In search of a coherent Labour policy on Gaza

There was no summer honeymoon for UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer.

Weeks after winning a landslide general election, the knives were quickly out for the Labour Party leader.

After spending the last 14 years in the political wilderness, Starmer's Labour Party were beset by problems walking into No 10: a sluggish economy with a £22bn ($27bn) black hole, creaking public services and mounting outrage over the carnage unfolding in Gaza.

As anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant unrest erupted across the country, among those to pull out the daggers was the man leading the bloodbath in Gaza: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Less than 10 weeks after Labour's historic election win, Netanyahu criticised what he called the "mixed messages" the UK had been sending Israel.

"They [the Starmer government] say that Israel has the right to defend itself… but they undermine our ability to exercise that right," Netanyahu told the Daily Mail newspaper.

When Labour romped to victory in the 4 July general election, it did so with the lowest vote share for any party forming a majority government since 1945.

The carnage in Gaza had turned many traditional Labour voters away, with independent candidates championing the Palestinian cause unseating several Labour MPs, including some who had been tipped to become ministers in the next government.

Even Starmer suffered the wrath of an angry electorate, with his vote share in his London seat of Holborn and St Pancras falling by nearly 20 percent.

Many expected swift change. But even when Israel carried out deadly strikes on so-called "humanitarian zones", Starmer largely stuck with the same position as the Tories.

"A Labour policy would be a lovely thing," Chris Doyle, the director of the Council for the Advancement of Arab-British Understanding (Caabu), told Middle East Eye at the time.

"This government doesn't want to get stuck into the Middle East. It [simply] wishes the problem went away."

Start of the war

Back in October 2023, Labour, then in opposition, firmly backed the Conservative government's approach towards Israel and supported whatever steps it took in responding to the 7 October 2023 Hamas-led attacks.

Starmer, a human rights lawyer who had previously argued at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) that the 1991 Serbian siege of Vukovar constituted genocide, even said that Israel "had the right" to withhold water and electricity from besieged Palestinians in Gaza.

Despite appeals from devout Labour supporters that Starmer's words were mischaracterised, in November 2023, his support for Israel was on full display when he ordered his party not to back a Scottish National Party (SNP) motion that called for an "end to the collective punishment of the Palestinian people".

That same month, then-Shadow Foreign Secretary David Lammy suggested it could be "legally justified" for Israel to bomb Gaza's densely populated refugee camps.

He would later draw ridicule for claiming that Nelson Mandela would have opposed the student protests for Gaza on US campuses.

For the next few months, Starmer and Labour Party acolytes were unequivocal in their support for Israel. 

In early 2024, Starmer reportedly lobbied the speaker of the house, Lindsay Hoyle, to break with precedent and let a watered-down Labour motion be debated before a stronger SNP one calling for a ceasefire.

Labour's amendment passed, but not before the Commons descended into chaos, with SNP and Tory MPs walking out in protest. According to reports, 56 Labour MPs also defied him.

By this point, analysts were warning that Labour's position could cause them issues at the polls.

The war on Gaza emerged as a key issue in May's local elections, with several independent candidates making their support for Palestinians a central feature of their campaign.

Labour would lose around a third of the vote in areas with large Muslim populations - in some cases, to independent candidates standing on a pro-Gaza platform or to Green Party candidates who had supported a ceasefire.

Jess Phillips, a Labour MP who had voted for a ceasefire and resigned from her ministerial position in November, said the party had some "searching" to do.

Is change afoot?

Around three months before the general election, Lammy repeatedly called on then-Prime Minister Rishi Sunak's government to publish the legal advice it had received on selling arms to Israel.

In April, he wrote a letter to Foreign Secretary David Cameron saying that "there is extensive plausible evidence that the threshold for suspending arms licences has been crossed", accusing his counterpart of "hiding from scrutiny".

"Publish the legal advice now," Lammy said.

Later, Lammy would tell parliament that he would support ending arms exports to Israel if it attacked Rafah.

Meanwhile, Cameron, for his part, suggested he would consider suspending arms sales in the event of a ground invasion in Rafah, which he later did not do.

Labour then broke step with the Tories in May by backing the International Criminal Court (ICC) after its chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, announced he was seeking arrest warrants for Israeli and Hamas leaders, including Netanyahu.

