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'Good Riddance': Keir Starmer Resigns as UK Prime Minister
"Getting rid of Keir Starmer is not enough. We need to get rid of the politics he represents: corporate greed, anti-migrant rhetoric, and endless war," said former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn.
Jun 22, 2026
UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced his resignation on Monday, less than two years after his Labour party swept into power in a landslide election.
In his resignation speech, Starmer said that he was stepping down because members of his party did not feel he was the best choice to lead them into the next general election, with polls showing the far-right anti-immigration Reform party currently on track to receive the most votes.
Starmer also said that whomever is chosen as his successor "will inherit a Britain that is far stronger and fairer than the one I inherited two years ago, better prepared for the challenges ahead and better able to ensure the Labour party secures a second term in office."
Starmer's progressive critics disputed this characterization of his governance, which they said has done little more than legitimize the far right.
Specifically, critics pointed to the Labour government's continued support of Israel in its genocidal assault on Gaza, its decision to proscribe Palestine Action as a terrorist group, and its efforts to court far-right voters by restricting immigration as some of its most destructive actions.
Former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said that Starmer had wasted the large majority that Labour had won and had done little if anything to improve the lives of the UK working class.
"Keir Starmer could have ended child poverty, homelessness and the grotesque levels of inequality in this country," Corbyn wrote. "Instead, he abandoned those in need, destroyed our civil liberties, and facilitated genocide in Gaza. That is how this prime minister will be remembered—and that is the legacy of moral and political bankruptcy he leaves behind."
Corbyn added that "getting rid of Keir Starmer is not enough," as "we need to get rid of the politics he represents: corporate greed, anti-migrant rhetoric, and endless war."
Member of Parliament Zarah Sultana, a former Labour MP who has since joined Corbyn's Your party, noted after watching the prime minister's speech that "the most emotion Keir Starmer has shown is over losing his job, not enabling the genocide of the Palestinian people."
"Good riddance," Sultana said. "His next stop should be The Hague."
Zack Polanski, leader of the Green party, predicted that Starmer's premiership would be remembered entirely negatively.
"Bills up. Wages too low," Polanski wrote, summarizing life in the UK under Starmer's leadership. "Record profits for oil and gas. Fifty richest families with more wealth than 50% of population. Shit in our rivers. Pensioners jailed for protesting. Migrants thrown under the bus. Supporting a genocide. That's Starmer's legacy."
Journalist Owen Jones delivered a similarly scathing assessment.
"Keir Starmer lied through his teeth to become Labour leader," Jones wrote. "He justified Israeli war crimes, arrested opponents of genocide, attacked pensioners, disabled people, and migrants, pocketed freebies, crushed dissent, and threw others under the bus to save himself. History damns him."
Economist Yanis Varoufakis delivered a lengthy rundown of Starmer's failures as prime minister, arguing he "was not merely a disappointment" but "a mendacious figure of ethical decrepitude, a man who won the Labour party leadership based on promises that he jettisoned five seconds after winning."
"History will remember Mr. Starmer as a man without conviction," Varoufakis wrote, "a prime minister who offers not a shred of honesty, but merely the cruel illusion of change. He is ethically decrepit because he had chosen, consciously, to abandon principle for power. And for that, history will indict him. Good riddance, I say."
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Starmer Expected to Resign as PM, But UK Left Warns of 'More of the Same' From His Replacement
Jeremy Corbyn said Andy Burnham would be "accepting too much of the austerity that we've had imposed upon us" and "doesn't appear to be doing anything different internationally."
Jun 20, 2026
UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is expected to announce as soon as Monday that he will resign, according to new reports, as Labour supporters abandon the party.
But many on the left remain skeptical that his likely replacement, Andy Burnham, will truly bring the "change" he promises.
Britain's Observer newspaper reported on Saturday that the prime minister appeared "resigned" to stepping down, well aware that "support isn't there" for his continued leadership amid the party's dismal unpopularity.
Though Starmer swept away nearly a decade and a half of Conservative rule in 2024, his honeymoon has been short-lived. His embrace of austerity in the face of a cost-of-living crisis and his government's ferocious crackdowns on pro-Palestinian speech have left progressive supporters seeking alternatives like the ascendant Green Party.
