How the UK's approach to Israel has changed under Labour
David Lammy, the UK’s new foreign secretary, appears to have significantly changed his approach to Israel since Labour entered government.
When Lammy announced last week that the UK would restore funding to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (Unrwa), it seemed to signal that he had torn up the script on the country’s policy on Israel.
The move brings the UK in line with countries like Germany, Australia, Canada, Sweden and Japan, which restored funding after initially suspending it over unproven Israeli accusations of Unrwa staff links to Hamas.
Lammy’s move represented a significant change in policy from the previous Conservative government.
It 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 was shadow foreign secretary.
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A change in tone
But on other policies relating to Israel, Lammy has changed his tone and approach since Labour entered government.
These policies include arms sales to Israel, the International Criminal Court, the International Court of Justice and a Palestinian state.
Lammy, as shadow foreign secretary, had repeatedly called on the government to publish the legal advice it had received on selling arms to Israel.
In April, he wrote in a letter to his predecessor David Cameron that “there is extensive plausible evidence that the threshold for suspending arms licences has been crossed”, and accused his opposite number of “hiding from scrutiny”.
“Labour’s message to the government is equally clear. Publish the legal advice now,” Lammy said in a public statement. “If it says there is a clear risk that UK arms might be used in a serious breach of international humanitarian law, it’s time to suspend the sale of those arms.”
But almost three weeks into the Labour government, Lammy is yet to publish that legal advice.
Asked about it in parliament last week, the new foreign secretary said: “This is a quasi-legal process and it’s important that I follow the actions in the appropriate way, with all probity and all integrity so I would consider those assessments when they’re made available to me.”
“I instigated a process on the first day in office,” he added. “I hope to be able to make my views known with full accountability and transparency.”
This is a considerable change in approach from before the election.
Lammy’s current stated view is that it would be wrong to implement a blanket ban on arms sales to Israel. However, this is not for legal reasons, but because the country is “surrounded by people who would see its annihilation”, as he said last week.
In May, Lammy told parliament, while he was in opposition, that he would support ending arms exports to Israel if it attacked Rafah (which happened days after his comments).
Commitment to international law
Then there is Lammy’s approach to international law. When the International Criminal Court (ICC)’s chief prosecutor announced in late May that he was seeking arrest warrants for Hamas and Israeli leaders, including Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu, Labour took a strident approach in opposition to the government.
While the Conservatives criticised the prosecutor’s move, Lammy instead said a Labour government would back the ICC, affirming that the party “supports the independence of international courts”.
He also accused the Conservatives of having “backtracked on their commitment to the rule of law”.
This all suggests that Labour’s public commitment to international law has become more uncertain since it entered government
Moreover, the Conservative government submitted an objection on 10 June 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.
But just days later, human rights lawyer Geoffrey Robertson revealed that Washington was putting pressure on Labour not to withdraw its objection.
Labour’s approach to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) seems to have changed since.
In January, after the ICJ ruled that Israel is plausibly committing genocide in Gaza, Lammy as shadow foreign secretary struck a markedly different note from Cameron.
Cameron criticised the ICJ’s ruling, while Lammy backed the court, asserting that “international law must be upheld” and that Israel must “comply with the orders in the ICJ ruling in full”.
This is in contrast to last Friday, when the ICJ issued an advisory opinion that Israel’s occupation is illegal.
No comment came from Lammy that day. When MEE asked the foreign office what its response was to the court’s opinion, the reply was that the department is “carefully considering it”.
There has been no apparent movement on the issue since then.
This all suggests that Labour’s public commitment to international law has become more uncertain since it entered government.
Recognising a Palestinian state
Finally, after David Cameron suggested in January that the UK would consider recognising a Palestinian state not as part of a peace deal but earlier, during negotiations for a two-state solution, Lammy outflanked him.
Lammy suggested that Labour would consider unilaterally recognising a Palestinian state.
But this was not to appear in the party’s manifesto, which said in June that Labour would recognise a Palestinian state not unilaterally but as part of a peace process.
And it was revealed later in the election campaign that the party had decided recognising a Palestinian state would be delayed so as not to upset Britain’s relationship with the US.
Labour’s current position sets the UK apart from 145 countries around the world that recognise Palestine, including European countries like Spain and Belgium.
Christopher Phillips, professor of international relations at Queen Mary, University of London, wrote in an MEE column on Tuesday that Labour is unlikely to significantly change the UK’s policy on Israel.
“While we may see a change in style from Lammy and [Prime Minister Keir] Starmer, for example placing greater emphasis on humanitarian aid and international law,” he argued, “structural realities will limit how much the UK is willing to do in Gaza and the wider region.”
In particular, he explained, Labour will be concerned with “the strategic importance of remaining aligned with the United States’ (and the EU’s) broad pro-Israel stance.”
In June, former Conservative cabinet minister David Jones told MEE that he believes Labour would not have handled Israel’s war on Gaza any differently than the Conservatives, if it had been in government in October 2023.
He pointed to the UK’s foreign office as one reason why change was hard to come by, arguing that it “takes a long time for corporate policy to change”.
“There have been certain changes or nuances recently,” he conceded, “but overall, Labour’s position has been supportive of the government’s.”
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