This put Labour in line with most European Union countries but was in stark contrast to the Conservative government, which slammed Khan's move as "just plain wrong".

As differences between the two parties began to emerge, Lammy maintained that the opposition "supports the independence of international courts" and accused the Conservatives of having "backtracked on their commitment to the rule of law".

Yet, it appeared that the shadow foreign secretary would go further in diverging from the government line than Starmer himself, who refused to say whether he would back the ICC if it issued an arrest warrant for Netanyahu.

But by June, the approach seemed to have changed again.
 
This was a different political situation altogether: the general election campaign.

The election campaign

After Sunak called an election on 24 May, Labour seemed to dial down its rhetoric on Israel and quietly row back on some of its more strident positions.

In January, Cameron suggested that the UK might consider recognising a Palestinian state not as part of a peace deal but earlier, during negotiations for a two-state solution.

Labour swiftly outflanked the government, with Lammy suggesting the party would consider unilaterally recognising a Palestinian state.

But this did not then appear in the party's manifesto in June, which said that Labour would recognise a Palestinian state not unilaterally but as part of a peace process.

It was a significant backtrack.

'Labour Party was our family, and unfortunately, they didn't support us at the time when we needed them'

- Mohammed Arif, British Pakistani Association Leicestershire general secretary

Later in the election campaign, it was revealed that the party had decided against recognising a Palestinian state so as not to upset Britain's relationship with the US.

Instead, Labour appeared to be signalling that it would keep Britain aligned with American foreign policy.

Meanwhile, in many constituencies across the country, an anti-Labour revolt was brewing.

"I always voted for [the] Labour Party, and I’m a paid member," Mohammed Arif, general secretary of the British Pakistani Association Leicestershire and a constituent in Leicester South in the East Midlands, told MEE in early June.

"To see how [the] Labour Party reacted when Muslims requested - and not only Muslims but actually the public at large - through marches in London and at a local level, when we begged the Labour Party to support a ceasefire [and they did not], that really hurt.

"It's almost like a kick in the teeth from your own brother and family. Labour Party was our family, and unfortunately, they didn't support us at the time when we needed them."

He chose to throw his support behind a newcomer to politics instead: independent candidate Shockat Adam.

Many constituents in Leicester South - a Labour stronghold for years - were so horrified by the war in Gaza that they vowed not to vote for Labour.

And there were some indications that Labour's high command was worried.

LabourList reported on 31 May that 16 Labour-held seats with a significant number of Muslim voters were being treated by the party as "battleground areas". These included seats where Labour MPs held large majorities but faced challenges from independent candidates.

Yet, the party made no significant effort to appeal to voters for whom the war was a top priority. Throughout the campaign, Labour appeared unwilling to fight the campaign on the issue of Gaza.

The consequence was borne out on election day. Labour swept to a landslide victory but haemorrhaged votes to pro-Palestinian candidates, several of whom picked up shock wins.

'What we are seeing is Muslims coming together and utilising their democratic right to participate in politics'

- Fatima Rajina, De Montfort University fellow

Independent candidates winning seats is extremely rare in British politics - so much so that none were elected in the last election in 2019.

In 2024, however, five independents were elected on pro-Palestinian platforms. Jeremy Corbyn, the former Labour leader who won his seat as an independent, told MEE that "Palestine was on the ballot".

Chief among the shock independent victories, sure enough, was Shockat Adam in Leicester South, who unseated Jonathan Ashworth, a prominent member of Labour's shadow cabinet.

It was clear that Gaza had become a serious issue in British politics, particularly but not exclusively among Muslims.

Analysis shared with MEE showed that in the 20 constituencies with the highest proportion of Muslims, the party's share of the vote dropped by between 15 percent and 45 percent.

Fatima Rajina, a senior research fellow at De Montfort University, told MEE: "What we are seeing is Muslims coming together and utilising their democratic right to participate in politics. Muslims have specific political demands and are ensuring they are heard."

By demonstrating its alignment with US policy, Labour had damaged itself electorally.

Labour in government

Starmer appeared nonchalant when asked about his relationship with British Muslims after the election.

