Ed Miliband is expected to set out the measures in a statement to MPs on Tuesday. Photograph: Neil Hall/EPA
Ed Miliband to reassert support for Palestinian rights and a two-state solution in move fiercely criticised by US and Israel
Ed Miliband will announce a broad reset of the UK’s relations with Israel on Tuesday, promising the government will take a more active approach in supporting the Palestinian cause.
In an intervention which has already drawn fierce criticism from the US and Israel, the foreign secretary will impose a UK ban on the trade in goods and some services from illegal Israeli settlements.
He has also told civil society groups he is determined to reassert support for a two-state solution to the conflict, with an appeal for the protection of Palestinian rights and respect for international law.
The prime minister, Andy Burnham, spoke to the US president, Donald Trump, on Monday night, a call which No 10 said “stressed the importance of a two-state solution”, but it gave no other details of the conversation.
On Tuesday the US ambassador to Israel said the US could issue its own reprisals against the UK. Mike Huckabee, who had claimed the Labour government is gripped by “Jew hatred”, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme it would “do great damage to any Brits who are doing business in a number of states in the US”.
Comment by dizzy: It’s an inadequate and delayed response by the UK government following it’s extended active participation is Israel’s Gaza genocide. [11am: Actually continuing UK’s active participation in Israel’s Gaza genocide. Addressing illegal settlements only is inadequate(ed: and a distraction). ]
What’s needed is a total severance of relations with Israel: it needs to be recognised and treated as a state committing the war crimes of genocide and forced displacement. Anything less that that may be regarded as complicity in genocide. Arms sales and military assistance and co-operation must end.
Genocide denying UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy says that UK is suspending 30 of 350 arms licences to Israel. He also confirms the UK government’s support for Israel’s Gaza genocide and the UK government and military’s active participation in genocide.Genocide denier and Current UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is quoted that he supports Zionism without qualification. He also confirms that UK air force support has been essential in Israel’s mass-murdering genocide. Includes URLs https://www.declassifieduk.org/keir-starmers-100-spy-flights-over-gaza-in-support-of-israel/ and https://youtu.be/O74hZCKKdpA
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U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee delivers a press statement during his visit to the town of Turmus Ayya, northeast of Ramallah in West Bank, Palestine, on September 5, 2026. [Issam Rimawi – Anadolu Agency]
US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, an evangelical Christian and one of Washington’s most outspoken supporters of Zionism and Israel’s settlement project, has accused the British government of “Jew hate” in an extraordinary attack prompted by comments from Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband, who is himself Jewish.
Huckabee launched the attack after Miliband published a video describing a meeting with people who had been in Gaza and were working on the ground there. The foreign secretary said what he had heard about the humanitarian and medical situation was “horrific”, including accounts of medicines being blocked from entering the enclave and children dying while waiting for life-saving treatment.
Miliband said the accounts reinforced the need for Britain to take stronger action. He said the government had to “act more decisively” than it had until now.
UK Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband:
I just came out of this meeting talking about Gaza to people who've been there and are there on the ground.
And frankly, it was horrific what is unfolding. You know, the stories that people were telling me of medicines being blocked, children… pic.twitter.com/UCq8ChMHD0
Israel’s foreign ministry had earlier attacked Miliband’s account, insisting there were “no restrictions whatsoever” on medicines entering Gaza and citing the quantity of medical supplies admitted since the October 2025 ceasefire.
The British Foreign Secretary @Ed_Miliband posts a video recounting “stories” he was told about Gaza.
If the Foreign Secretary were interested in facts rather than stories, he would know that there are no restrictions whatsoever on the entry of medicines into the Gaza Strip, and… https://t.co/JuPUpyhPLM
However, recent assessments by international humanitarian agencies contradicted the Israeli claim. On 2 September, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said critical laboratory and diagnostic supplies “remain restricted” and that it had not been permitted to bring prosthetic and rehabilitation equipment into Gaza for more than two years.
“WHO has not been allowed to send prosthetic and rehabilitation equipment into Gaza for more than two years.”
OCHA, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, has similarly reported restrictions and delays affecting the entry of health commodities, alongside critical shortages of medicines and medical supplies.
The diplomatic confrontation comes as the new government of Prime Minister Andy Burnham prepares what Miliband has called a “comprehensive” response to Israel’s accelerating settlement expansion in the occupied West Bank.
Measures under consideration reportedly include a ban on trade in goods produced in illegal Israeli settlements, alongside targeted sanctions against individuals and entities involved in settlement expansion.
Miliband has said Britain does not want UK companies “financing, constructing, or advertising” new Israeli settlements. The proposed measures follow Israel’s decision to advance the E1 settlement project occupied East of Jerusalem. London says E1 would cut through the occupied West Bank, separate it further from East Jerusalem and jeopardise the territorial viability of a Palestinian state.
The government has already said it intends to target sanctions at those involved in illegal settlement expansion. Earlier measures introduced by Britain and international partners targeted networks accused of financing and enabling settler violence, while British businesses were advised against economic and financial activity in illegal settlements.
