How David Lammy went from human rights lawyer to genocide apologist
You'd be wrong. These are the words of Foreign Secretary, David Lammy, as he addressed the Bingham Centre for International Law in July 2023.
During this speech, he said: 'There should be no power beyond or above the law. The law applies equally to all people.'
READ MORE: Palestine Action gets green light for ban challenge
He lamented that too many international crimes go unpunished, that too many dictators escape justice, and promised "wholeheartedly" to strengthen protections for humanitarian access and put the UK at the forefront of international legal debates.
Well, he's certainly put the UK at the forefront of debates on international law. At best, because of his continued apology for Israel's war crimes. At worst, because of his active role in enabling these crimes.
How does a human rights lawyer go from 'standing up for human rights and challenging impunity' to 'I am a steadfast supporter of Israel's security' after the state with which he so steadfastly stands has been accused of genocide, has murdered over 60,000 humans, and has gaslit many into thinking that it is the calling out of these atrocities which is the crime. Is he playing a geopolitical long game? The deep pockets of the Israeli lobby? Genuine callousness?
As I write this, we have seen the bloodiest day in Gaza in 20 months.
And yet, nothing from the UK Labour Government to suggest that this is a Cabinet which has 'international law fundamentally in its DNA', as Lammy once stated.
When lawyers talk broadly about the UK breaching their obligations under international humanitarian law, they are usually referring to Geneva Conventions Common Article 1. This states that all High Contracting Parties undertake to respect and ensure respect for the convention in all circumstances. This means that states must act to prevent breaches of international law in every situation of armed conflict.
However, the UK – along with two others – interprets this as meaning that they only have an obligation to uphold international humanitarian law when breaches occur in their own territory. The other states are Israel and the US.
As well as Common Article 1, the ICJ confirmed that all states must act to prevent a genocide as soon as they are aware of a serious risk – mirroring the Genocide Convention – and reiterated by credible findings of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.
However, during the Al-Haq case, Labour confirmed that the reason that they are not acting to prevent a genocide is because they have found no credible evidence to suggest a genocide is ongoing. The Fourth Geneva Convention prohibits transferring a population within occupied territory and Article 59 demands that occupying states allow unimpeded humanitarian aid for all civilians, while Additional Protocol I prohibits the starvation of civilians as a method of warfare.
Yet, repeatedly Labour MPs and the UK Government have excused Israel's siege and failed to prevent the mass forced displacement of Palestinians. The latest announcement to airdrop aid into Gaza is simply a self-congratulatory distraction.
READ MORE: SNP to press ahead with Palestine recognition vote
The UK should have immediately and unequivocally suspended all Israeli trade arrangements, as they are prohibited from assisting situations created by breaches of international law, as per the ICJ and the ILC Articles on State Responsibility. Instead, Lammy and the Labour Government have sent a trade envoy to Israel, brag about their crucial trade partnerships, and still support Israel militarily.
All of these obligations apply to the UK Labour Government. All of them are being breached.
In January 2024, Lammy said that '…the rule of law requires compliance by the state with its obligations in international law, just as in national law. Labour agrees.'
However, in July 2025, when speaking of Israel – a state accused of genocide –Lammy said he 'treasures the many connections between our peoples'.
Despite their legal obligations and public and parliamentary outrage, the UK Labour Government could not be further from the vision that Lammy established in 2023. When Lammy gave his speech, there were echoes of Tony Benn's anti-war speech from 1998. Lammy ended his address by quoting the Preamble of the Charter of the United Nations, as Benn had.
Lammy spoke of the responsibility of governments to make the right decisions to protect people, as Benn had.
He warned against the mistakes that led to the Second World War, as Benn had.
He praised the legacy of Britain in pursuing the international rules-based order in the 1940s, mirroring Benn's calls for continued progression towards peace.
Lammy's transition from Benn-to-barely-able-to-muster-up-a-sentence-without 'Israel's right to defend herself' is not just due to the grip of the Israeli lobby, but can be likened to a child who hasn't done their homework and is hoping that the teacher doesn't ask them a question in class. As though if his tone drips with enough condescension people will be distracted from the words coming out of his mouth.