He simply said: "We have a strong mandate, but we did not secure the votes. We will address that, whereas I don't think there is anything to dispute the mandate we have, and that it's a mandate for change, for renewal and for politics as public service."

Senior members of his government were more direct.

Health Secretary Wes Streeting, who had come close to being unseated by a pro-Palestinian independent, conceded that "Gaza has been a real issue for the Labour Party at this election".

How, then, would government policy towards Israel change?

In June, during the election campaign, former Conservative cabinet minister David Jones told MEE that he believed Labour would have handled Israel’s response to 7 October in "precisely the same way" as the Conservatives.

He noted that “the Labour Party has repeatedly made it clear it supports the government position" in parliamentary debates throughout the war.

"There have been certain changes or nuances recently," he conceded, "but overall, Labour's position has been supportive of the government's."

However, what Labour did in government almost immediately differentiated it from the Conservatives.

On 10 June, the Conservative government submitted an objection to the ICC prosecutor's application for arrest warrants targeting Israeli leaders. This was widely alleged to be an attempt to delay the court's decision on whether it could issue an arrest warrant.

Shortly after the election, reports suggested that Labour would drop the UK's objection.

Just days later, it emerged that Washington was lobbying the Labour government not to withdraw Britain's objection.

But ultimately, in late July, the government announced it would withdraw the objection, sending a strong signal that it was committed to international law.

Doyle suggested this was because Sunak's ICC decision "was overtaken by the fact that other states had submitted similar letters [of objection]".

"In my view, the aim was to delay the potential arrest warrants," he said. "The job is already done." 

This made Labour's move practically inconsequential. The ICC eventually issued arrest warrants months later, in November.
 
Just weeks after the election, the government also announced that Britain would restore funding to Unrwa, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees.

The move brought the UK in line with countries such as Germany, Australia, Canada, Sweden and Japan, which had restored funding to Unrwa after initially suspending it over unproven Israeli accusations linking its staff to Hamas.

Significantly, the move was not promised in the party’s election manifesto, nor had Lammy called for Unrwa funding to be restored while Labour was in opposition and he served as shadow foreign secretary.

Again, it was a reversal of a Conservative decision.

But there was another, more significant, policy in the pipeline: restricting arms sales.

Suspending arms sales

On 25 July, MEE revealed that the government was likely to introduce restrictions on arms sales to Israel and drop its objection to the ICC arrest warrant for senior Israeli leaders.

Well-informed sources within the Labour Party told MEE that the government was expected to introduce some restrictions on arms sales but not suspend them entirely.

A few days later, just before parliament went into summer recess, reports suggested that a planned announcement had been delayed, with the government still reviewing evidence to determine which UK-made weapons may have been used in suspected war crimes.

Around a month later, two groups, the UK-based Global Legal Action Network (Glan) and Palestinian human rights group Al-Haq, informed the government that they intended to seek a mandatory order that would have forced a full suspension of UK arms exports to Israel pending its investigation.

But on the first day parliament reconvened, Lammy made his now infamous announcement.

He said Britain had suspended 30 out of 350 arms export licences to Israel after a review found there was a clear risk that British-made weapons could be used in violation of international humanitarian law.

This covered components for other types of military aircraft, including fighter planes, helicopters and drones. 

However, around 320 other licences, including those for items intended for civilian use, were to remain in place.

This dramatic turn in British policy was deeply significant. It represented the partial withdrawal of British support for Israel’s war on Gaza.

Why did Labour make the decision? 

Lammy insisted it was simply due to the legal assessment he received.

But the government had planned to introduce some form of restrictions back in late July before he had received the assessment. 

Licences for parts for F-35 fighter jets, which are directly used in Gaza, were also exempted.

Yasmine Ahmed, the UK director of Human Rights Watch (HRW), said the suspension "took far too long and didn't go far enough".

"That the UK government chose to exempt components for the F-35, a workhorse of Israel’s brutal bombing campaign, shows either a miscomprehension of the law or a wilful disregard."

The decision to exempt F-35 components was made for commercial reasons, with Lammy saying in parliament that suspending them "would undermine the global F-35 supply chain that is vital for the security of the UK, our allies and Nato".

Shadow Foreign Secretary Andrew Mitchell, who had served as Cameron’s deputy during the Conservative government, thought the policy "has all the appearance of something designed to satisfy Labour's backbenches, while at the same time not offending Israel, an ally in the Middle East".