The proposed settlement trade ban, which legal analysts say is the least Britain must do to meet its obligations under the 2024 International Court of Justice ruling, has sparked harsh criticism from Britains pro-Israeli lobby.
Huckabee’s accusation of anti-Semitism comes against the background of his own longstanding commitment to Christian Zionism and Israeli territorial claims. He is the first evangelical Christian to serve as US ambassador to Israel and has repeatedly referred to the occupied West Bank by the biblical term “Judea and Samaria”. He has previously rejected the description of the territory as occupied and has preferred to call Israeli settlements “communities”.
The Foreign Office did not respond directly to Huckabee’s accusation, but pointed to nearly £318 million ($430 million)in government spending over three years to protect Jewish communities and combat what it called anti-Semitism.
Donald Trump sings and dances, says that it’s fun to kill everyone … unless he gets distracted or falls asleep.Orcas discuss rotting brain, front Orca says he wishes someone would lock him up, small Orca speaks bluntly.Climate science denier Donald Trump confirms that he knows nothing about democracy and that more liquid gold is being secured according to his policy of global privateering.
Francesca Albanese, UN special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, said she would not join people dismissing policy as ‘theatre’ before details announced. Photograph: Jordi Ruiz Cirera/The Guardian
Exclusive: UN special rapporteur on occupied territories says ban on goods from settlements ‘important’ but must go further if it is to amount to more than a ‘press release’
The UK’s planned ban on trade with unlawful Israeli settlements is a welcome, if overdue, first step and must be judged according to its practical impact, a UN expert has told the Guardian.
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Palestinian groups in the UK are holding judgment until they see the fine detail of Miliband’s policy, due to be announced on Tuesday, but are expecting the most significant shift since a previous foreign secretary, David Lammy, withdrew most arms export licences in September 2024.
Speaking to the Guardian, Francesca Albanese, the UN’s special rapporteur on the occupied territories, said a “ban on settlement goods was a change in UK government stance and absolutely important”. She added she would “not join those dismissing it as theatre before the details had been announced”.
She said a settlement trade ban would have to be part of “a true paradigm shift to Israel-Palestine that ultimately seeks to implement the international court of justice advisory opinion in 2024”, which stated that Israel’s presence in the occupied territories was “unlawful in its entirety”. The opinion, she added, said that “all states carry an obligation – not a preference of an obligation – not to recognise the situation as legal, and not render aid and assistance in maintaining it”.
Genocide denier and Current UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is quoted that he supports Zionism without qualification. He also confirms that UK air force support has been essential in Israel’s mass-murdering genocide. Includes URLs https://www.declassifieduk.org/keir-starmers-100-spy-flights-over-gaza-in-support-of-israel/ and https://youtu.be/O74hZCKKdpAUK Prime Minister Andy Burnham admits to blatently lying and engaging in deception to become leader of the UK Labour Party and Prime Minister.UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy says that UK is suspeding 30 of 350 arms licences to Israel. He also confirms the UK government’s support for Israel’s Gaza genocide.
Ministers promised last year to set up new water boards for consumers that would allow them to air complaints. Photograph: Catherine Falls Commercial/Getty Images
[Guardian] Exclusive: Documents reveal water firms have been allowed to advise on how they wish to be held to account
Labour’s new powers for customers to hold water companies to account are a “stitch-up”, campaigners have said, as utilities firms have been advising on how to implement it.
…
Documents released under freedom of information laws reveal the CCW has been consulting water companies on how to set up the new consumer boards that would hold them to account. It said it had “set up an industry advisory group to get ideas, feedback and advice from water companies”.
Feargal Sharkey, the former Undertones frontman turned water campaigner, said: “This is a stitch-up. If water companies are involved in setting this up customers will not get any redress. The people who are important in all of this are the customers who have been extorted by these companies. The CCW is asking the extorters what should be happening to the victims, this is an outrage and a scandal.”
He added: “It sounds like this scheme will be equally inept and dysfunctional.”
Coventry South MP Zarah Sultana branded Andy Burnham a ‘boring nice guy’
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Ms Sultana, who represents Coventry South, was first elected in 2019 as a Labour MP. But shortly after the 2024 General Election she was suspended from the Labour Party for rebelling against the party line on the two-child benefit cap.
She later left the party and went on to set up Your Party with former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn.
In a debate this [last] week, she said: “The Prime Minister has reeled off a list of policies since coming into office. Interestingly, he has failed to mention one major Intervention: his Government have continued his predecessor’s policy of arming Israel—an apartheid state that has committed and continues to commit genocide in Gaza.
“Instead of deflection and the boring nice-guy act, will he finally admit to the House that he has chosen to continue arming Israel and is therefore complicit in the genocide of the Palestinian people?”
UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham admits to blatently lying and engaging in deception to become leader of the UK Labour Party and Prime Minister.Genocide denier and Current [former] UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is quoted that he supports Zionism without qualification. He also confirms that UK air force support has been essential in Israel’s mass-murdering genocide. Includes URLs https://www.declassifieduk.org/keir-starmers-100-spy-flights-over-gaza-in-support-of-israel/ and https://youtu.be/O74hZCKKdpA
