Downing Street insists UK remains ‘staunch ally’ of Israel after Netanyahu brands arms sales decision as ‘shameful’ – UK politics live | Politics

Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu says UK decision to suspend some arms sales to his country ‘shameful’

Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli PM, has posted a thread on social media describing the British government’s decision to suspend some arms sales to Israel as “shameful”.

Days after Hamas executed six Israeli hostages, the UK government suspended thirty arms licenses to Israel.

— Prime Minister of Israel (@IsraeliPM) September 3, 2024

Days after Hamas executed six Israeli hostages, the UK government suspended thirty arms licenses to Israel.

This shameful decision will not change Israel’s determination to defeat Hamas, a genocidal terrorist organization that savagely murdered 1200 people on October 7, including 14 British citizens.

Hamas is still holding over 100 hostages, including 5 British citizens. Instead of standing with Israel, a fellow democracy defending itself against barbarism, Britain’s misguided decision will only embolden Hamas.

Israel is pursuing a just war with just means, taking unprecedented measures to keep civilians out of harm’s way and comporting fully with international law.

Just as Britain’s heroic stand against the Nazis is seen today as having been vital in defending our common civilization, so too will history judge Israel’s stand against Hamas and Iran’s axis of terror.

With or without British arms, Israel will win this war and secure our common future.

Benjamin Netanyahu speaking at a press conference yesterday.
Benjamin Netanyahu speaking at a press conference yesterday. Photograph: Ohad Zwigenberg/EPA
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Key events

Pro-Palestinian MPs in Independent Alliance says it is ‘beyond shameful’ UK has taken so long to act on arms sales to Israel

At least five of the seven leftwing Labour MPs who had the whip withdrawn in July after rebelling in a vote on the two-child benefit cap have been commenting on social media about the decision to limit some arms sales to Israel. While they all want the government to go further, some have been making an effort to sound positive about the announcement.

This is from Zara Sultana, who is not giving the government much credit.

Yesterday it was confirmed an Israeli F-35 fighter jet – made in part in Britain – was instrumental in a recent attack on a “safe zone” in Gaza, killing 90 people.

Hours later the UK government refused to suspend licences pertaining to F-35s.

ALL arms sales to Israel must end.

Apsana Begum adopted a similar message in the Commons yesterday. And Imran Hussain was not over-enthusiastic in a post yesterday, although he said David Lammy had acted “rightly”.

The Foreign Secretary’s review of arms sales licenses to Israel concludes there’s a “clear risk” that the Israeli military may be using UK arms to commit violations of international law in Gaza, and he’s rightly suspended a number of licenses as a result.

But when violations include killing aid workers and attacking ambulances, bombing refugee camps, and destroying civilian infrastructure with the deaths of over 40,000 Palestinians, the UK needs to follow countries like Canada with a full suspension, not a partial one.

But John McDonnell, the former shadow chancellor, tried to sound more positive. He posted this message yesterday.

A significant step forward & congratulations to all who have campaigned for an end to arms sales to Israel. However this is a first step & we now need to to examine the detail of the remaining licenses to bring about a total end to arms sales to a country committing war crimes.

And Richard Burgon described the move as a “welcome first step”.

Boris Johnson and others opposing the suspension of some arms sales to Israel should be clear:

The UK public wants an end to arms sales to Israel.

Arms licenses must end if there’s a risk of violating international law.

More action is needed but this is a welcome first step.

Some or all of these MPs will be hoping to have the Labour whip restored in due course, and that probably explains why their tone is not as critical as the statement issued by the Independent Alliance, the group of five independent MPs who were mostly elected as pro-Palestinian campaigners. Jeremy Corbyn, the former Labour leader who is their most prominent member, has posted it on X.

In the statement the five MPs say it is “beyond shameful” that it has taken the UK so long to accept that Israel may be in breach of international law. This is primarily a criticism of the Conservatives, who refused to suspend arms sales when they were in office, but it is also an implicit attack on Labour, which delayed saying the Israelis might be using British arms in breach of international law until yesterday and is still avoiding taking sides on whether war crimes definitely are or are not being committed.