"I fear it will fail on both counts,” he said.

Doyle agreed, saying: "It was a reflection of public disquiet and also of the political disquiet in the parliamentary ranks.

"This was an attempt to calm that."

'Almost apologetic'

While a foreign office source said the US had been informed of the decision before it was announced, relations with Israel reportedly began to sour.

Netanyahu immediately called it "shameful" and added that Israel would win against Hamas "with or without British arms".

Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz said the suspension "sends a very problematic message to Hamas and Iran".

Throughout September, the British government then seemed to go to great lengths to demonstrate its continued allyship with Israel.

When several ministers bemoaned the suffering in Gaza, they never criticised Israel in the same way Russia was rebuked over its offensive on Ukraine.

"Mr President, I speak not only as a Briton, as a Londoner and as a foreign secretary," Lammy thundered at the UN Security Council on 25 September, "but I say to the Russian representative on his phone as I speak that I stand here also as a Black man whose ancestors were taken in chains from Africa at the barrel of a gun to be enslaved, whose ancestors rose up and fought in a great rebellion of the enslaved.

"I know imperialism when I see it, and I will call it out for what it is."

By contrast, less than a week later, when Israel invaded Lebanon, Lammy said: "The UK is calling for an immediate ceasefire and the implementation of a political plan that allows displaced Israeli and Lebanese civilians to return to their homes."

Doyle told MEE: "It is as if the British government, having made the decision on arms, feels it has to soften up its language in other areas to cool things down with Israel.

"The government was almost apologetic [about the arms restrictions], which showed weakness."

On 19 September, the government was slammed by British NGOs for abstaining on a UN resolution demanding that Israel end its "unlawful presence" in the occupied West Bank and the Gaza Strip within a year.

Evidently, there were limits to Labour's commitment to international law.

Sara Husseini, director of the British Palestinian Committee, told MEE at the time that Britain's abstention "further marginalises it on the world stage when it comes to advancing justice in Palestine".

Similarly, the government did not set out how it would respond to the ICJ's advisory ruling in July, which found that Israel's decades-long occupation of the Palestinian territories was "unlawful".

A foreign office spokesperson told MEE in response to the ruling that Lammy was clear "that the UK is strongly opposed to the expansion of illegal settlements and rising settler violence".

What explains this?

Andreas Krieg, a senior lecturer at the School of Security Studies at King's College London, told MEE that "influence from the US is still playing a role".

He said there had been multiple times where the US placed pressure directly on No 10 to change course, but US strategy proved "absolutely catastrophic for the region and for US standing in the region".

"The UK has to try to find its own way without always siding with the Americans because the Americans obviously have no strategy," Krieg added.

At this point, both Britain and Israel also remained committed to securing a trade deal. The Labour government announced soon after the election that it would resume negotiations with Israel. 

A British government spokesperson told Politico in late September that the UK's decision on arms sales was "separate to our commitment to deliver our trade negotiations with Israel".

"The UK continues to view Israel as an important ally, and the bond between Britain and Israel continues to be of vital importance," the spokesperson added.

The Israeli government reportedly agreed.

Significantly, Britain also continued to assist Israel militarily. Plane tracking data showed that Royal Air Force (RAF) surveillance flights continued almost daily over Gaza.

The spy planes would take off from a British base in Cyprus, with their goal being to help Israel locate Israeli captives held by Hamas.

While this policy began under the Conservatives, Britain had, in fact, ordered a hundred such flights since Labour entered government.

The defence ministry told MEE that the flights would gather intelligence, adding that the information was related to securing Israeli captives and "passed to the Israeli authorities".

According to a report by Declassified UK, human rights campaigners feared the flight paths were informed by intelligence obtained through torture. This is despite the fact that Lammy said earlier that month that the government was "deeply concerned by credible claims of mistreatment of detainees" by Israel.

In October, the RAF said it would consider sharing evidence of potential war crimes gathered by the spy planes with the ICC if requested.

Starmer himself visited the controversial base in Cyprus and was filmed telling troops: "The whole world and everyone back at home is relying on you."
 
In Britain, the flights became especially contentious after international arrest warrants were issued for Netanyahu and his former defence minister, Yoav Gallant, in late November.

