LONDON: Supporters of the Palestinian cause hope the arrival of Britain’s new prime minister, Andy Burnham, in 10 Downing Street on Monday will spark a rethink of UK government policy toward Israel, the war in Gaza, and the expansion of illegal settlements in the West Bank.
The message for Burnham was delivered loud and clear on Saturday during a march through Central London to Downing Street, organized by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign.
“Keir Starmer has finally been forced to resign — brought down in no small part by his shameful support for Israel’s crimes,” said the organizers. “Whoever comes next must break with this moral bankruptcy, or they will face a similar fate.”
Burnham is keenly aware that the Labour government’s stance over Gaza and the West Bank has already cost it votes among its traditional supporters.
Newly elected leader of Britain's Labour Party Andy Burnham reacts as he visits Gravesend, Kent, Britain, on July 17, 2026. (Reuters)
When still in opposition at the beginning of the war in 2023, Burnham’s predecessor Sir Keir Starmer shocked British Muslims and many on the left of his own party when he said Israel had the right to cut off water and electricity to civilians in Gaza.
Starmer has done little since to mollify his critics. An Opinium poll carried out last month found that for two-thirds of Labour voters who have switched to the Greens, the party’s position on Gaza was a factor.
Burnham, who has previously said the UK’s call for a ceasefire was far too long in coming, has already signalled an appetite for change.
In an interview with The Guardian on July 9, he apologized for the Labour Party’s initial response under Starmer to Israel’s war in Gaza. The party, he said “didn’t get it right” and needed to “do better.”
A man holds a sign during a march, held by Palestine Solidarity Campaign, in London on May 16, 2026. (Reuters)
He added: “We’ve got to do more to put pressure on the Israeli government … we must now do more to strengthen our approach.”
Quite what that new approach might amount to remains to be seen. But much of Labour’s left-wing support base appears to be in no mood to tolerate further timidity toward Israel.
Israel’s illegal settler program, backed by far-right elements within the Israeli government, has escalated since the war in Gaza began in response to the Hamas-led attacks of Oct. 7, 2023.
In March, the Israeli government’s security cabinet gave the go-ahead for the establishment of a record 34 new settlements in the West Bank, bringing the number approved since 2022 to 103.
By comparison, said Israeli human rights group Peace Now, only six settlements were approved in the three decades following the Oslo Accords in 1993.
Israeli far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich holds a map of an area near the settlement of Maale Adumim, a land corridor known as E1, outside Jerusalem in the occupied West Bank, on August 14, 2025, after a press conference at the site. (AFP)
In June, the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, established by the UN’s Human Rights Council, found that attacks by settlers, aided and abetted by Israeli soldiers, had risen by 130 percent since 2023.
The increasing participation of Israeli security forces in such attacks, it added, “amounts to a de facto collapse of the distinction between settlers and soldiers.”
Writing on social media, Antonio Guterres, the UN secretary-general, condemned “the demolition of homes, relentless expansion of illegal Israeli settlements, ongoing displacement of Palestinians (and) the threat of an attempted annexation that would — like the decades-long occupation — have no legal validity.”
On June 15, Israeli news site Ynet reported that the government planned to pay a daily stipend for food and clothing to hundreds of young settlers — the so-called “hilltop youth,” at the forefront of much of the violence against Palestinians.
On June 9, the Yvette Cooper, the British foreign secretary, announced that the UK, along with Australia, Canada, France, New Zealand and Norway, was imposing sanctions “against networks financing and enabling settler attacks against Palestinians in the West Bank,” and “firmly advises” British businesses against dealing with “illegal Israeli settlements.”
Israeli soldiers demolish a house using a bulldozer during a raid in Silat al-Harithiya, near Jenin city in the occupied West Bank on February 17, 2026. (AFP)
The sanctions named six Israeli companies and individuals involved in “financing, enabling and carrying out settler violence in the occupied West Bank.”
But the sanctions were dismissed by the Palestinian Solidarity Campaign as little more than politically expedient window-dressing, “tiny and piecemeal steps which will not prevent Israel from continuing to act with impunity in its genocide and crimes against the Palestinian people.”
The measures, it said, were “utterly inadequate, and do not come close to meeting the government’s legal obligations to end all involvement with Israel’s illegal settlement enterprise.”
To merely “firmly advise British businesses against illegal activity” was “sending the disgraceful message that acting according to international law is optional.”
There are signs that patience with Israel’s extremist settler movement is running out across Europe.
