𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

Sir Keir Starmer has announced he will recognise an independent state of Palestine in September whether Israel agrees or not. The Prime Minister bowed to pressure and set out plans to recognise a Palestinian state unilaterally before a meeting of the United Nations beginning on September 9, unless Israel ends the “appalling situation” in Gaza and commits to a long-term peace process that would deliver a Palestinian state with its co-operation.

Speaking to the Cabinet on Tuesday, the Prime Minister said that “because of the increasingly intolerable situation in Gaza and the diminishing prospect of a peace process towards a Two State Solution, now was the right time to move this position forward,” Downing street said. Sir Keir said the move was designed to create “a long-term peaceful outcome”.

He said the UK “will recognise the state of Palestine in September, before United Nations General Assembly, unless the Israeli government takes substantive steps to end the appalling situation in Gaza, reaches a ceasefire, makes clear there will be no annexation in the West Bank, and commits to a long-term peace process that delivers a Two State Solution,” Number 10 said in a statement to the media.

Sir Keir “reiterated that there is no equivalence between Israel and Hamas and that our demands on Hamas remain, that they must release all the hostages, sign up to a ceasefire, accept that they will play no role in the government of Gaza, and disarm.”

He committed to make an assessment “ahead of the United Nations General Assembly on how far the parties have met these steps before making a final decision, ensuring that no one side will have a veto.

“He reiterated that he had taken this action to protect the viability of the Two State Solution, and that the immediate focus must be to get more aid urgently into Gaza, and that work would continue to bring allies on board with the plan that delivers a long-term settlement to the conflict,” the statement said.

Sir Keir is expected to hold talks with the UK’s Arab allies about a plan to “bring about a lasting peace” in Israel and Palestine after holding talks with France and Germany over the weekend.

The Prime Minister had been under growing pressure to recognise a Palestinian state immediately after more than 250 MPs from a range of parties signed a letter insisting “recognition would have a significant impact due to our historic connections and our membership on the UN Security Council.”

Those signing included Dame Emily Thornberry, previously Shadow Foreign Secretary in Sir Keir’s Shadow Cabinet.

Labour’s critics on the left have also attacked the Government’s stance over Gaza with former Labour MP Zarah Sultana, who has said she will form a new political party alongside Jeremy Corbyn, saying: “I could not knock on another door asking people to vote for the Labour Party when it is a genocide party, when it is an austerity party.”

Sir Keir, in line with previous British Prime Ministers, previously insisted he was committed to the creation of a Palestinian state but said the Government should officially recognise a state when the announcement would have the greatest impact.

Cabinet Minister Peter Kyle, the Science and Technology Secretary, said this morning: “We went into the last election with a manifesto commitment to statehood for Palestine.

“We’ve always said that this needs to be part of a process. It needs to be meaningful. And I think that we also see the crisis in front of us that is so unprecedented and it is so horrific, it’s reached terrible levels of deprivation in Gaza.”

He said terror group Hamas must not be “rewarded” for their terror attack on October 7 2023, in which 1,200 people were murdered. A United Nations inquiry found “there are reasonable grounds to believe

that multiple incidents of sexual violence took place with victims being subjected to rape and/or gang rape and then killed or killed while being raped.”

However, Mr Kyle said: “No longer can we sit back and see what is happening in that region and think that the Palestinian people should not be rewarded for what they’ve been through, and have the tools at their disposal to move them towards the kind of peace, stability and dignity that every citizen in every country is owed.”

US President Donald Trump announced this weekend that the US would set up “food centres” in Gaza but speaking during a visit to Scotland he suggested Hamas had been “very difficult to deal with” in an apparent reference to the breakdown of talks between the terror group, Israel and the US in Qatar earlier this month.

Amid international alarm over starvation in Gaza, Israel announced at the weekend that it would suspend fighting in three areas for 10 hours a day and open secure routes for aid delivery.

The UK confirmed it was taking part in airdrops of aid into the territory.

Sir Keir is under pressure from come Cabinet colleagues to speed up recognition, thought to include Health Secretary Wes Streeting and Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood.

Labour lost four seats in the 2024 general election to independent MPs who campaigned largely on the issue of Gaza and are all now expected to join Mr Corbyn’s new left-wing party.

But other Labour-held seats are also under threat. A “pro-Gaza” independent came second in Health Secretary Wes Streeting’s Ilford North seat by just 528 votes, and a similar candidate was second in Birmingham Ladywood, held by Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood with a 3,421 majority.

Home Office Minister Jess Phillips defeated a candidate from the Workers Party of Britain, whose campaign focused on the Gaza war, by just 693 votes. Pro-Gaza candidates also came second to Labour in Birmingham Hodge Hill and Solihull North, Bradford West and Bethnal Green and Stepney.

Hundreds of protesters banging pots and pans gathered on either side of Whitehall on Tuesday afternoon as the Government held its emergency Cabinet meeting on Gaza.

Israel gained control of Gaza and the West Bank, previously occupied by Egypt and Jordan respectively, in a war in 1967. Both those countries have now made peace with Israel while former terror group the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) ended its campaign of violence and recognised Israel’s right to exist in 1993. This ushered in hopes of a permanent end to what was once known as the Arab-Israeli conflict, based on the creation of an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel, known as the two-state solution. However progress has been slow to non-existent since Yitzhak Rabin, Israel’s Prime Minister at the time, was assassinated by an Israeli extremist in 1995.

A Palestinian Authority led by Fatah, the largest faction within the PLO, has some control over the West Bank. Hamas, which does not recognise Israel, seized control of Gaza from the Palestinian Authority in an armed coup in 2007.