Independent MP Ayoub Khan, who was elected to parliament in July on a pro-Gaza platform, said that it was absolutely necessary for the government to stop sharing intelligence from the flights over Gaza.

"We cannot assist a nation that has its leadership wanted by an international tribunal," he told MEE.

'More sympathy for Israel'

The extent of the UK's military entanglement with Israel was indicated in late October when leaked top-secret US government documents revealed plans to share with the UK intelligence about Israel’s use of secret stealth drones capable of flying over Iran.

Markings on the documents, which were seen by MEE, show they were produced by the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), which describes itself as a “unique combination of intelligence agency and combat support agency".

One piece of intelligence was marked as being for the eyes of US and British intelligence only: Israel has been using a long-range unmanned surveillance drone capable of flying covertly over Iran and elsewhere in the Middle East. 

The drone, an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), is a covert drone named RA-01.

The leaked documents indicate that the US intended to share the details about the drones with Britain but not other members of the Five Eyes intelligence alliance, which includes the US, Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

This was significant in establishing that Britain remained a crucial intelligence power to the US, which has played the biggest role in aiding the war on Gaza.

It also indicated that the Labour government was maintaining a strong pro-Israel policy amid Israel's growing tensions with Iran.

There is direct evidence for this: British forces were involved in defending Israel from October's missile attack by Iran. 

After the attack, Starmer said in a televised address that Iran "has menaced the Middle East for far too long, chaos and destruction brought not just to Israel but to the people they live among in Lebanon and beyond".

He said: "We stand with Israel, and we recognise her right to self-defence in the face of this aggression," adding that Britain supports "Israel's reasonable demand for the security of its people".

This represented continued British support for Israel, even during its invasion of Lebanon.

For Krieg, at this point, Labour appeared particularly supportive of Israel in its campaign against Hezbollah in Lebanon.

"They're trying to divorce their Gaza policy from their Lebanon and Iran policy, which is very difficult," Krieg said. "When it comes to Lebanon or Iran, there is more sympathy for Israel because the UK views Iran as a destabilising force."

However, Starmer's statement fell conspicuously short of the unconditional support expressed for Israel by the opposition Conservative Party, with Sunak saying: "We stand unequivocally by Israel's right to defend itself, including against Hezbollah in Lebanon."

A welter of contradictions

It seemed at the party's annual conference in late September that the Labour leadership was keen not to be painted as pro-Palestinian. 

When two party members heckled Chancellor Rachel Reeves, protesting the continued sales of arms to Israel, she proclaimed: "This is a changed Labour Party, a Labour Party that represents working people, not a party of protests," as security guards hauled them out.

This seemed to take aim at Jeremy Corbyn's leadership of the party from 2015 to 2020.

Starmer, in a speech, mocked a young protester who referenced the ongoing devastation in Gaza by saying: "This guy's obviously got a pass from the 2019 conference." 

But as the months wore on, the contradictions in Labour's stance grew stronger.

On 16 October, Starmer said he was "looking at" imposing sanctions on Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir for comments that appeared to endorse the killing of Palestinian civilians.

But less than two weeks later, Lammy triggered outrage by denying there was a genocide in Gaza, saying in parliament that terms such as genocide "were largely used when millions of people lost their lives in crises like Rwanda, the Second World War, the Holocaust and the way that they are used now undermines the seriousness of that term".

Refik Hodzic, a Bosnian transitional justice expert who served as a spokesperson for the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), told MEE the remarks "directly negates the Srebrenica genocide of Bosniaks, which has been adjudicated by numerous international and national courts, including the International Court of Justice.

"Absurdly, his comment also negates the decision taken by the UK government itself," he added.

The UN special rapporteur for the occupied Palestinian territories, Francesca Albanese, told MEE she considered Lammy a "genocide denier".

"It's not the numbers of those killed that determines whether or not there is genocide, and any lawyer would know that."

In response, Lammy's office said that the foreign secretary did not specify that genocide required "millions of people to be killed".

"He simply observed that the term has 'largely' applied to such cases,"  a foreign office spokesperson told MEE.

The next month, Lammy triggered further outrage when he claimed "there are no journalists in Gaza" at a meeting in parliament.

