‘Why Andy Burnham Must Break With Israel’

As Andy Burnham prepares to relaunch the UK’s Labour government, attention has mostly been focused on his domestic agenda, with little given to his possible moves on international issues—or the effects these could have on the fortunes of his party. 

Yet the two years since the 2024 general election have been filled with international crises with Israel at their heart: the genocide in Gaza, settler violence in the West Bank and the disastrous war on Iran that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu persuaded Donald Trump to launch. 

So when Burnham is forced to turn to world events, his attitude to Israel will be pivotal. In the past, he has taken a fairly standard Labour position, supporting a Palestinian state while joining Labour Friends of Israel—he even pledged in 2015 that his first overseas visit would be to the country if he won the party’s leadership. 

On Gaza, as Manchester mayor, he joined other regional Labour leaders in calling for a ceasefire on 27 October 2023, at a time when the national party was still resisting that. But otherwise he has not gone further than a recent statement criticising the “disproportionate destruction” of Gaza. 

Nimer Sultany, a Palestinian academic at SOAS University of London, has therefore concluded that “we can expect continuity, not a break from current British policy towards Israel”. Yet a break is exactly what Burnham needs to deliver—not only for the sake of Palestinians, but also to restore a viable bloc of voters which might keep Labour in power after the general election due in 2029.

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The Sharpest Edge of Starmer’s Legacy

In his resignation speech, outgoing Prime Minister Keir Starmer claimed to have overcome the Labour Party’s previous “moral bankruptcy”.

But it is Starmer’s own policy towards Israel that is most regarded as having been morally bankrupt by the voters he has lost. Although only some of his political obituaries have mentioned this, it is Labour’s complicity in the genocide that has created the most intractable obstacle that Burnham faces in recreating a viable electoral coalition.

Starmer fundamentally damaged Labour’s standing in October 2023, when he was leader of the opposition, by claiming that Israel “had the right” to cut off power and water from the Palestinians—and failing to apologise. He then joined the Conservatives to block calls for a ceasefire.

Labour paid a serious price for this in 2024, losing seats in Muslim areas to pro-Gaza Independents. Despite the huge Labour landslide, one shadow cabinet member, Jonathan Ashworth, lost his seat, and Wes Streeting almost lost his.

It must be tempting for Burnham to think that this is ancient history. The destruction of Gaza has slowed and its continuing plight has been pushed out of the headlines. However, Israel continues to commit atrocities, and public opinion towards the country has changed dramatically—more voters are favourable towards Palestine, and over half think that Israel has committed genocide. Labour members too are highly critical according to according to a recent poll.

As opinion shifted, even Starmer responded a little, for example criticising settlers in the West Bank and making gestures like allowing more injured Gazans to come to the UK for treatment. But there is still a huge gap between the Labour government and the progressive voters whom Labour needs to win back if it is to retain power after 2029. 

Gaza is therefore the sharpest edge of Starmer’s domestic as well as international legacy. Under the advice of Morgan McSweeney, he pursued a policy of pursuing right-leaning voters and their supporters in the press.

Election and polling experts are now unanimous that this was a fatal mistake, since it alienated Labour’s core vote in the electorate’s “progressive bloc”. Much larger numbers have deserted Labour for other progressive parties than for the Conservatives or Reform, and Gaza has been a key factor.

Related reading: The Real ‘Moral Bankruptcy’ That Brought Down Keir Starmer’s Premiership

Support for a Genocide

The core of Labour’s Gaza policy has been support for Israel’s campaign—including by military means, with RAF planes collecting surveillance over the Strip which has been supplied to Israel and almost certainly used in the genocide. Labour imposed token sanctions on weapons for Israel, but it allowed parts to be sent for the F-35s that have been key to its destruction Gaza. 

The Government also failed to carry out its international legal obligation (under the Genocide Convention) to act to prevent genocide. Starmer did not explicitly deny that genocide had been committed—as an international lawyer who prosecuted a genocide case in the International Court Justice (ICJ), he must have understood that it was probably occurring—but his government claimed that it had not made a determination to this effect. 

Shamefully, they argued that they could not take a definitive view since the question had not been adjudicated by an international court. Yet they knew that the duty to prevent genocide—which obviously applies as soon as it is possible that the crime will be committed, not after long-drawn out legal proceedings—had been triggered by the International Court of Justice’s warning, in January 2024, of a “plausible risk” of genocide against the Palestinians. 

Starmer’s Government has now ignored this duty for almost two and a half years. During this time it has repeatedly welcomed Israeli political and military leaders to the UK (except for Netanyahu himself, who has been indicted for crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court).

Labour has even outlawed the direct-action protest group Palestine Action as a “terrorist” organisation. Although it claimed that this decision did not prevent pro-Palestinian protest, it also tarred peaceful protests—which included the participation of many anti-Israeli Jews—as “hate marches” and encouraged the police to act against them. And of course, it has hardly changed policy at all in response to the the huge wave of protests.

It is not just Starmer, and ministers like David Lammy and Yvette Cooper who have been most involved in these pro-Israeli policies, who are complicit. Wes Streeting has reported that he circulated videos of Israeli atrocities to cabinet—but neither he nor anyone else resigned. There has been little open dissent within Labour: only nine MPs out of more than 400 voted against the Palestine Action ban.

Gaza’s Effect on Public Opinion

This record scars the whole party, which is why Burnham must act. Any temptation to see Gaza as being of concern only the minority who actively take part in the pro-Palestinian movement would be deeply shortsighted. 

Burnham has said that he will apply the “Makerfield test”—named after the seat he has won—to determine the direction of policy, and Gaza wasn’t a major issue in that by-election. Yet it was obviously relevant in the previous Manchester by-election, in Gorton and Denton, where Muslim and progressive voters swung decisively to the Greens and pushed Labour into third place.

