Over 60 parliamentarians, including former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, and MPs from six different parties have demanded the government impose sanctions on Israel.
In a letter addressed to Foreign Secretary David Lammy – that does not mention Hamas or the Israeli hostages currently held in Gaza by the terrorist group – the MPs and peers call on the government “to impose sanctions and take other concrete steps to give effect to the landmark Opinion issued by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on Israel’s continuing illegal presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.”
Over 60 Parliamentarians have joined me and @Imran_HussainMP in writing to the Foreign Secretary to call on our Government to impose sanctions on Israel to force it to stop violating international law.
Words alone are not enough. Our Government has a legal and moral duty to act. pic.twitter.com/WIpJDvaaMR
— Richard Burgon MP (@RichardBurgon) November 28, 2024
In July, the ICJ said in an advisory ruling that Israel’s settlement regime in the West Bank was illegal under international law.
Responding to the verdict, at the time, campaign group the International Legal Forum (ILF) said the outcome would only serve as a “reward for Hamas” following the October 7 attack.
The parliamentarians’ letter – whose signatories also included former Conservative minister Baroness Warsi, Labour peer and former shadow attorney general Baroness Chakrabarti, independent MPs elected on a pro-Gaza platform and Labour MPs who served in frontbench positions under Jeremy Corbyn including Clive Lewis and Barry Gardiner – demanded that the government: “Suspend arms transfers to Israel including licenses for the export of F-35 components that go indirectly to Israel as well as any other equipment that might be used to carry out serious violations of international humanitarian law and/or are used to entrench Israel’s unlawful presence” in Palestinian territories.
It also called for a ban on trade with settlements and that the government revoke 2030 Roadmap, a bilateral cooperation agreement between the Israel and the UK that looks to strengthen economic, trade and security ties.
Although the government imposed a limited suspension of arms sales on Israel in September, Foreign Secretary David Lammy said that the F35 fighter jet programme would be unaffected.
He told MPs at the time: “The effects of suspending all licences for the F-35 programme would undermine the global F35 supply chain that is vital for the security of the UK, our allies, and Nato.”
Defence voices, including a former Labour defence minister, have warned that imposing restrictions on the F-35 programme would have potentially disastrous consequences for the UK.
In the months since the government’s decision, many of their own backbenchers have been calling on the government to take a tougher and more critical approach to Israel.
On Monday, responding to an Urgent Question on the International Criminal Court (ICC)’s decision to seek arrest warrants for Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defence minister Yoav Gallant, Labour MP Abtisam Mohamed called on ministers to “review all diplomatic, economic and political relations with Israel”.
York Central MP Rachael Maskell said the government should “escalate the UK’s response to the Israeli government by introducing sanctions so that they feel the real pain of our country but also understand that we want to ensure that justice is served by the ICC”.
However, one Labour source who spoke to the JC said that the limited number of Labour MPs who put their names to the letter was a sign of Corbynism’s diminishing influence on Labour.
The letter’s organisers, MPs Richard Burgon and Imran Hussein – and a number of signatories – were elected as Labour MPs in July, but have since had the whip suspended for voting against the government on an unrelated issue.
The Labour source said: “it’s shocking but sadly not surprising that the Corbynite rump would write such a letter without even mentioning Hamas or the hostages. The British public resoundingly rejected this far-left approach in 2019 and there’s a reason many of the signatories are no longer Labour MPs.”