Lammy has spent a year trying to convince us that the mass atrocities being committed against Palestinian civilians is normal.
He has gone from forging a 'foreign policy underpinned by a fundamental belief in the rule of law' to facing claims that he is perpetuating Israeli war crimes.
David Lammy has reduced himself from an eminent human rights lawyer to a genocide apologist.
The support for Israel's genocide will be this Labour Government's legacy, just as the illegal Iraq war was the legacy of the 1997 Labour government.
David Lammy will always be the Foreign Secretary who forgot about international law because he was too busy trying to sound clever.
The Foreign Secretary that condemned the Palestinian people to genocide because he liked the sound of a speech more than he liked the idea of implementing it.
Lara Bird-Leakey is a senior policy researcher for foreign affairs in Westminster for the SNP group
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
South Wales Argus
2 hours ago
- South Wales Argus
Aberthaw Power Station £5m settlement 'blindsided' cllrs
The £5.25m sum was paid to a company that brought a legal challenge to how the Cardiff Captial Region, which is made up of 10 councils in South East Wales including those in Gwent, awarded a contract for the demolition of a former power station. Earlier this year a High Court judge declared the contract to demolish Aberthaw Power Station for the Cardiff Capital Region was awarded unlawfully but the size of the settlement was only revealed in June and a councillor said he only learnt about it from news reports. Councillors who sit on the region's overview and scrutiny committee. who met this week, complained they hadn't been fully informed of the proceedings, and accepted they had failed to properly scrutinise the region's leadership and its executive. Armand Watts, a Labour councillor from Monmouthshire council, told the meeting: 'There's nothing worse as councillors than the feeling of being blindsided. That is how we felt. The first I properly understood this was reading about it in the newspapers.' Cllr Watts said it was 'embarrassing' for himself and Monmouthshire's Conservative representative on the committee, Cllr Jan Butler. He said: 'People were saying what's going on? And we didn't know as we hadn't discussed it.' He added: 'We should fear our electorate, they are reading headlines in newspapers and asking how did it ever get to this point?' Susan Lloyd-Selby, a Labour councillor for the Vale of Glamorgan which includes Aberthaw, said she wanted to know more about the independent review the region has commissioned and said there are also local concerns around the ongoing demolition work which she said were causing 'reputational issues' for the body. Cardiff Labour councillor Peter Wong said he'd been unhappy from the start with how the region had handled the £38m purchase of the former coal fired power station, in 2022. It intends developing the site as a renewable energy park and is doing so through Cardiff Capital Region Energy a limited company in which the Cardiff Capital Region is the only shareholder. Cllr Wong said: 'At the very first meeting at Aberthaw I asked can we see the business case and was told no, not even in confidence. That didn't help the level of transparency. 'I'm not saying that wouldn't have led to the issues at Aberthaw but that lack of transparency doesn't help. I genuinely think there needs to be more transparency and more effective scrutiny than we've currently been doing.' Later in the meeting Cllr Wong criticised the draft annual report of the South East Wales Corporate Joint Committee, which is the formal name for the capital region as one of four joint committees established across Wales. He compared it to the highly controlled decision making of the former Soviet Union and said: 'I don't think the report in front of us reflects what happened. It feels very much politburo stuff.' During the meeting Monmouthshire County Council's Labour leader, Mary Ann Brocklesby, who is the chair of the capital region said the 'procurement issue around Aberthaw' was 'without question' the body's 'low point' of the year. Chief executive Kellie Beirne said the independent review is being conducted by accountancy firm Deloitte and is about 'half way through' and is expected to be delivered in the early autumn. Ms Beirne also stated she isn't a board member of Cardiff Capital Region Energy and also reminded members the legal proceedings were against Cardiff council and said the region is bound by a confidentiality agreement. It has previously said the £5.25m settlement has been funded from commercial returns on interest generated on balances it holds, and there was no requirement for further public funding.
