Keir Starmer faces pushback after announcing UK will recognise state of Palestine unless Gaza crisis ends
Date: 2025-07-30T07:54:39.000Z
Title: Starmer faces pushback following Palestinian statehood announcement
Content: Hello and welcome to our live coverage of UK politics.
UK prime minister Keir Starmer is facing pushback after announcing the UK will recognise a Palestinian state if the crisis in Gaza is not brought to an end.
The prime minister said the UK could take the step of recognising Palestine's statehood in September, before a major UN gathering.
The UK will only refrain from doing so if Israel allows more aid into Gaza, stops annexing land in the West Bank, agrees to a ceasefire and signs up to a long-term, peace process over the next two months.
Hamas, the Palestinian militant group, must immediately release all remaining Israeli hostages, sign up to a ceasefire, disarm and 'accept that they will play no part in the government of Gaza', Starmer also said.
But the PM's announcement rewards 'Hamas's monstrous terrorism', his Israeli counterpart, Benjamin Netanyahu, claimed.
In a statement on social media site X, Israel's prime minister added: 'Appeasement towards jihadist terrorists always fails.'
Donald Trump, who met Starmer on Monday and discussed measures to end the starvation faced by Palestinians in Gaza, suggested the pair had not talked about recognising Palestinian statehood.
But Trump said he did not mind the PM 'taking a position' on the issue.
This was a contrast with his reaction to Emmanuel Macron's announcement that France will recognise Palestine at the UN general assembly in September, which the US president said would make no difference.
In other news:
Transport secretary Heidi Alexander rejected the idea that Keir Starmer's pledge to recognise a Palestinian state is gesture politics. She told Times Radio on Wednesday that the decision to recognise a Palestinian state in September is about making sure it comes at the time of 'maximum impact' and denied that it's a 'reward for Hamas'.
Nigel Farage is 'happy for there to be a free for all on the internet', Alexander said on Sky News on Wednesday, as she appeared to double down on her fellow Cabinet minister's claim that the Reform UK leader is on the side of 'people like Jimmy Savile'. Technology secretary Peter Kyle also accused Mr Farage of being on the side of 'extreme pornographers' on Tuesday.
Keir Starmer spoke with a series of world leaders throughout Tuesday, including Netanyahu, and King Abdullah II of Jordan, whose nation is leading efforts to airdrop aid into Gaza. About 20 tonnes of aid have been dropped by the UK and Jordan in recent days, according to foreign secretary David Lammy.
High-level representatives at the UN conference on Tuesday urged Israel to commit to a Palestinian state and gave 'unwavering support' to a two-state solution. The New York Declaration, issued by the conference, sets out a phased plan to end the nearly eight-decade conflict and the ongoing war in Gaza.
Foreign states are becoming bolder in their attempts to silence dissidents in the UK and the government must take stronger action, parliamentarians have warned. In a report published on Wednesday, the Joint Committee on Human Rights said transnational repression had increased in recent years, with foreign states using online harassment, lawsuits and physical violence to intimidate people in the UK.
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Fact check: Recognising a Palestinian state, misleading tsunami video and deportations vs returns
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It actually showed a tsunami which occurred on the west coast of Greenland in 2017, triggered by a landslide. That tsunami did not kill 'thousands', as stated in the social media posts. Four people were killed, and nine others were injured. The same footage has been wrongly shared in the wake of other earthquakes before. Has Labour carried out 'record deportations'? Labour MP Mike Tapp recently claimed that the Government has carried out 'record deportations'. We've frequently seen MPs and ministers using the word 'deportations' when referring to all immigration returns. Not all immigration returns are 'deportations'. We don't actually know how many meet the official definition of a deportation, which the Home Office defines as 'a specific subset of returns which are enforced either following a criminal conviction or when it is judged that a person's removal from the UK is conducive to the public good'. We do know, however, that enforced returns – the category of returns which includes deportations – account for a minority (26%) of all returns carried out under Labour during its first year in office. According to ad-hoc figures published by the Home Office, during Labour's first year in office a total of 35,052 returns were recorded. We don't have the data to compare this exact period to the same period in previous years, but official immigration statistics show that this figure is not a record for the number of immigration returns over a 12-month period, going back to 2004 when this data series began. These figures show that immigration returns over a 12-month period were consistently above 40,000 between 2010 and 2016, for example. It does appear, however, that the 35,052 returns in the first year of this Labour government represents the highest 12-month figure since 2017. While we don't know how many of these returns were official 'deportations', the figures show that the 9,115 enforced returns carried out between 5 July 2024 and 4 July 2025 also do not represent a record. While this figure is the highest number of enforced returns carried out over a 12-month period since 2018, prior to 2018 enforced returns were consistently above 10,000 over a 12-month period. MPs should use statistics transparently and with all relevant context and caveats, and quickly rectify oversights when they occur.
