UK Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband Announces Tougher Stance on Israel and West Bank Settlers at Labour Conference

UK Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband on Monday declared a new willingness by the British government to go further in confronting Israel over its approach to Palestine. The Labour leadership is attempting to address grassroots concerns over the party's stance on the war in Gaza, as well as acting on settler violence in the occupied West Bank. Mr Miliband is using his family history to push a more robust stance that promises to build on sanctions on exports from settlements announced earlier this month.

Speaking to delegates at the Labour Party annual conference in Liverpool, Mr Miliband stated: “What the [Benjamin] Netanyahu government is doing in Gaza is a stain on the conscience of the world, and there is increasing evidence war crimes appear to have been committed. There is ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in areas of the West Bank perpetrated by settler terrorists. And too often the Israeli government has turned a blind eye to this. And worse, members of it have made statements and taken actions to support the forced displacement of Palestinians.”

Mr Miliband noted that the new Labour leadership had listened to pressure for change, recalling that Prime Minister Andy Burnham had said the policy of his predecessor Keir Starmer had been wrong since taking office in 2024. “I want to say to the millions of people in this country and indeed elsewhere who have been moved and outraged by the plight of the Palestinian people: we hear you,” he said. “You were right. And under Andy’s leadership we have reset our approach.” He added that efforts on the Israeli side to “destroy the two-state solution” would not succeed.

Drawing on his parents' history as Jewish refugees during the Second World War, Mr Miliband pointed to a “survivor’s responsibility” to “not to be a bystander to injustice”. The Foreign Office ministerial team used appearances at the conference to set a new tone, especially on the Middle East. Stephen Doughty, the Middle East minister, told an event organised by the CAABU pressure group that the team was placing ethics, values and international law at the heart of their approach. “I think there's a very natural progression here,” Mr Doughty said. “If you have facts on the ground, if you have a set of values, if you take a legal position, then that leads to actions.”

Kirsty McNeill, the development minister, told an event for mine clearance groups Halo and Mine Action Group that those addressing atrocities in the world had “friends” in the ministerial team. Meanwhile, Richard Burgon, a backbench Labour veteran, told pro-Palestinian activists that their campaigns had contributed to Mr Starmer's downfall and urged that the government must now go further.