FORMER Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn MP has criticised the government for “making no attempt” to answer MPs’ questions over its complicity in the Gaza genocide.
A five-strong pro-Palestine group of MPs, forming the Independent Alliance parliamentary group, has asked for the government’s definition of genocide, what advice it has received over its applicability in Gaza and what it was doing to fulfil its legal obligations to prevent genocide.
In letters sent to Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, Foreign Secretary David Lammy and the Attorney General Richard Hermer, they also asked whether RAF Akrotiri, Cyprus, is being used as a route for weapons to be deployed in Gaza and what legal advice the government has received over its use to support Israeli military operations.
Replying to Mr Corbyn two months after the letters were sent, Middle East minister Hamish Falconer did not address the questions.
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Mr Corbyn shared a copy of The Independent Alliance’s written response to Mr Falconer on social media.
It said: “We are extremely disappointed that you’ve made no attempt whatsoever to answer any of these questions.
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“It remains unknown whether the government has refused to seek legal advice over the definition of genocide, or whether the legal advice it has received is at direct odds with the statement the Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary have made.”
They added that it is “particularly concerning” that the government failed to provide any detail on how it has met its obligations to prevent genocide.
“We say again: we deserve to know the full scale of our government’s complicity and participation in genocide,” it added.
UK Foreign Minister David Lammy confirms that UK government and military are active participants in Israel’s genocides and that the F-35 parts that they suspended from supplying to Israel are instead simply diverted via the United States. He says see https://youtu.be/QILgUHrdWREGenocide 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
General Basyuk (second from right) with Netanyahu and Gallant – both wanted by the ICC. (Photo: GPO)
Why is it only Declassified seeking to hold to account General Basyuk, who oversaw Israel’s slaughter in Gaza, as he meets UK officials?
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Last week, Declassified UK carried out one of the fundamental duties of journalism. Its reporter Alex Morris sought to hold accountable a war crimes suspect evading justice. And not just any suspect.
Morris doorstepped Major General Oded Basyuk as he led an Israeli military delegation through the streets of London in meetings with the Ministry of Defence and the Royal United Services Institute, a UK “security think-tank” with close ties to the British government.
Basyuk, sometimes spelt Basiuk, heads the Israeli military’s operations directorate, whose responsibilities have included the development of the military strategy that guided Israel’s brutal 15-month assault on Gaza.
The International Court of Justice ruled a year ago that a “plausible” case had been made that Israel was committing a genocide in Gaza. Israel has effectively been on trial ever since.
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Further, Britain’s universal jurisdiction laws mean serious crimes can be prosecuted in the UK wherever they occurred, and separately from the ICC. A private application for his arrest could have been issued while he was here.
The only plausible answer is that the government of Keir Starmer gave him a gold-plated assurance that he would not be arrested under any circumstances during his visit.
That is precisely what happened back in November when Israel’s now-outgoing military chief of staff, Lieutenant General Herzi Halevi, visited Britain to meet officials from the Ministry of Defence and Foreign Office.
Starmer’s government issued Halevi with diplomatic immunity – a so-called “special mission certificate” – that blocked any possibility of legal redress against him.
As a signatory to the Rome Statute, it should be noted, Britain is legally obliged to enforce an arrest warrant issued by the ICC, though it has equivocated about whether in practice it would carry out an arrest of either Netanyahu or Gallant, if put to the test.
The UK has been an active participant in Israel’s genocidal campaign in Gaza for the last 15 months, a new report published by the British Palestinian Committee (BPC) reveals today.
The 22-page document entitled ‘British military collaboration with Israel’ says: “The UK has not simply failed to meet its third-party responsibilities to uphold international law, including its duty to prevent genocide, but has been an active participant in Israel’s genocidal campaign in Gaza for the last 15 months.”
Cataloguing evidence of the “many layers of collaboration between the UK and Israel in this genocidal project”, the report details the UK’s active involvement in the Israeli arms industry, British provisions of logistical support and weapons transfers to the Israeli military, British protection of Israel’s military infrastructure, direct military intervention from the UK in Yemen to support Israel’s goals and repeated, ongoing intelligence provision from the UK to Israel via surveillance flights.
BPC Director, Dr Sara Husseini, said: “This report shows that UK complicity in Israel’s crimes goes far beyond arms sales.”
Highlighting the International Court of Justice (ICJ)’s ruling that Israel’s actions in Gaza amount to “plausible genocide”, Husseini added: “As the world looked on in horror, Israel continued its genocidal aggression in Gaza for a further 12 months. The UK has provided active military assistance to Israel throughout.”
This, she continued, implicates “its institutions and officials in the gravest breaches of international law.”
