When British Prime Minister Keir Starmer resigned last week, an old but forever damning clip resurfaced. Appearing on a London radio show in October 2023, the former human rights lawyer told the host that Israel had the right to cut water and electricity off to the besieged population of Gaza.
This was no slip of the tongue. Instead, it represented the instincts of a man who went on to oversee Britain’s complicity in the greatest crime of our time. In opposition, Starmer helped Israel accrue the confidence and capital it needed to justify its crimes. In office, his government helped Israel accrue the military means it needed to carry them out.
After Starmer took office in July 2024, the value of arms export licences granted from October to December that year alone was 127.6 million pounds ($168.8m), far higher than what was approved by the Conservative government from 2020 to 2023. In September 2024, Labour Foreign Secretary David Lammy announced a partial suspension of arms exports to Israel. Pausing about 30 arms export licences out of a total of 350, the government made one, huge, glaring omission: the continued supply of parts for Israel’s F-35 stealth fighter jets. This included components that went to the United States to be sent on to Israel and spare parts that went into global stockpiles that may have gone to Israel.
Arms sales typically dominate discussions of British complicity. However, perhaps even more significant has been the continued role of Royal Air Force Akrotiri base in Cyprus. “The whole world and everyone back at home is relying on you. Quite a bit of what goes on here can’t necessarily be talked about all of the time. We can’t necessarily tell the world what you’re doing.” This is what Starmer told service members while visiting the RAF base in December 2024. If Starmer won’t tell the world, we will: RAF bases have been a critical site of complicity, principally through the performance of routine RAF surveillance flights over Gaza.
Israel has not just relied on the United Kingdom’s military support but its economic support too. The government should have been using every single economic and political tool at its disposal to force Israel to stop. That is the approach the government has taken towards Russia. Refusing to do the same to Israel is rank hypocrisy – and proof of economic, diplomatic and political complicity. A sprinkling of sanctions against a handful of extreme settlers and ministers doesn’t cut it. Without comprehensive sanctions, Israel will never adhere to international law: not in Gaza, not in the West Bank, not in Lebanon, not anywhere.