He was asked by fellow Labour MP Matthew Patrick at a Foreign Affairs Committee meeting about his assessment "of the nature of the conflict" in Gaza and "how that impinges on getting aid in".

Lammy replied: "There are no journalists in Gaza and there are no politicians such as me who are able to go to Gaza, so I am unable to verify who is behind the looting."

Journalists from around the world condemned the foreign secretary for appearing to erase the work and suffering of Palestinian journalists, at least 127 of whom have been killed during Israel’s war on Gaza, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).

"Lammy's comments are racist and an insult to hardworking Palestinian journalists, who have been doing an exceptional job under dire circumstances," award-winning Palestinian journalist Lamis Andoni told MEE.

Meanwhile, the contradictions in government policy continued to rack up.

On 22 November, the government won praise for saying it would comply with its obligations under domestic and international law after the ICC issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and his former defence minister.

Husam Zomlot, the Palestinian ambassador to the UK, told MEE at the time: "We welcome the announcement by the UK government that the UK supports and respects the independence of the ICC and would comply with the Netanyahu government arrest warrants."

However, just days later, on Monday, 25 November, Israeli military chief Herzi Halevi flew to Britain on a secret trip to meet with military chiefs from a number of countries amid speculation that the ICC could issue an arrest warrant for him over alleged war crimes in Gaza.

'The UK government has no interest in seeking justice for victims of alleged war crimes and is instead focused on protecting its Israeli allies from facing any accountability'

- Chris Law, SNP MP

In mid-December, the Labour government confirmed in response to a question by SNP MP Chris Law that Halevi was given special mission immunity, a status that provides foreign officials with protection from criminal proceedings and arrest.

Halevi was previously reported to have been included in the ICC's arrest applications alongside Netanyahu and Gallant.

No arrest warrant for the military chief has been made public, but Israeli media has reported that the Israeli government fears an arrest warrant could be issued unannounced for Halevi, following the warrants already issued.
 
It also emerged that Halevi attended a meeting with Lord Richard Hermer, Britain's attorney general, who oversees the Government Legal Department (GLD), the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) and the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), among other responsibilities.

The senior public affairs officer for the International Centre of Justice for Palestinians (ICJP), Jonathan Purcell, said it was "utterly reckless for the attorney general to meet with and for the government to provide immunity to Halevi".

Meanwhile, Law told MEE the incident was "breathtaking, even astounding".

"This behaviour suggests that the UK government has no interest in seeking justice for victims of alleged war crimes and is instead focused on protecting its Israeli allies from facing any accountability."

Neither the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) nor the Attorney General's Office responded to MEE's requests for comment.

Independent foreign policy

Six months after taking office, it is still painfully difficult to detect any real coherence in Labour’s approach to the war on Gaza.

Labour seems to want to position itself as the party of international law without going so far as to upset the US and still keep Israel as an ally.

Is this "progressive realism", the foreign policy doctrine Lammy proudly believes in, at work?

According to the foreign secretary, progressive realism essentially entails "seeking the same things for Ukraine, Israel and Palestine: for each to be a sovereign, secure and internationally recognised state, at peace with its neighbours".

However, given that the Israeli government has expressly declared its opposition to any two-state solution, it is unclear how the UK could work towards one without applying significant and sustained pressure on Israel. 

This is something that the Starmer government has proved unwilling to do.

According to Doyle, this failure has meant the UK is out of step with Israel, to some extent with the US and certainly with a growing section of the British public.

"Labour wants a solution [to conflict in the Middle East] but is not going about it with the intensity and urgency that's required," Doyle said.

Meanwhile, for Krieg, the UK must urgently pursue an independent approach to the region, divorced from US policy. 

"The UK has networks, relationships and a legacy in this part of the world that the United States doesn't have," Krieg said.

"I think a lot of Arabs are looking for the UK to take more of a soft power leadership role in trying to do the right thing - basically just standing on the side of norms, values and international law.

"The hope is that, over time, the UK can rekindle its relationships with the Arab world to make sure UK credibility in the Global South is not undermined."

So, six months on, what steps do Starmer, Lammy and the rest of the government actually think need to be taken to end Palestinian suffering?

No Labour Party member MEE spoke to could confidently provide an answer.