Israeli settlers fly flags over a home they seized from a Palestinian family south of Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank in August. Photograph: Ahmad Gharabli/AFP/Getty Images
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The Guardian understands Miliband will say in his speech that the sanctions marked a definitive change in how Labour will approach the situation in the Middle East.
“I want to say to the millions of people in this country and indeed elsewhere who have been moved and outraged by the plight of the Palestinian people: we hear you, you were right,” he will say.
“And under Andy’s leadership, we have reset our approach. We call out ethnic cleansing by the settler terrorists in the West Bank. We call out the evidence of war crimes in Gaza. We call out Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine. And we match words with actions.
The British government has not suspended or revoked a single additional arms export licence for Israel since announcing what Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband described as a “double lock” on military sales, according to an investigation by Declassified UK.
Miliband announced a package of measures on 8 September targeting Israel’s illegal occupation and settlement activity. The measures included plans to prohibit trade with illegal settlements and refuse applications for arms and other exports that materially contribute to the occupation of Palestinian territory.
However, responding to a parliamentary question from independent MP Iqbal Mohamed, the Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade confirmed that no further licences had been suspended or revoked since the announcement.
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Labour reformulates Blair’s triangulation strategy
This is how it works. Andy Burnham or Ed Miliband say “You were right on Israel and Palestine, we were wrong.” That’s 2 corners of the triangle.
The new formulation is “Having acknowledged that you were right and we were wrong, we’re going to continue in exactly the same way. We won’t do anything differently. Hopefully you’re too stupid to notice.”
Ed Miliband claims that he and Andy Burnham have reformulated Blair’s triangulation strategy. Their new formulation entails acknowledging that they were wrong on Israel and Palestine but entails doing absolutely nothing about it and continuing exactly the same policies hoping that you’re too stupid to notice.UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham admits to blatently lying and engaging in deception to become leader of the UK Labour Party and Prime Minister.Current UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is quoted that he supports Zionism without qualification. He also confirms that his active support and that of UK’s air force has been essential in Israel’s mass-murdering genocide.
One institution spoke with BAE Systems before disciplining students.
British weapons manufacturer BAE Systems worked with UK universities to counter campus protests against Israel’s genocide in Gaza, according to emails and internal documents.
In 2024, the company appeared to have urged universities “to counteract an often skewed, but prominent narrative from protesters” about its partnership with higher education institutions, slides from a presentation show.
Staff members from one top institution spoke with BAE before disciplining student activists. Another interacted with the company about an upcoming protest against the firm.
BAE Systems supplies Israel with parts for F-35 fighter jets, which have played a key role in the Israeli military’s destruction of Gaza.
The 13 universities identified – including Manchester University, Nottingham University, Sheffield University, Southampton University, Birmingham University, Strathclyde and Cranfield – collectively receive as much as £15m via agreements for research funding with the arms manufacturer, according to the investigation.
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.
A Labour rightwinger who ran the party’s complaints department at the time it bungled numerous antisemitism complaints has been rehired to his previous job.
John Stolliday has been reinstated as head of Labour’s governance and legal unit (GLU) – the body responsible for dealing with complaints.
The role was advertised in the normal way; however, party general secretary Hollie Ridley – a close ally of Keir Starmer – is understood to have made the appointment in what multiple sources told Novara Media is a factional move before her departure from her role, which will follow the party’s upcoming conference in Liverpool.
In a post on LinkedIn in July, Stolliday said: “Honoured and delighted to have been made executive director of governance and legal at the Labour party – the party I have worked at on and off for over 15 years since I started there in 2004 – and to lead the governance unit which I worked in for so many years.”
Stolliday was director of governance and legal from December 2016 to June 2018, a period in which Jeremy Corbyn was Labour leader and in which the party was mired in antisemitism allegations. The crisis would dominate media coverage of Labour in the build up to the 2019 election and pave the way for Corbyn’s downfall.
The crisis culminated in a report by the Equalities and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) which found that Labour had breached the Equality Act in two cases, and concluded that it could have dealt with antisemitism more effectively “if the leadership had chosen to do so”. The EHRC investigation did not make any findings against Stolliday.
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.
Elbit has an MoD contract to provide a simulation trainer for Challenger 3 tanks (Photo: Stephen Bardens / Alamy)
Ed Miliband’s decision to leave the military relationship with Israel intact raises serious concerns about Britain’s compliance with international law.
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Genocide scholar Martin Shaw told Declassified: “The government’s acceptance that the occupation is illegal means that it should act against Israel itself, not just the settlers it has installed.