This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
UK Foreign Minister David Lammy confirms that UK government and military are active participants in Israel’s genocides and that the F-35 parts that they suspended from supplying to Israel are instead simply diverted via the United States. He says see https://youtu.be/QILgUHrdWREGenocide 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
Red Army soldiers with prisoners of Nazi concentration camp, 1945. Source: Wikimedia Commons
As European leaders gathered at Auschwitz to commemorate 80 years since its liberation, they upheld a revisionist narrative that downplays the role of the Red Army in defeating Nazism
On January 27, 1945, soldiers of the Soviet Red Army liberated Auschwitz, the Nazi concentration camp where over one million people—overwhelmingly Jews—were murdered. Eighty years later, European leaders gathered in Poland, now home to the Auschwitz memorial, to hear survivor testimonies and reaffirm the commitment to ensuring such atrocities never happen again.
Yet this year’s commemoration came with a blazing omission. Despite the USSR’s vital role in defeating Nazi Germany and its allies—at the cost of over 20 million Soviets’ lives—there were no representatives of the Russian Federation at Auschwitz. In its pursuit of punishing Russia for the war in Ukraine, the European Union (EU) has virtually erased the Red Army’s contributions from the narrative. Leaders like Ursula von der Leyen and Giorgia Meloni issued statements of remembrance while avoiding any mention of the USSR. Only left politicians dared to talk about the full picture in their messages on the day of remembrance.
These events have to be read as part of a broad revisionist trend spreading through Europe, in which far-right parties, such as Meloni’s Brothers of Italy and France’s National Rally, are using anti-communist tropes to rewrite history. This trend has taken root among mainstream parties as well. Just days before Holocaust remembrance day, the European Parliament adopted a resolution condemning Russia for “exploiting the narrative of the ‘liberation of Europe from Nazism.’” The text of the resolution also criticized the restoration of Lenin’s monuments in Ukraine and called for a “pan-European” memorial for “victims of the 20th century totalitarian regimes,” a vocabulary that aims to equate fascism and communism.
In what can only be described as a severe case of historical amnesia, the parliamentaries proposed a ban on “both Nazi and Soviet communist symbols” across the EU. As some have pointed out, implementing such a ban would complicate commemorations like the one on Monday, given the prominence of Soviet uniforms in archival photographs of liberation.
While the EU is entertaining itself with erasing communism’s role in defeating Nazism in World War II, it seems to have learned extremely little from the Holocaust itself. The first phase of a ceasefire in Gaza had not even begun when Polish authorities announced they would allow Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to attend the Auschwitz commemoration—despite an International Criminal Court warrant for his arrest on war crimes charges. Though Netanyahu ended up not attending himself, the mere possibility highlights Europe’s willingness to overlook crimes against humanity if committed by its current allies.
“Laying claim to the memory of one genocide in order to justify another genocide is morally and politically unacceptable,” historian Enzo Traverso said in a recent interview with Jacobin, commenting on Europe’s reactions to the genocide in Gaza. “The memory of Auschwitz should be mobilized to impede new genocides, not to justify them.”
By refusing to acknowledge the full history of Nazism’s defeat in 1945—especially the contributions of the Red Army and communist movements—Europe only fuels the rise of the far-right. Parties like Alternative for Germany (AfD), National Rally and Brothers of Italy may avoid explicit antisemitism in their platforms, but their policies thrive on the same hatred and violence that drove the Holocaust. As these parties gain electoral ground, the slogan “Never again is now” is becoming increasingly difficult to believe.
Former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, MP John McDonnell (front, fourth from left) and Khalid Abdalla (front row third from right) join people taking part in a national march for Palestine on Whitehall in central London, January 20, 2025
PEACE campaigners vowed to “break the climate of fear” fed by intensified police repression in a weekend rally to defend protest rights.
Hundreds gathered in Bethnal Green’s Atrium to discuss the Metropolitan Police’s mass detentions of marchers, including the violent arrest of chief steward Chris Nineham, at a Palestine solidarity demonstration on January 18, and the subsequent decision to charge Mr Nineham, Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) director Ben Jamal and others with public order offences.
Mr Jamal said the policing that day was “an escalation of repression by the state against our movement.
“Very clearly in my view, the police sought to provoke scenes of disorder on the streets. They began arresting people very early for the crime of standing in the wrong bit of Whitehall at the wrong moment. They brought empty coaches to transport to police stations those they intended to arrest… despite the fact that every single one of our protests has been peaceful and has had a low rate of arrest.”
The PSC leader said police intended to create “a scene of chaos and disorder that would create the political climate to enable [Home Secretary] Yvette Cooper to go into Parliament and announce she was banning all future marches.
“They did not succeed… [because] this is a peaceful and disciplined movement.”
The Metropolitan Police deny having tried to provoke disorder and referred the Morning Star to a previous statement accusing marchers of “a deliberate effort, involving organisers of the demonstration,” to breach the conditions they had imposed on the march, which included blocking a protest outside the BBC.