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Legal challenge to UK’s policy on arms sales to Israel continues despite partial ban announcement

Dan Sabbagh

Dan Sabbagh

A legal challenge to the Labour government’s arms to Israel policy is continuing despite David Lammy’s announcement of a partial suspension of weapons exports, though it is expected to refocus on the legality of continuing to allow the sale of components for F-35 fighters and the consistency of the government’s position.

Phillippa Kaufman KC, appearing for al-Haq, a Palestinian human rights group, and the Global Legal Action Network, said at the high court the organisations wanted to proceed with a judicial review during a procedural hearing . She said they wanted “to bottom out” why the UK says it cannot exclude some F-35 components in jets which are sold to and used by Israel in its bombing campaign against Hamas in Gaza.

The lawyer also said that the campaign groups wanted to challenge the failure by the UK to determine whether the intense bombing in Gaza, which has contributed to the deaths of 40,786 Palestinians, was in breach of international humanitarian law because of the high proportion of civilian casualties.

Lammy had told MPs yesterday, Kaufman said, that “in many cases, it has not been possible to reach a determinative conclusion on allegations regarding Israel’s conduct of hostilities”. But she told the court on Tuesday morning that that represented “precisely the approach we submit is wrong in law”.

Instead, in suspending arms sales, Lammy argued yesterday that Israel could reasonably do much more to ensure lifesaving food and medical supplies reach civilians in Gaza and that the UK government was “deeply concerned by credible claims of mistreatment of detainees”.

Government guidelines prohibit arms exports to countries where there is a “clear risk” that international humanitarian law will be breached and war crimes committed. Revised submissions on behalf of al-Haq and GLAN are due to be made by the end of the month with proceedings continuing into the autumn.

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Jordan welcomes UK’s decision to end some arms sales to Israel

Ayman Safadi, the Jordanian foreign minister, has welcomed the UK’s decision to stop some arms sales to Israel. He posted this on social media.

The Uk did right to suspend some arms exports licenses to Israel. We urge an expansion of this suspension and call on all countries to impose a complete arms embargo on Israel. Unless consequences are real, Netanyahu will not end his aggression on Gaza and the West Bank, and…

— Ayman Safadi (@AymanHsafadi) September 3, 2024

The Uk did right to suspend some arms exports licenses to Israel. We urge an expansion of this suspension and call on all countries to impose a complete arms embargo on Israel. Unless consequences are real, Netanyahu will not end his aggression on Gaza and the West Bank, and will not stop violating international law and threatening the security of the whole region.

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No 10 insists UK remains ‘staunch ally’ of Israel after Netanyahu brands arms sales decision as ‘shameful’

At the Downing Street lobby briefing this morning the prime minister’s spokesperson refused to accept that the decision to suspend some arms sales to Israel was going to damage diplomatic relations with the country. Asked about Benjamin Netanyahu’s statement this morning, the spokesperson would not engage with the claim that what the UK was doing was “shameful”. But he defended the decision and said the UK remained a “staunch ally” of Israel. He said:

As the foreign secretary, we have not taken this decision lightly, but we do take our duty to apply export licensing law seriously.

We remain a staunch ally of Israel. That’s why we took action in April to shoot down Iranian missiles aimed at Israel, preventing significant loss of life.

Our ambition is to see an end to this devastating conflict, and we are working extensively with international partners on progress towards a ceasefire deal on both sides.

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Reeves says DWP will change way pension credit administered to reduce chances of eligible people not claiming

The Department for Work and Pensions will change the way pension credit is administered to reduce the chances of eligible people not claiming it, Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, told MPs today.

In a statement to MPs in July, Reeves announced that winter fuel payments for pensioners, which are worth up to £300, will be means-tested this year and only paid to people receiving pension credit (a benefit for poor pensioners). In response to claims that many pensioners will not be able to afford to heat their homes as a result, the government has launched a campaign to encourage take-up of pension credit. Only around two-thirds of people who are eligble claim the benefit (worth on average £3,900 a year), and as a result around 880,000 pensioner households are thought to be missing out.

In response to a question about the risk of vulnerable pensioners losing out this winter, Reeves told MPs today that the government was working with charities and local councils to ensure that people who are entitled to claim pension credit do claim it.