“The ICJ was clear that states must do nothing that provides ‘aid or assistance’ to Israel in maintaining the occupation, and must ‘ensure that any impediment’ that the occupation causes to the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination ‘is brought to an end’.
“Through the UK’s military alliance with Israel and its comprehensive military-industrial cooperation, Labour still appears to be failing in these legal duties, despite Miliband’s announcements”.
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Omar Barghouti, co-founder of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement for Palestinian rights, told Declassified: “This important investigation exposes precisely why the UK government’s recent measures are largely performative and designed to whitewash the multifaceted, shameless complicity of the UK with Israel’s regime of settler-colonialism, illegal occupation, apartheid and genocide.
“The UK has failed to end the economic relationships, trade agreements and academic relations with Israel that may contribute to its unlawful presence and apartheid regime in the occupied Palestinian territory, as it is obliged to do in order to comply with the ICJ ruling.
“It is absurd for the UK to sanction settlements while simultaneously purchasing and integrating Israeli surveillance and weapon systems that are field-tested on Palestinians into its own armed forces.
“Comparing these largely symbolic measures with the far-reaching sanctions imposed by the UK on Russia after its invasion of Ukraine affirms the UK’s colonial hypocrisy and loss of credibility on the international stage”.
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In addition to military collaboration, Britain’s intelligence relationship with Israel will be untouched, according to Miliband, and there are no signs that either the 2020 UK-Israel military cooperation agreement, nor the 2023 Road Map for UK-Israel bilateral relations will be suspended.
In response to Britain’s sanctions, Israel has said it will close the British consulate in East Jerusalem, remove UK representatives from the International Gaza Support Centre in Kiryat Gat, and terminate Britain’s role in training Palestinian Authority forces in the West Bank.
Omar Barghouti added: “The UK has very clear obligations under international law, as triggered by the ICJ decisions of 2024 about Israel’s plausible genocide and its illegal occupation and apartheid.
“The UK must end all military, intelligence, trade, financial, academic and other relations with Israel that enable its illegal occupation, apartheid or genocide, as the ICJ has called for”.
UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham admits to blatently lying and engaging in deception to become leader of the UK Labour Party and Prime Minister.Keir Starmer objects to criticism of the IDF. He asks how could anyone object to them starving people to death, forced marches like the Nazis did, bombing Gaza’s hospitals and universities, mass-murdering journalists, healthworkers and starving people queuing for food, killing and raping prisoners and murdering children. He calls for people to stop obstructing his genocide for Israel. New Labour UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham continues Labour party policy of active support and complicity in Israel’s 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
This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham leaves 10 Downing Street to address lawmakers in the House of Commons for the first time as prime minister in London, United Kingdom, on September 1, 2026. [Raşid Necati Aslım – Anadolu Agency]
Pro-Palestine groups on Wednesday delivered a petition signed by more than 55,000 people calling on new British Prime Minister Andy Burnham to hold Israel accountable over the genocide in Gaza, Anadolu reports.
Video footage shared on US social media company X showed Ryvka Barnard, deputy director of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC), Sara Husseini, director of the British Palestinian Committee, and prominent British actor Juliet Stevenson, a vocal critic of Israeli actions, handing the petition to Burnham’s office in Downing Street.
Speaking in the video, Barnard said they were calling on Burnham to uphold international law and the rights of the Palestinian people and to hold Israel to account over the genocide “that it’s been committing, that’s an ongoing genocide that it continues to commit.”
Husseini said there could be no “piecemeal approach” to occupation, apartheid and genocide.
“So, this petition today, really is a reminder that the wider British public … will be watching really closely to see if this new government can commit to meaningful policy change that can actually deliver accountability and the painfully long overdue justice that Palestinians deserve,” she said.
For her part, Stevenson said: “We’re urging Andy Burnham and his government to shift the UK government’s position on this, because we’ve watched Keir Starmer (former prime minister) collude with it.”
Israel’s genocide in Gaza has killed at least 73,470 Palestinians and injured 174,540 others since October 2023, according to the enclave’s Health Ministry. Most of the victims have been women and children, while around 90% of Gaza’s civilian infrastructure has been destroyed.
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/O74hZCKKdpAKeir Starmer objects to criticism of the IDF. He asks how could anyone object to them starving people to death, forced marches like the Nazis did, bombing Gaza’s hospitals and universities, mass-murdering journalists, healthworkers and starving people queuing for food, killing and raping prisoners and murdering children. He calls for people to stop obstructing his genocide for Israel. New Labour UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham continues Labour party policy of active support and complicity in Israel’s genocide.