Activists demonstrate against Israeli attacks on Gaza, outside Downing Street in London on June 09, 2026. (Anadolu via Getty Images)
On May 11, all of the EU’s foreign ministers agreed unanimously to impose sanctions on “extremist settlers and entities supporting settlements in the West Bank.” On May 28, the EU published a list of sanctioned organizations and individuals.
These included the Nachala Settlement Movement, which “encourages and facilitates coercive acts that lead to the forced displacement of Palestinians,” and an Israeli NGO that promotes the demolition of Palestinian property with the aim of expanding the control of Israel to the whole West Bank.
It also included the Hashomer Yosh NGO, which “offers material support and coordinates volunteers on the herding farms, supporting at least 28 violent outposts and settlements in the West Bank.”
Others listed were the Amana cooperative association of the settler movement Gush Emunim, for “initiating, financing, and facilitating at least 30 violent outposts and settlements,” responsible for “forced widespread displacement of vulnerable Palestinian communities and dispossession of Palestinian properties.”
On Wednesday, the Council for Arab-British Understanding and a coalition of UK humanitarian, development and faith-based agencies working in and on the Occupied Palestinian Territory urged the incoming prime minister “to take decisive action to protect Palestinians.”
People march towards the Gaza Strip under the slogan "After 21 years, we're returning home", referring to Israel's unilateral withdrawal of around 8,500 Jewish settlers from the Gaza Strip in 2005, near Kibbutz Zikim and Israel's border with Gaza, in southern Israel, July 19, 2026. (Reuters)
In a statement, it said the government of Israel “has deepened its control over Palestinian life and land in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, accelerating unprecedented state-sponsored settlement expansion; increased military raids and attacks on Palestinian civilians; suffocating restrictions on freedom of movement; and ever-expansive attacks on humanitarian and civic space.”
In the West Bank, more than 1,100 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces and settlers and thousands more displaced since October 2023.
“These devastating conditions,” said Caabu, “persist due to the impunity afforded to Israel by its allies — including the UK — for its persistent and serious violations of international law. Ending this impunity is essential, and will require a significant departure from the approach of Keir Starmer’s government.”
The incoming prime minister, it added, “now has an opportunity, and an historic moral responsibility, to chart a different course and protect Palestinians from Israel’s serious violations and atrocities.
“Andy Burnham ... has made welcome statements indicating such a shift: this must now be accompanied by urgent and meaningful action.”
Palestinians walk through fumes as a fire blazes near the village of Tell, adjacent to the Israeli settlement of Havat Gilad, west of Nablus in the occupied West Bank on July 18, 2026, after a reported arson attack by Israeli settlers on the village, according to eyewitnesses. (AFP)
It is almost two years since the International Court of Justice issued an advisory opinion, which found that Israel’s occupation was unlawful, and that its policies and practices amounted to annexation.
Caabu called on the Burnham government to “urgently publish its response to the opinion,” impose “a comprehensive ban on the trade of all goods, services and investments that enable illegal settlement activity,” invoke the human-rights provision of the UK-Israel Trade and Partnership Agreement and suspend trade concessions “until all relevant widespread violations of international law are brought to an end,” and “suspend all arms sales and transfers to Israel.”
Caabu has already revealed the extent of the support for such a program. On June 9, it released a list of 238 MPs who have publicly expressed support for a full UK ban on trade and financial deals with illegal Israeli settlements. Of these, 141 are Labour members.
Caabu, said its director, Chris Doyle, “has pushed for such a ban for many years. The UK has stated consistently for decades that all settlements are illegal under international law, so logic and legality dictates that the UK should not permit any business dealings with settlements in occupied territory.
“This is even more important given the record pace of Israeli settlement expansion in recent years, and the massive levels of settler violence against Palestinian communities assisted by the Israeli army.”
Israeli settlers build a new outpost at the Palestinian village of Azmut in the occupied West Bank on July 17, 2026. The occupied West Bank has been gripped by almost daily violence involving Israeli troops and settlers since the start of the Gaza war in October 2023. (AFP)
In June, Global Echo, an international organization dedicated to bringing litigation in courts around the world against “economic actors complicit in violations of Palestinian human rights,” published Importing Occupation, a report highlighting “European complicity in Palestinian dispossession through settlement agricultural trade.”
The report found that at least one in five shipments of agricultural products from Israel to the EU over the past eight years, worth millions of euros, had come from illegal settlements.
Doyle said Caabu’s call for a ban on trade and financial deals with illegal settlements was “an issue of principle and international law. It’s about the fact that these settlements take land from another people, an occupied people, take resources, take their hopes and block the chances of peace.
“The international legal situation is clear: in the case of occupied territory, you cannot transfer a civilian population in or out of that territory.”
