Labour would reward Hamas by recognising Palestine
Labour's ability to harm the UK's best interests knows no bounds. Hot on the heels of surrendering British sovereign territory to Mauritius, Sir Keir Starmer is actively thinking of weighing into the complex, sensitive matter of Palestinian statehood.
As Israel moves to neutralise the existential threat posed by Iran's rapid dash for a nuclear bomb, Whitehall has naively been consumed with the idea of recognising a Palestinian state.
At this perilous moment of uncertainty the UK should be standing rock solid with Israel and the US against the enemies of peace. Some think unilaterally declaring Palestinian statehood would be a symbolically significant step and a means to promote peace. It would be nothing of the sort, but it would be foolish to dismiss it as an empty gesture. On the contrary, the move would add fuel to the fire of the bitter war in Gaza, undermine the prospects for a lasting peace between Palestinians and Israelis, and harm the UK.
It is worth considering what that state would look like. Putting aside the fact that there are no agreed borders for such a state, we must contend with the painful reality that this state would likely be governed by Hamas. Is Labour seriously going to provide legitimacy to a bloodthirsty Islamist group that is banned in the UK? This gift to Hamas will dramatically hinder efforts to secure a ceasefire and the release of Israeli hostages.
Even if a Palestinian state was to be governed by the Western-backed Palestinian Authority, this is itself a corrupt and deeply unpopular entity which pays salaries to convicted terrorists and administers a school curriculum rife with the glorification of terrorism and anti-Jewish racism.
It is hard to see this statehood move as anything other than a reward for terrorism. Terror groups will be licking their lips at the prospect of achieving their goals off the back of violent atrocities. And what will China and Iran think as they eye-up their respective invasion of Taiwan and quest for a nuclear weapon?
The diplomatic damage would be immediate and far-reaching. The US has urged the UK not to go down this path and threatened diplomatic consequences. It would be reckless to jeopardise efforts to secure a crucial trade deal with Washington, harming thousands of British companies and jobs at a time of acute economic instability.
The UK's once proud reputation as a trusted broker on the international stage would be left in tatters and we would have surrendered our status as a nation committed to supporting its allies in the fight against terrorism.
Labour wouldn't only be rewarding terrorists and extremists in the Middle East. It would dramatically embolden those here in the UK, endangering the British public. The weekly hate marches we have witnessed across the country since the October 7 massacre have been a source of national shame, and shone a light into the hateful forces within our own society. The UK's Jewish community continues to bear the brunt of record levels of antisemitic violence and needs our full support, not foolish student-style foreign policy interventions.
In pandering to Islamist extremists to shore up its own vote, the Labour Government will not only signal that bullying and intimidation works but risks unleashing an ever-greater terror threat.
Recognising a Palestinian state in the context of October 7 would reiterate the moral bankruptcy of Sir Keir's failing Labour Government. It should be utterly rejected. Instead we need to double-down on peace through strength. We must fully support Israel in their hour of need, as they battle to remove Iran as a nuclear threat to us all.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Times
30 minutes ago
- Times
No concessions on benefits reform, Starmer tells rebels
Sir Keir Starmer has warned Labour rebels there will be no concessions on cuts to disability benefits as he vows to press ahead with reforming a welfare system he says is 'not working for taxpayers'. The prime minister said he has 'got to get the reforms through' as ministers prepare to publish legislation this week that is likely to prompt Starmer's biggest backbench rebellion yet. While ministers insist they are confident of avoiding defeat, there is nervousness in government after 170 Labour MPs raised concerns about reforms which will make it harder to claim personal independent payments (PIP), the main disability benefit. But Starmer insisted that even critics agreed that 'we've got to reform the welfare system', saying: 'The principles remain the same: those who can work should work; those who need support into work should have that support into work, which I don't think they are getting at the moment; those who are never going to be able to work should be properly supported and protected, and that includes not being reassessed and reassessed.' Speaking on his way to the G7 summit in Canada, Starmer said: 'We need reform and we will be getting on with that reform when the bill comes.' About 800,000 people will lose thousands of pounds a year under the reforms and MPs are alarmed by official estimates that a quarter of a million people will be pushed into poverty as a result. • Thanks to the PIP benefit I could work. So why remove it? Last week ministers offered rebels a £500 million 'olive branch', promising that those who lost PIP would have 13 weeks before their payments stopped, and that the same three-month transition period would also apply to 150,000 people who stand to lose a carer's allowance linked to a cancelled PIP claim. Ministers say this is longer than any other transition payment and will mean that no one loses out before 2027. They say there can be no change to the main thrust of the reforms, which will make it harder to qualify for help with everyday tasks such as washing and dressing. They are alarmed by the soaring cost of sickness benefits, which have risen by £20 billion since the pandemic and which will rise by another £18 billion by the end of the parliament. This is despite reforms that will save £5 billion. Asked if there would be any softening of the bill before a vote expected at the end of the month, Starmer said: 'We've got to get the reforms through. I've been clear about that from start to finish — the system is not working. It's not working for those that need support. It's not working for taxpayers. Everybody agrees it needs reform. We've got to reform it and that's what we intend to do with the bill.' • A quarter of Britons now disabled Leading rebels have dismissed last week's attempts at reassurance, saying they want a fuller impact assessment and an immediate review of PIP criteria. A wider review promised by ministers is not expected to be completed until after tougher rules come into effect in November 2026. Neil Duncan-Jordan, a leading backbench critic of the bill, agreed with ministers last week that the extra transition periods were 'not a concession', and confirmed he would vote against it. He said MPs should recognise the cuts 'will make disabled people poorer. No amount of warm words mask the reality — cuts don't create jobs, they create austerity'. Brian Leishman, another backbench leftwinger, attacked the reforms as 'a complete insult to disabled people and against everything a Labour government should ever do to people that need help'. Ministers believe that less hardline critics will be persuaded to fall into line by evidence that the government is listening to concerns. A suggestion by Kemi Badenoch, the Tory leader, that her party would vote against the bill is also seen as helpful by party managers who say Labour MPs will not want to walk through lobbies alongside Conservative MPs. An extension of free school meals to all pupils on universal credit has also helped as ministers have pointed out that this will lift 100,000 children out of poverty, twice the number pushed into poverty by welfare cuts.
