‘Rhetoric differs’: How the UK’s relationship with Israel took a downturn
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x whatsapp-stroke copylink google Add Al Jazeera on Google info A banner and cutout photographs depicting faces of Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former British Prime Minister Keir Starmer in bed together, that reads 'To the 2030 UK-Israel Road Map-A Partnership in Genocide, End the UK's Love affair with Israel' at Parliament Square in London, Britain, March 11, 2026 [Jaimi Joy/Reuters] By Edna Mohamed Published On 7 Sep 2026 7 Sep 2026 The United Kingdom is expected to announce trade restrictions on illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, the latest sign, some analysts say, that UK-Israeli relations have taken another downturn.
Britain is one of Israel’s strongest allies in the West, but since the Labour Party came back to power after more than a decade in opposition, some of the government’s policies and rhetoric have shifted.
On the one hand, the UK still maintains diplomatic ties and supplies F-35 parts through the global pool programme that Israel can access. On the other, it has suspended some arms-export licences and more regularly condemns the conduct of the Israeli military and settlers.
While campaigning ahead of the 2024 general election, then-Labour leader Keir Starmer said Israel “has the right” to withhold power and water from Gaza, during an interview with the UK’s LBC radio station. His comment upset many and he later backtracked, saying he believed Israel had a right to “self-defence”.
In May 2025, he wrote that he “strongly” opposed the “expansion of Israel’s military operations in Gaza”, in a joint letter with French President Emmanuel Macron and Canadian premier Mark Carney.
Last week, Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband, appointed under new premier Andy Burnham, told the House of Commons that he would set out measures to prevent the UK’s involvement in projects such as the E1 settlement in the occupied Palestinian territory. It comes at a time of increasing violence towards Palestinians in Gaza and the occupied West Bank .
“Obviously, the rhetoric differs between them [UK prime ministers], but materially, the Israeli regime operates just as it did, irrespective of whether Andy Burnham or [former Conservative Prime Minister] Rishi Sunak was at the helm,” Zena Agha, a policy analyst with the British Palestinian Committee, told Al Jazeera.
“We’re seeing more of a continuation versus a rupture.”
In Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other senior figures often mock Britain, where public opinion is increasingly turning against Israel’s oppression of Palestinians.
Last month, Netanyahu called the UK the “Islamic Republic of Britain” , according to translated comments published by Israeli media, as he criticised UK media coverage of Israel.
While settlements and outposts are illegal under international law, the E1 project would create a continuous settlement corridor from the large settlement in Ma’ale Adumim and other illegal Israeli settlements to occupied East Jerusalem – effectively cutting the West Bank in half.
Condemning the settlement expansion project, Miliband said: “This government will not acquiesce in the destruction of the two-state solution.
“We will act, and I will set out a comprehensive set of measures in the coming weeks.”
Asked if he would ban trading goods and investment in both directions immediately, the foreign secretary said “a comprehensive reset of our approach on these issues” was needed because it is “high time”.
Agha said that while the move to place trade restrictions on settlements was in the right direction, it was the “bare minimum”, especially in the context of the Gaza genocide.
“These are measures we would expect any government to take in accordance with the international legal framework to which it subscribes. So it shouldn’t be celebrated in that regard. Nevertheless, it is something which the previous administration didn’t do, and so it should be welcomed,” Agha told Al Jazeera.
She explained that the main issue is how these sanctions would work in reality, or if they would end up as “lip service and rhetoric of condemnation as opposed to an actual meaningful impact on the way that the Israeli military occupation operates and profits off colonisation of Palestinian land and labour.”
So far, there are few details on how the government will impose these trade restrictions and on which goods more specifically.
But Burnham’s administration, since coming to power in July, is viewed as taking bolder steps on Israel.
Last month, the UK joined 21 countries and the European Commission in condemning the E1 project, calling on Israel to “retract these plans immediately and end its expansion of settlements in the West Bank.”
“Not only will they take us further from peace, but they further undermine Israel’s international standing,” the statement read.
Under Starmer, former Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper announced the UK, France and Canada imposed sanctions on six entities and one individual in June “involved in financing, enabling and carrying out settler violence in the occupied West Bank”, according to a government statement. Australia and New Zealand also imposed…
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