Times
2 hours ago
- Times
Nigel Farage: They claim I'm ill — the truth is they're running scared
The rumours began to spread through Westminster a few weeks ago, on both sides of the political divide. Labour and Tory MPs began to gossip openly about Nigel Farage's health, suggesting that the 61-year-old's relentless schedule was taking its toll. The Reform UK leader is happy to set the record straight: the rumours are untrue. 'I think the fact they are spreading these rumours — which they are — is because it's the last card they've got,' he said. 'They can't question us on immigration. They can't question us on crime. They have nothing to go on.' Farage's carefully cultivated public image of the smoking, pint-swilling raconteur is rooted in reality. He still enjoys a drink and the occasional lunch that can drift on for hours into the afternoon. But he is changing with age. The long days — rising at 4.50am, going to bed at 11pm — are exhausting and the Reform UK leader says he has moderated his lifestyle to suit. 'I don't think I've ever worked under more intensity than I have for the last year,' he said. 'It's an enormous task, building a new political party and movement. I'm trying to moderate with age. 'I wouldn't say the BMA would hold me up as a pin-up boy, but I'm feeling good. A bit of exercise, I walk the dogs. Yesterday I had lunch with a very interesting chap. We got through lunch with just one bottle. I'm not too bad at all really. I look at people I was at school with and think I'm doing well.' Not sweating the small stuff Farage says the biggest change to his lifestyle is that he is now more zen. 'I just don't let little things worry me. I don't let online criticism worry me. Nothing really gets to me at all any more.' Farage is more serious than he has ever been. With Reform UK riding high in the polls — they have held their lead since April and their support shows no signs of ebbing — he believes that he has a genuine shot at becoming prime minister. 'This is it,' he said. 'It's the last shot for me. I actually think in the view of an increasing number of people it's the last shot for the country.' That Farage's health has become a source of discussion in Westminster is perhaps unsurprising. With Farage at the helm, Reform UK is a genuine threat to the established political order. Without him, his critics believe, his nascent party would collapse. He is, they say, a one-man band. Farage appears to be acutely aware that he is potentially a single point of failure. He is trying to promote those around him, particularly Zia Yusuf, who has emerged as one of the party's main spokesmen. His aim is to ensure that Reform UK is not synonymous with his personal brand but recognised in its own right. 'I'm very keen to promote others,' he said. 'I don't want the crime campaign just to be me. It's about the brand Reform itself, standing on its own two feet. We are getting there. People say to me in the street now, 'I think I'm a Reformer'.' The real opposition His rivals begrudgingly praise his communication skills. His campaigning on Brexit and his insatiable appetite for public appearances have made him a household name. He is a friend of President Trump, and when JD Vance comes to the Cotswolds this month for a family holiday Farage will be one of the few British politicians he sees. His profile easily eclipses that of Kemi Badenoch, the Conservative leader. A YouGov poll for The Times found that 64 per cent of voters had a clear idea of what he stands for, compared with 30 per cent for Badenoch and 26 per cent for Sir Keir Starmer. On the question of who was providing the more effective opposition, Reform or the Tories, the response was overwhelming: 42 per cent said it is Farage's party, compared with 9 per cent who said the Conservatives. Nearly half of those who voted Tory at the last election said Farage was doing a better job at opposing Starmer. The polling is so clear that Starmer has decided that he had no choice but to treat Farage as the real leader of the opposition. This may be in part political opportunism — Reform UK's rise damages the Tories more than Labour — but senior figures in Labour are increasingly concerned about the strategy and that by calling Farage out at every turn Starmer risks alienating his base and creating a monster that will ultimately consume him. Farage's new work ethic borders on Stakhanovite. He is planning to take four days off over the summer — he wants to go fishing with his son — but spends most of his time hammering home his new message on law and order. Britain, he argues at his now weekly press conferences, is broken. There is a steady drumbeat of announcements — sending violent offenders to El Salvador, halving crime within five years, building nightingale prisons on army bases, scrapping the online safety act — along with a string of public endorsements. Farage's aim is to at once broaden Reform UK's message while also