Telegraph
31 minutes ago
- Telegraph
Israel is attacking Iran where the regime fears most
A towering inferno blazed where Tehran's main oil reservoir once stood, turning the skies over the city black. Ordure cascaded through the streets from a mysterious rupture in the sewage mains. Cars exploded in rapid succession as onlookers screamed in fright. Many residents fled; others lined up outside petrol stations, desperately trying to source dwindling fuel supplies as they prepared to join the exodus. As Israel's war on Iran raged into a third day on Sunday, rumour and chaos subsumed the capital. Whatever Israel's military objectives, its operation had clearly taken on a broader dimension, targeting not just the economic foundations of the state, but the psyche of its people. For years, Israel has sensed that Iran's restive population was turning on its Islamist masters. Now it is sowing the seeds of mayhem in the hope of pushing them over the edge. Regime change, by Benjamin Netanyahu's own admission, is one of Israel's desired outcomes. It 'could certainly be the result because Iran is very weak,' he told Fox News. Quite what the Israelis were behind – and what they were not – no-one knew for sure. Perhaps the sewage mains had burst of their own accord; maybe some unknown group was exploiting the fraying sense of order to blow up cars. Yet given this is a country whose spies remotely detonated thousands of Hezbollah's pagers and walkie-talkies in Lebanon last year, anything was possible. Only one thing can definitively be pinned on Israel: a series of attacks on Iran's oil and gas facilities. The likely motive was not hard to discern. After they shivered in the dark through one of the harshest winters in recent memory, exasperated Iranians have increasingly vented their anger at the regime in recent months. It seemed a scandal that a country with a sixth of the world's gas and ten per cent of its oil could be mired in such a cataclysmic power crisis that even major roads were plunged into darkness for lack of electricity. As government offices shut down and school pupils twiddled their thumbs at home, angry Iranians took to the streets in more than 150 towns and cities to denounce the corruption and mismanagement behind the crisis – protests that continued into this month. Little wonder, then, that over the past 24 hours, Israel struck not just Iran's nuclear facilities and missile bases, but also its electricity and gas plants. On Sunday, fires raged in the South Pars gas field and a nearby oil refinery in the southern province of Bushehr. A dozen storage tanks at Tehran's main fuel depot exploded one after another, setting the surrounding hills ablaze. There are plenty of reasons why Iran's energy infrastructure is under attack. Israel hopes to deny Iran the fuel it needs to support military operations. It quite possibly also hopes to goad Iran into retaliating against Saudi or Emirati energy assets – thereby potentially drawing the United States, with its bunker-busting bombs, into the war. But perhaps most crucially, Israel appears to have concluded that if it is to fight alone, its best chance of dismantling Iran's nuclear programme lies not in bombing deeply buried enrichment facilities, but in destabilising the regime that built them. Toppling the regime from within may, some officials believe, just be Israel's best bet for survival. If so, Iran's rotting domestic energy sector is arguably its most vulnerable point. The country is seething. Power rationing has shuttered factories, left workers unpaid, prevented bakers from making bread, students from sitting exams and farmers from irrigating their crops. Many blame the mullahs – and the elite Revolutionary Guards who not only protect them but also control much of Iran's power generation and distribution. Fury over reports that electricity has been diverted to power-draining Bitcoin mining operations linked to the Guards has fuelled a popular chant in Iran's cities: 'Crypto for the Guards; Blackouts for the People!' Mr Netanyahu clearly believes that Iran's people can be persuaded to topple the regime themselves. Israeli strikes on their country, he told them on Friday, would 'clear the path for you to achieve your freedom.' Such a move, he told Fox News, would clearly be a justified outcome of Israel's offensive: 'We can't let the world's most dangerous regime have the world's most dangerous weapons.' Rallying around the flag Yet not everyone is convinced the strategy will work. In fact, it could misfire, potentially helping to re-galvanise support for an unpopular regime, warns Sanam Vakil, the Middle East director at Chatham House, an international affairs think-tank in London. 'Iranians tend to be quite nationalistic and as civilian casualties mount and life becomes harder, they are more likely to rally around the flag,' she said. 'The unintended consequence could be the re-legitimisation of the Islamic Republic – a devastating outcome for Iranians and the broader region, let alone Netanyahu.' Whatever they think of the regime, few Iranians will relish seeing destruction on their homeland, says Farzan Sabet, a Middle East security researcher at the Geneva Graduate Institute, who hails from the Iranian city of Shiraz. 'In my own city, the electronics industry that contributed to the military's radar systems has been destroyed,' he said. 