EVER since they came into government in July, Labour has been directly and indirectly supporting Israel’s genocide in Gaza and its over 17,000 assaults on other Palestinian lands, Lebanon, Yemen, Syria and Iran. According to Declassified UK, the RAF have flown 100 spy flights over Gaza since Keir Starmer became prime minister and his government refuses to publish footage taken on one such mission on the day three British aid workers were killed by an Israeli air strike.

Meanwhile, Labour’s ban on 30 out of 350 arms licences is largely symbolic, since the export continues of components for F-35 fighter jets, which have been used in multiple war crimes including attacks on hospitals, medical personnel and defenceless civilians. Fifteen NGOs, including Amnesty International and Oxfam, have called for the British government to halt these sales, ensure the protection of Palestinian civilians and comply with “the ICJ’s orders to prevent genocide.” The plea has been ignored.

Labour’s backing of violence against Palestinians goes back a lot further than Starmer’s summer election win. In 1929, Labour’s first-ever prime minister, James Ramsay MacDonald, responded to a general strike and wave of protests in Palestine — then under British colonial domination — by sending troops in to kill 200 and imprison hundreds more.