Meanwhile, his hard-right pivot on immigration has done little to siphon votes from Brexiteer Nigel Farage's far-right Reform UK party, which currently leads in national polls.
The immediate trigger for Starmer's reported resignation was Burnham's victory in Thursday's Makerfield by-election, which marked the former mayor of Greater Manchester's return to Westminster. Burnham comfortably defeated a Reform UK candidate, and The Guardian reported that he was expected to have support from about 200 Labour MPs in a leadership challenge against Starmer.
Burnham emphasized during a victory rally that it was "a last chance to change" Labour as it heads for electoral oblivion.
Responding to what he said were requests from constituents to "do something to make life more affordable," Burnham called for an end to "trickle down economics," with government interventions to bring down utility bills and rail fares, public procurement of businesses, pushes for reindustrialization, and job guarantees for people ages 16 to 18.
But some leaders on the British left have warned that Burnham will do little to deviate from Starmer's failures.
While he has pledged to reverse Starmer's welfare cuts and privatizations of public services, Burnham has also committed to maintaining the party's spending limits, which may make significant changes impossible.
Islington North MP Jeremy Corbyn, who led the Labour Party from 2015-20, said that while he personally likes Burnham, "his basic economic strategy and views... seem to me to be accepting too much of the austerity that we've had imposed upon us."
The ex-leader also said Burnham "doesn't appear to be doing anything different internationally," noting that he has not given a straight answer on whether Britain should conduct an inquiry into the UK government's policy on Gaza and its supply of weapons to Israel.
Burnham has also drawn criticism for saying he would maintain Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood, who has spearheaded hard-line changes to UK asylum policies and has enforced the repressive ban on Palestine Action, which has led to the arrest of thousands of nonviolent protesters, many of whom have been charged with terrorism.
"The architect of Labour’s cruel plans on settled status and persecution of free speech and protest stays in place," said Green Party leader Zack Polanski, who said it was a sign of "more of the same."
Remarking on Burnham's team of economic advisers, who include former chief economists for the Bank of England and Goldman Sachs, Polanski said it "isn’t a team of advisers which looks like challenging wealth and power."
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A Warning From the UK for Centrist US Democrats Who Refuse to Fight for the Working Class
When Labour won, they were supposed to be an alternative to right-wing crazy, but now are losing the whole country to their own MAGA because a real alternative takes work.
Jun 16, 2026
The consensus is that this is the year for the Democrats. They have the political winds at their backs. Even with the gerrymandering and the voter suppression and everything Republicans have thrown at the wall, smart money says Democrats take the House and maybe the Senate. And anything that limits the power of this president is good. I’ll grant all of it. Net positive.
But what happens after a good cycle or two, if the winners don’t understand what they won? If they don’t see the pain that powered their victories?
We don’t have to guess because it already happened in Britain.
A year and a half ago, Labour won in a landslide. Imagine our centrist Democrats, the Newsom and Buttigieg wing, sweeping into power with the biggest majority in a generation. The Tories were finished, the same way a lot of folks think Republicans are about to be finished. But Labour walked in and decided the mission was better management. Be the adults in the room. Trim the spending. Talk tough on the border. The ship was fine, just needed a steady hand.
If Democrats get to Washington, take the gavels, and decide the job is just to clean up after Donald Trump and keep the machine humming, we know how this ends. We just watched it play out in Britain.
Now look at them. Reform is Nigel Farage’s party, which is their MAGA more or less. Reform is leading the polls, and Labour’s a distant second. Their MAGA has led just about every poll since late last year. Keir Starmer, the head of Labour, is one of the least popular leaders in the Western world. A year and a half ago centrists won everything. Now they’re watching the British version of Trumpism walk toward power.
When a party wins on the promise of change and then delivers management, the people who abandon ship don’t all come back. The ones who move, move right. The angry ones, the ones who feel lied to, don’t drift off to some nicer party on the left. They turn to the man burning it all down, which is always how the right takes power. Afterward, centrists throws up their hands, convinced the country is turning right, when in reality they’re turning desperate. If you promise change and deliver the status quo, things don’t get better; for a lot of people, they get worse.