'It was a military target, but also a centre of technology and an important source of employment. A lot of people who were not especially pro government are quite upset at seeing it destroyed. 'If Israel continues to expand such operations, you're going to see many people who don't like the government offer it begrudging support. They might not like the government, but they don't like what's happening to the country either.' Before the operation began, there was little doubt just how unpopular Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and his fellow mullahs were among a large segment of the population. Middle class liberals have always loathed them. Before the Islamic Revolution of 1979, Iran had one of the most westernised populations in the Middle East: unveiled women wore trousers, danced in nightclubs, drank cocktails and canoodled with unmarried men. Such sophisticates were at the forefront of the first significant anti-government protests in 2009, led by the so-called Green Movement. Later, waves of unrest drew in a more diverse range of Iranians – particularly women – frustrated by the regime's strict Islamic codes, corruption and the economic toll of sanctions and isolation. Yet while these protests alarmed the regime, they ultimately changed little. The ayatollahs successfully crushed the most serious uprising, triggered in late 2022 after a young Kurdish woman, Mahsa Amini, died in police custody for allegedly showing her hair. In part, the regime has survived by relying on a fanatically loyal core of supporters. 'The regime's popularity has steadily declined over time,' Mr Sabet says. 'But its support, at least among its core base, for now remains relatively solid – and this is the core group that the system has relied on to survive.' But this is not the only reason why Israel may struggle to initiate regime change. As the Israeli bombs began to fall, Reza Pahlavi, the exiled son and heir to the shah toppled in 1979, urged Iranians to overthrow the regime, blaming it for 'dragging Iran into war.' Yet although many Iranians feel nostalgic for their 2,500-year monarchy, Mr Pahlavi leads what many analysts consider the weakest of five often bitterly divided opposition movements – a fragmentation the mullahs have successfully exploited. Until there is a more unified opposition, calls for a popular uprising, particularly from abroad, are unlikely to have a significant impact, argues Meir Javedanfar, Iran lecturer at Israel's Reichman University. History, particularly in the Middle East, suggests they rarely do. 'Everybody in Israel wants regime change and I think 80 per cent of people in Iran want better leaders,' he said. 'But I'm not sure regime change can be instigated from abroad. It has to come from within. It needs local leadership – and I just don't see the opposition in Iran organising around a single leader or party.'
Sky News
33 minutes ago
- Sky News
Iran's response to Israeli strikes a 'matter of principle', ambassador to UK says
Why you can trust Sky News Iran's response to Israeli attacks on its nuclear facilities is "self-defence" and a "matter of principle", the Iranian ambassador to the UK has told Sky News. Speaking to The World With Yalda Hakim, Seyed Ali Mousavi said the "barbaric Israeli regime" is "violating international law" - describing Israel's actions in recent days as "an act of aggression against the Iranian people". The conflict between Israel and Iran - once played out in a series of proxy wars - has escalated in the past three days. 1:42 On Friday morning, explosions hit Tehran as Israel carried out a major attack on its top army leaders, nuclear sites, and nuclear scientists. Iran threatened "severe punishment" and quickly retaliated with a wave of missiles. 0:18 0:31 When questioned about whether Iran could continue fighting Israel, the Iranian ambassador told Yalda Hakim that "it is a matter of principle". He said: "This is about self-defence, there is no doubt about it. "We are a responsible member state of the UN and we do all activities according to our international obligations. "Any activities are only in the framework of self-defence." He added that his country would "do our best to preserve our territorial integrity", and that "with the help of God", Iran will "materialise endeavours concretely against our enemy - the Israeli regime". Mr Mousavi also told Hakim that Iran's nuclear activities are "monitored", and that recent comments by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) were "politically motivated". 0:58 The UN nuclear watchdog's board of governors found Iran was not complying with its nuclear obligations for the first time in 20 years. Iran said it has "always adhered" to the safeguarding obligations laid down by the watchdog. 15:10 Announcing Operation Rising Lion on Friday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed Iran had recently taken steps to weaponise enriched uranium, which could be used to make nuclear weapons. But Mr Mousavi stressed that Iran's "peaceful activities" at its "nuclear fields" were only for the "generation of electricity, and other peaceful" things. Iran was due to continue its round of negotiations with the US in Muscat - however, this was cancelled, given recent tensions.
