Sir Keir Starmer is coming under a lot of pressure to recognise Palestinian statehood.
He’s under pressure from 221 MPs – more than a third of all the people who sit in the House of Commons – who collectively signed a letter urging recognition.
He’s under pressure from Jeremy Corbyn’s newly announced left-wing party, which placed alleged UK complicity in the Gaza horror at the centre of its launch, and the significant number of supporters it has attracted.
And he’s under pressure from top Labour figures, ranging from London Mayor Sadiq Khan to members of his own cabinet, who are pushing him on the matter both publicly and privately.
Those calls have grown in the past few days, as images of starving children have been beamed around the world and French President Emmanuel Macron has announced France will formally recognise Palestine as a state.
But the Prime Minister has remained firm, insisting he will only press forward at the moment when the move would have the maximum impact.
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In a statement released on Thursday night, Starmer said: ‘We are clear that statehood is the inalienable right of the Palestinian people.
‘A ceasefire will put us on a path to the recognition of a Palestinian state and a two-state solution which guarantees peace and security for Palestinians and Israelis.’
Why doesn’t the UK recognise Palestine already?
The UK is deeply entwined in the history of the region currently occupied by Israel and Palestine.
In 1916, the British claimed control of the region called Palestine amid the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, and the following year, Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour said the UK would back a ‘national home’ for the Jewish people in the area.
A little over three decades later, in 1948, David Ben-Gurion declared the independence of Israel. The UN admitted Israel as a member in 1949, but not Palestine.
It was not until 1988 that Palestinian statehood was recognised by any UN member states, after the Palestinian National Council formally declared independence.
Today, 147 of the UN’s 193 member states recognise Palestine, including the vast majority of the countries in Asia, Africa and South America.
The UK, US, Canada, Germany, Japan, Australia and New Zealand are among the nations that do not.
In 2014, MPs in the House of Commons voted to 274 to 12 in favour of recognising Palestine as a state.
But David Cameron’s government responded with a line that remains familiar today – that recognition would wait until it was deemed most appropriate for the peace process.
Will the UK government recognise Palestine?
On the face of it, the British government appears to be closer than ever to announcing formal recognition of a Palestinian state.
Among the high-profile cabinet members reportedly arguing in favour are Deputy PM Angela Rayner, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper, Health Secretary Wes Streeting and Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood.
The UK has also been closely aligning with France on the issue, as part of the E3 group of nations alongside Germany.
However, both Starmer and Foreign Secretary David Lammy have insisted publicly that the move is only worth making when it would be most effective in the pursuit of peace.
On Tuesday, Lammy told the BBC: ‘We don’t just want to recognise symbolically, we want to recognise as a way of getting to the two states that sadly many are trying to thwart at this point in time.’
Labour’s election manifesto last year said the party is ‘committed to recognising a Palestinian state as a contribution to a renewed peace process which results in a two-state solution with a safe and secure Israel alongside a viable and sovereign Palestinian state.’
The letter signed by 221 MPs, organised by Labour’s Sarah Champion, said the announcement of recognition should come at a UN conference co-chaired by France and Saudi Arabia on Monday and Tuesday.
It said: ‘British recognition of Palestine would be particularly powerful given its role as the author of the Balfour Declaration and the former Mandatory Power in Palestine. Since 1980 we have backed a two-state solution.
‘Such a recognition would give that position substance as well as living up to a historic responsibility we have to the people under that Mandate.’
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