She went on:

The DWP will also bring together the administration of pension credit and housing benefits, so that pensioner households currently receiving housing benefit also receive any pension credit that they are entitled to – something that the previous government deferred for years despite knowing that the poorest pensioners were missing out.

Rachel Reeves Photograph: Parliament TV
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Tugendhat condemns government’s decision to suspend some arms sales to Israel

In the Q&A with reporters at his Tory leadership campaign launch Tom Tugendhat, the former security minister, strongly condemned the government’s decision to suspend some arms sales to Israel. He said:

That is a remarkable decision and it will be a decision that has been heard not just in Washington and Tel Aviv but around the world because if we are not willing to stand by our allies when they are literally discovering the bodies of their murdered citizens, what is the point of an alliance?

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Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, is taking questions in the Commons. Although in her first answer she said that she would not be answering detailed questions on tax policy, because those were matters for the budget, she did confirm that the budget would include a “tax road map” giving guarantees about tax policy for business, including a commitment not to raise corporation tax above 25%. This is something she promised to do before the election.

Rachel Reeves faces MPs in Treasury questions – watch live

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The Muslim Council of Britain, which says it represents Muslims in Britain but which was accused by the last government of being too close to extremists, has issued a statement giving a qualified welcome to the decision to limit some arms sales to Israel. Zara Mohammed, the MCB’s secretary general, said:

The government’s recent decision to restrict arms sales to Israel is a small but important step to ensure adherence to international law. It comes at a time when the death toll in Gaza has surpassed 40,000, too many lives have been lost and injured due to Israeli bombardment.

The decision only affects UK sale of arms amounts to 1% of Israeli arms sales. Many will still be left worried about the vast armoury our government are still supplying to Israel’s killing machine. We therefore need for full clarity on arms sales to a state that openly flouts international law.

We are also troubled to see how politicians seeking leadership and far right commentators are weaponising this decision once more to foment further hatred against Muslims.

“Appeasing Muslims” and “giving into an Islamist lobby” are just some of the islamophobic tropes being used to vilify Muslim communities. To conflate democratically elected MPs campaigning on the widespread concerns of Gaza to Islamist and sectarian politics reminds us of the politics of hate and Islamophobia the former government is used to using to score political points at the expense of Muslim communities.

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Government should aim to restore pride in Britain’s history, says defence secretary John Healey

As Patrick Butler reports, pride in Britain’s history has fallen sharply over the past decade as the country has become less nationalistic and jingoistic and more reflective about its place in the modern world, according to a report from the National Centre for Social Research.

Here is Patrick’s story.

And here is a chart from the report.

Pride in Britain’s achievements, and how that has changed. Photograph: National Centre for Social Research

In an interview on the Today programme this morning John Healey, the defence secretary, was asked if he regretted the fact that pride in Britain’s history has fallen, and if it was part of the government’s job to restore that pride. Healey replied:

Yes, and yes. Yes, I regret it. Yes, I think it is part of our government responsibility to help people see the things that we should all be proud of. It’s very hard not to feel proud of this country when you’re sitting in the basement of the military headquarters at the Ministry of Defense. It’s very hard not to feel pride, as I did when on Saturday morning at five o’clock I boarded a returning nuclear submarine in the mouth of the Clyde to talk to those submariners returning from patrol, 24/7, 365 days a year, helping keep us all safe.

John Healey arriving in Downing Street for cabinet this morning. Photograph: Thomas Krych/ZUMA Press Wire/REX/Shutterstock
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David Evans to stand down as Labour’s general secretary at party conference

David Evans has announced that he is going to step down as Labour’s general secretary at the party conference. He took on the job, which involves leading the organisational side of the Labour operation, in May 2020 after Keir Starmer became leader and wanted to install an ally in the post, and Evans played a signifcant part in enabling the party to go from hefty defeat to landslide victory over the course of a single parliament.

In a statement he said:

It has been the privilege of my life to be general secretary for the Labour party. It has always been my plan to serve for one general election, and take the organisation from shattering defeat to being a party of government.

Now both have been achieved, it is the right time both for me and the party for a new general secretary to take over.

A new general secretary being in post from the end of this year’s conference will give them the necessary time to lead the next chapter of change, taking over at the same early stage of the political cycle that I did.

David Evans speaking at Labour’s conference last year. Photograph: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images
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