The pressure group Think Labour (previously Labour Together, the group which was responsible for Starmer’s rise) has recently published research claiming to show that Muslim voters “regard the cost of living as their main priority, rather than the conflict in Gaza”. It therefore claims they can be won back to Labour by policies on the cost of living.

Yet comparing these issues for potential retail offers obscures the particular significance of Gaza. Genocide does not affect opinion in the same way as the price of petrol. It is more like Islamophobia, a question of group identity that Think Labour shows is very important to Muslims. Indeed, even their report acknowledges that the salience of Gaza among Muslims has only reduced “slightly” since 2024 when it cost Labour sharply. 

Gaza has also become part of the political identity of many left-wing and liberal Labour voters. A recent poll shows that 40% of voters who deserted Labour in the 2026 local elections switched to the Greens, and 30%to the Lib Dems (only 11%went to Reform and nine per cent to the Tories). Fifty-three per cent of those who switched to left and centre parties said Labour’s support for Israel influenced their change—21% greatly and 31% somewhat. 

With this backdrop, dismissing the threat from Labour’s record on Gaza would be a major mistake for Burnham. As an activist in the Palestine movement, I have heard many say, “I will never vote for them again”. Clearly this attitude extends well beyond the activists, and in a narrow general election—when Israel will be an issue, which it wasn’t much in the locals—it could cost Labour victory.

The Challenge of the Greens 

Labour’s traditional response to this kind of problem has been to assume that, in a general election, the left has no real alternative to the party. This was never entirely true, as the big shift to the Lib Dems after the Iraq War showed. But the rise of the Greens has fundamentally changed this calculation: dissident activists and voters now have a credible alternative.

Reports about the possibility of a Lab-Lib Dem coalition after the next election suggest that Burnham is aware of Labour’s probable difficulty in obtaining another overall majority—whatever he does. Through the presure group Compass as well as during his Manchester mayoralty, he has also shown that he is more open to the wider centre-left than most Labour leaders. He clearly hopes that his promise that electoral reform will be in the next Labour manifesto will promote progressive unity and enable the tactical voting that could keep Labour afloat.

However, he will make a major mistake if he underestimates progressive opposition to Israeli genocide. This is now a core position for the expanding Green Party, shared by longer-standing members as well as Zack Polanski’s recruits. Ellie Chowns MP, one of Polanski’s rivals in the 2025 leadership election, has been one of the most consistent parliamentary campaigners against the genocide. In my experience, local Green meetings come alive when support for Palestine is discussed, and there is no dissent.

Polanski, who refused to work with Starmer on this issue, has now made opposition to Israeli genocide a condition for working with his successor. If Burnham fails to meet this challenge, he will not only push voters towards the Green Party. He will also derail the possibility of the progressive parties firing in the same direction—against Reform and the Conservatives —which will be crucial for fostering the tactical voting Labour needs.

Redeeming Labour’s Moral bankruptcy 

So what does Andy Burnham need to do? He has his own past support for Israel as well as his party’s backing for the genocide to overcome. He is credited with being an emotionally literate politician, and to really shift the dial, he will need to acknowledge the deep emotions that Israel’s atrocities have aroused. The first thing that Burnham will need to do is to apologise unequivocally for the mistakes of the last two and a half years.

Second, to make it clear that Labour has really understood the feelings that Starmer’s policies have provoked, Burnham will need to recognise the deliberate, systematic character of Israel’s destruction of the whole Palestinian society in Gaza—in short, he will need to acknowledge the genocide. He should follow Spain and Ireland in joining South Africa’s case against Israel in the ICJ.

Third, Burnham will need to make it clear that taking seriously Israel’s record of atrocity requires breaking with it in a very comprehensive way. This will involve cancelling the UK-Israel Military Co-operation Agreement, as well as explaining how it has been misused since 2023. It will involve ending all weapons supply to, and purchases from, Israel. It will involve wide-ranging economic and cultural sanctions.

Finally—and this is very important for the emotional and political impact of a change of policy—Burnham will need to lift the “terrorist” ban on Palestine Action and the campaign of repression against pro-Palestinian protest. 

He will need to go beyond Starmer’s token support for a Palestinian state and set out a UK commitment to full justice for the Palestinian people who have suffered so much—ever since, indeed, an earlier British government disregarded their interests by issuing the Balfour Declaration in 1917.

Related reading: Masks, Flares and Climbing Statues: The Protest Bans That Quietly Came Into Force This Week

Echoes of Kamala Harris

With a comprehensive reset like this, Burnham could put Labour back on a road that will attract progressive voters, and enable the synergy between parties that will mobilise the progressive majority at the next general election.

Without such a reset, Labour risks not just its own defeat, but its replacement by a far-right regime. Although Farage is currently in difficulties, the electoral energy and violence that has surged in Britain in the decade since the Brexit vote will remain a formidable challenge. If Reform falters, a revived but still far-right-leaning Conservative party, together with vultures like Restore Britain, will pick up the pieces. 

Burnham should learn from the failure of the Democrats to stop Trump. Joe Biden enabled Israeli genocide and and Kamala Harris drove away pro-Palestinian voters on the left, as well as Muslim and Arab Americans, by refusing to shift from his policy. The result was that Trump won by a small margin, both in the popular vote and in the swing states that decided the election. 

We have all been dealing with the catastrophe this helped cause ever since. A victory for Farage or another far-right leader would be an equal disaster for Britain, but it can be prevented by progressive unity. The road to that lies though breaking with Israel. If he fails to do this, Andy Burnham could end up being our Kamala Harris.