After openly backing two years of genocide in Gaza, on 21 September, Britain officially recognised Palestinian statehood along with Canada and Australia. France followed suit on 22 September. This is not a recognition of Palestinian self-determination but a desperate attempt to resolve the political crisis caused by the Palestinian resistance. It serves three purposes: firstly, to isolate the popular Hamas-led armed resistance, that Israel cannot defeat militarily, from the Palestinian masses; secondly, to assert the imperialists’ interests in the Middle East by propping up the reactionary Palestinian Authority (PA); and finally, to restore the credibilities of these governments that backed Israel’s genocide. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has made it clear that this ‘Palestinian state’ would be demilitarised and only ‘non-violent’ political parties would be allowed to participate in sham elections. This recognition is conditional on surrender.
Two years after 7 October 2023, the Zionist state has achieved nothing in Gaza. Despite being backed to the hilt by British, EU and US imperialism: it has failed to enact its promised ‘second Nakba’, it has failed to retrieve the remaining hostages and it has failed to liquidate the Palestinian resistance. It is now bogged down in a protracted war. Decades of work to normalise the existence of Israel by its imperialist backers have been undone by two years of genocide. The utter barbarity of the Zionist state and the imperialist ruling classes is now exposed. Outrage at the images of levelled neighbourhoods, massacred children and mass starvation has created the basis for Palestine solidarity movements across all the imperialist countries that refuse to go away. No amount of propaganda has managed to convince the working classes that the mass slaughter in Gaza, or their ruling classes’ support for it, is justifiable. This is the political context behind the sudden push to recognise a Palestinian state.
Crisis in Europe deepens
On 22 September, one million workers in Italy staged a general strike in support of Gaza and the Global Sumud Flotilla, the first strike of its kind in Europe, shutting down ports, train stations and schools. Despite being met with state violence, hundreds of thousands of workers and school children rallied across nearly 100 cities to demand an arms embargo and sanctions. European cultural institutions and states are feeling the pressure to isolate the Zionist state. UEFA – European football’s governing body – is considering banning Israeli clubs and its national team while Spain, Ireland, Slovenia, Iceland and the Netherlands have been forced to announce that they will boycott Eurovision if Israel is allowed to participate.
Crisis in Britain continues
Labour’s apparent concern for Palestinian self-determination stands in stark contrast to its open participation in the genocide. RAF spy plane flights over Gaza have continued, providing the Israeli state with intelligence to carry out bombings and assassinations. Drop Site News revealed that RAF bases, in both Cyprus and Britain itself, have been used to supply, re-fuel, and provide technical assistance to Israeli F-35 planes that are bombing Gaza. The support has been political as well as material – on 9 September then Foreign Secretary David Lammy issued a statement saying that Israel is not committing genocide. He was swiftly contradicted by the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem and Israel, whose report, published on 16 September, categorically stated that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.
The Labour government now finds itself with a domestic political crisis that it cannot solve. On the one hand it cannot allow the Zionist state to lose – such an outcome would lead to catastrophic consequences for imperialism in the Middle East. On the other hand, its blatant involvement in genocide has turned a significant section of its electorate against it. Labour can no longer claim to be even a moderately progressive party. Its only option now is to repress radicals within the movement and offer the fig leaf of Palestinian recognition in an attempt to salvage whatever legitimacy it has left.
Imperialism’s loyal opposition
The leadership of the Palestine solidarity movement in Britain – the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) – has utterly failed to effectively mobilise the popular anger of the working class. In practice, the PSC plays an important role in containing the solidarity movement by keeping it ‘respectable’ and isolating those the state sees as radical, making them easier to repress. Despite mobilising hundreds of thousands of people in central London who are outraged at the scenes coming from Gaza, the PSC co-ordinates and plans its routinist marches with the police to be as non-disruptive as possible. Demonstrations in central London now happen less frequently despite the genocide intensifying. Their demands remain limited to an arms embargo. Outside of their own clique, they have never defended anyone facing repression for their solidarity with Palestine. When the proscription of Palestine Action was announced, the PSC issued a warning to their branches not to sign any statements of solidarity.
Politically, the PSC is bankrupt. They welcome Dr Husam Zomlot, the Palestinian Ambassador to Britain and a representative of the reactionary PA, to speak on their platforms and at their AGMs. While celebrating representatives of Zionist collaborators, the PSC censors Palestinian revolutionaries – in Birmingham they shut down a fundraising event that Palestinian militant Leila Khaled was invited to address. The PSC’s statement on Britain’s recognition of Palestinian statehood criticises the government for making that recognition conditional on who governs the Palestinian people yet says nothing about the PA, the very government that British imperialism wants to impose onto Gaza.
This ‘statehood’ does nothing to advance Palestinian self-determination. Nowhere are the core questions such as the right of return for refugees addressed. It does not change the reality in Palestine – our imperialist ruling classes are participating in Israel’s genocide. Our tasks in Britain remain: to oppose all imperialist plans for Palestine, defend the right of the Palestinian people to fight for their self-determination through any means necessary and fight to end all British support for Zionism.
FRFI 308 October/November 2025
