flour to Palestinian families | (Photo by Abed Zagout/Anadolu via Getty Images)
Aid is suspended amid allegations about UNRWA. There is no such suspension of arms exports despite evidence of genocide
The UK government still has no answers about if or when it will restart funding to the main relief agency in Gaza despite mounting reports of famine.
Britain’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) said last month it was stopping aid to UNRWA while it “reviewed” allegations from the Israeli government that 12 of the agency’s 13,000 staff had been involved in attacks on Israel in October.
No such suspension has been announced of Britain’s arms exports to Israel, despite the International Court of Justice having found there was a plausible case that Israel was committing genocide in Gaza. The ICJ also ordered Israel to allow aid into the region.
The Israeli government’s allegations came in the form of a six-page dossier, which Israel passed to UNRWA and its donors the day after the genocide ruling. In recent years, claims made by the Israeli government have repeatedly been subsequently dismissed as propaganda intended to influence geopolitics at key moments.
Labour MP Zarah Sultana has submitted a parliamentary question asking the department what the review involves and how long it will take given the urgent humanitarian crisis in the region more than two weeks on, but it has snubbed both her and openDemocracy’s questions.
While the dossier that Israel passed to UNRWA and its donors was confidential, Channel 4 News managed to get a copy, and said it provided no evidence for the explosive claims, which knocked the genocide ruling off front pages across the western world.
UNRWA, whose full name is the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, was founded in 1949 to support the hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees forced from their homes in order to create the state of Israel in 1948.
It currently supports 5.9 million Palestinian refugees, including those in Gaza and the West Bank affected by the current conflict, in Lebanon where there is ongoing socio-economic collapse, in Syria, where the civil war continues, and in Jordan. With its projects including running schools, medical clinics and hospitals and the distribution of food aid, it is the biggest single UN agency.
Before the allegations were made, senior Israeli officials had argued that it would be necessary to destroy UNRWA in order to win the war on Gaza.
Sultana called the government’s suspension of UNRWA funding “an act of collective punishment on the Palestinian people, millions of whom are currently displaced, unable to access food and water, and in urgent need of humanitarian aid”.
She said it was right that the allegations against UNRWA staff were investigated, but added that it was Britain’s duty under international law to ensure Palestinians in Gaza have access to humanitarian assistance. “The government’s refusal to be transparent about this decision and the process for its investigation is wholly unacceptable,” she said.
The UK’s contributions to UNRWA have varied over the years, peaking at around £90m in 2019 before being slashed to around £25m in 2022. UNRWA has subsequently admitted it fired all the staff members accused by Israel of involvement in the attacks before investigating whether there was any truth to the allegations.
The UN Secretary General has called for the donors who have suspended their funding “to, at least, guarantee the continuity of UNRWA’s operations”. UNRWA has said that the decision of some donors to suspend funding “threatens our ongoing humanitarian work across the region”. While some governments, like the UK, have suspended aid, others including Belgium, Ireland, Denmark and Spain have continued their funding.
The UK government has said that it remains “committed to getting humanitarian aid to the people in Gaza who desperately need it,” but other aid organisations who operate in Gaza have argued that none but UNRWA has the capacity to deliver it. More than 20 aid groups, including Oxfam and Save the Children, have warned that, if funding suspensions are not reversed, “we may see a complete collapse of the already restricted humanitarian response in Gaza”, calling the government’s decision “reckless”.
The UK says it “allocated” £16m to UNRWA between 7 October and the suspension in January, and that no further UK funding was due until April 2024. It has not said how much of the £16m has already been paid or spent, and how much is affected by the decision to suspend payments.
The BBC reported yesterday that children in northern Gaza have been going for days without food as aid can no longer reach them.
Image of UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak. UK halts aid to UNRWA in Gaza over Israeli allegations that 12 staff from a total of 13,000 were involved in the 7 October 2024 attack on Israel.Zionist Keir Starmer supports Israel’s Gaza genocide.