drawing a direct link between migration and crime. He is said to be building up to an announcement on deporting illegal immigrants. Those involved say it is a substantive piece of work; there is talk of a 100-page policy document detailing how Reform UK would take Britain out of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). A draft bill is being drawn up with emergency powers to allow the detention and deportation of people arriving in Britain on small boats. Although Farage insists that the Tories are irrelevant, the approach appears to be aimed in part at outflanking them. Badenoch is expected to use her conference speech to confirm plans to leave the ECHR to tackle small boat crossings. Farage intends to get there first by going faster and harder. Preparing for power The expected strapline for Reform's conference will be Next Steps as Farage seeks to embed in the minds of voters the idea that it is preparing for power. The party has sought to professionalise its operation, using an influx of money from new members to move to a bigger office in Millbank tower. The office comes equipped with a live studio space, which Farage can use to film ad hoc videos to respond to fast-moving events. The intention is to make Reform UK more agile and responsive. Reform saw Trump's visit to Scotland this week as proof of the tectonic shift in British politics. The highlight from Trump's extraordinary 70-minute press conference with a largely silent Starmer was when the president was asked what his advice to Farage and Starmer would be before the election. 'You know, politics is pretty simple,' Trump said. 'I assume there's a thing going on between you and Nigel, and it's OK. It's two parties. But generally speaking, the one who cuts taxes the most, the one who gives you the lowest energy prices, the best kind of energy, the one that keeps you out of wars … a few basics.' The headlines were, inevitably, about the fact that the president had offered Starmer unsolicited advice that he needed to cut taxes and stop the boats. But of arguably far greater significance was Trump's acceptance of the premise of the question: that the next election would be a battle between Starmer and Farage. Badenoch and the Tories were not even part of the conversation. The Tory leader did not have a meeting with Trump at his Turnberry golf course but is expected to meet him during his state visit. But the challenge for Badenoch is that Labour and Reform are both intent on squeezing the Tories out of the picture. Sticking to the script Labour is drawing up plans for its conference, and Reform is likely to feature heavily. Starmer will reprise his message on the need for growth at all costs — necessarily so, given the anaemic state of the economy and the scale of tax rises expected in the autumn budget. But Farage and Reform are likely to be a constant theme as Labour hones its attacks. Those attacks are still largely based on three fronts: accusing Farage of trying to sell out the NHS, being a Putin stooge and promulgating fantasy economics with unfunded pledges. Senior figures in government admit there is little evidence that the attacks are working, but argue that this is not the point. Labour believes that the messages it is embedding in the minds of voters now will come to the fore when the general election comes into view — when the prospect of Farage entering No 10 becomes a reality. But what if they don't? After all, Rishi Sunak repeatedly said that voters would change their minds about him and the Conservatives during the white heat of the election campaign. The election result was even worse for him than had been expected. The murmurings of discontent are growing louder. One senior Labour source said that 'you can't out-Reform Reform' by going tough on issues such as immigration — it doesn't wash with voters. The other fear is that giving Farage a platform and painting the idea that he could become prime minister risks becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy — that he might just do it.
The Independent
2 hours ago
- The Independent
Ex-Labour whip admits ‘sleepless nights' over welfare cuts resignation
Labour MP Vicky Foxcroft has urged Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer to listen more closely to his MPs, who she says reflect the worries of their constituents. Ms Foxcroft resigned as a government whip in June over concerns about proposed welfare cuts, specifically to Personal Independence Payment (PIP) for disabled people. She said she could not support or whip for the proposals, which were later abandoned after a significant rebellion within the party. Ms Foxcroft described her decision to resign as difficult, causing "sleepless nights", and occurring during a challenging personal period that included the death of her father. Sir Keir's support among the public reached new depths of minus 43 after the £5bn welfare U-turn, according to polling published in July.
