PSC condemns Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s statement on Tuesday which fails to address the urgent pressure needed for Israel to end its genocide in Gaza. It shamefully frames the Palestinian right to self-determination within the context of Israel’s actions, rather than as an inalienable right of the Palestinian people.  

Tuesday’s announcement came in part because of intense pressure from the British public, expressed in the huge protest movement that has persevered over many months.  This was on full display again last Friday evening when, organised by PSC branches, tens of thousands around the country took to their town centres, banging pots and pans in outrage at the British government’s collusion with Israel’s genocidal campaign of starvation and the weaponisation of food and medical aid.

Every British MP and government official has seen the images of Palestinian children reduced to skeletons, of adults collapsing from organ failure caused by starvation, and of aid seekers shot and killed by Israeli soldiers whilst queuing for food and water. Every British MP and government official is also aware of the fact that British-exported weapons are being used by the Israeli military in its brutality against Palestinian civilians and complete devastation of the Gaza Strip’s infrastructure. British politicians are now bemoaning the images of horror, but continuing to act as partners in Israel’s genocide by maintaining trade with Israel, including in weapons and other military items, and by implementing limited sanctions on a few individual ministers, as though Israel’s genocide is being engineered and carried out by a ‘few bad apples’.  

And now, Keir Starmer, who refuses even to recognise that Israel is violating international law in Gaza, is offering to recognise a Palestinian state if, and only if, Israel’s starvation and atrocities are still ongoing in two months’ time. If not, what is now being presented as a step towards recognising the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination will be rescinded. His grotesque message to Palestinians is that state recognition may come, but only if and when many, many more of you are dead.  

Despite Starmer’s attempt to represent his statements on Tuesday as a turning point, it is abundantly clear to all that it is simply more of the same, but with the possibility of conditional Palestinian statehood in September added to the package of collusion and complicity with genocide. 

Palestinian civil society has been overwhelmingly clear about what is needed from Britain and other states to end Israel’s genocide:  

• To do everything in their power to secure an unconditional ceasefire, the withdrawal of Israeli military forces from Gaza, and the immediate, unrestricted provision of humanitarian assistance; 

• An immediate and comprehensive arms embargo on Israel, including an end to all military cooperation; 

• An end to all economic aid and cooperation agreements that sustain Israel’s unlawful occupation and apartheid regime, including cancelling free trade agreements; 

• Comprehensive sanctions on the entire Israeli government. This should include expelling Israeli ambassadors and suspending official visits and cooperation with Israeli authorities, freezing assets and travel bans on complicit individuals and institutions, and expelling Israel from the UN; 

• Actively supporting accountability measures through international legal forums, including the ICC and ICJ; 

• Supporting the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people to self-determination and return, which cannot be substituted by a conditional recognition of a limited Palestinian state. 

Keir Starmer claims support for the Palestinian right to self-determination while ensuring that Israel has all the means it needs to eradicate the Palestinian people and annex their land. The British public will not be fooled into holding out hope for the possibility of a symbolic gesture granted by the British government in September. We call upon people to join the protests we have called over the summer, including the next national march on Saturday 9 August. We must sustain pressure on the government to take the action required, as outlined above, to bring an end to the genocide and a dismantling of the structures of oppression Israel has employed for decades to deny the Palestinian people their inalienable rights.