Britain at least has a buffer. They build coalitions, so no single party runs the whole thing alone usually. The damage is scattered and slower. But the US doesn’t have that. We’ve got winner-takes-all, with gerrymandering stacked on top. Here, a centrist party that wins big and then governs scared doesn’t lose gracefully. It delivers the whole country to MAGA. The House, the Senate, the gavels, all of it.
Our centrists, the Newsoms, the Buttigiegs, the Slotkins, are on the rise right now. They aren’t leaders. They aren’t fierce advocates for structural change. In fact this is exactly the kind of compromise-driven, go-along-to-get-along Democratic Party that abandoned the working class and helped usher in MAGA. Hell, California Gov. Gavin Newsom can’t even bring himself to tax billionaires. These are folks who don’t get the depth of pain across our the country. And they certainly don’t get the ferocity behind the criminal administration wrecking our democracy. The Democratic Party and its faux leaders don’t see what’s coming, or they see it and don’t care. In the end it won’t matter which.
The cost of living is so far out of reach for young people that you can’t fix it with a tweak. There’s no tax credit, no rebate, no clever little program that closes that gap. It will take transformation. It will take building things again. The same is true for jobs. AI and robotics are about to come for human labor in a way this country has never seen, and Democrats have no plan for it. None. They’re not ready for the losses. They’re not ready for what happens to a person, to a town, to a whole generation, when the work goes away.
And they’re sure as hell not ready for what’s happening at the very top. Last week, Elon Musk became the world’s first trillionaire. I wrote on Thursday about how we built him, how public money and public research and public contracts carried him up the hill while we kept no ownership. Our tax dollars built SpaceX and then we handed over the deed. The pretenders in the Democratic Party, the ones about to take the reins, have no answer for that. They have no intention of stopping the next massive giveaway. Why? Because they don’t want to upset the interests who fund their campaigns.
Lack of accountability for guys at the top is the clearest indicator that we need systemic change. Forget for a second the question of genocide in Gaza. Forget the West Bank. You don’t have to know the answer for those to agree we should honestly investigate war crimes. The International Criminal Court already issued arrest warrants for Israel’s prime minister and defense minister for using starvation as a weapon of war. Our government’s response? To go after the court. To sanction its officials, and defend the war criminals.
Here at home, we’ve got a Justice Department unit whose entire job is crimes against humanity. Did it ever investigate Joe Biden’s cabinet, the men who signed off on the bombs? It didn’t. It won’t. They go after small men in faraway places, and give a pass to the policy masterminds here. The impunity of the powerful doesn’t start with Jeffrey Epstein or end with him. It runs straight through the war machine, the financial machine, the whole arrangement. A justice system that can’t prosecute its most powerful people for their most serious crimes is broken. You don’t fix broken with better management. You rebuild it.
We’ve got from now until the end of primary season to pick the right people. The candidates who understand our fight is structural. The ones who are ready for what’s actually coming. The ones not owned, willing to take a real risk.
If Democrats get to Washington, take the gavels, and decide the job is just to clean up after Donald Trump and keep the machine humming, we know how this ends. We just watched it play out in Britain. The winners were supposed to be an alternative to right-wing crazy, but now are losing the whole country to their own MAGA because a real alternative takes work.
That’s the thing about the so-called adults in the room. The centrists, the moderates, the corporatists, they won’t do the hard work. In part because they’re bankrolled by entrenched interests who will use every weapon in the arsenal to maintain status quo. And in part because of fear. They’re terrified of blame, so they’d rather keep walking toward disaster than take a chance on something better. Real reform means changing the whole structure, the democracy, the social fabric, the economy itself, and that’s going to take fight.
People are desperate for a life that works, but it’s easier for Dems to keep their heads down, push gently for incremental change, and hope things will get better on their own.
They won’t.
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'Travesty of Justice': UK Appeals Court Slammed for Upholding Ban on Palestine Action
"Classifying protest through direct action as terrorism brings Parliament and our judicial system into disrepute," said one Labour MP.
Jun 15, 2026
A UK appeals court is being accused of flouting the law to allow the government to suppress free speech after it upheld a ban on the direct action group Palestine Action.
Just days after four young activists with the group were hit with unprecedented “terrorism” sentences over their 2024 vandalism of an Israeli-owned weapons facility that was being used to supply the genocidal assault on Gaza, the Court of Appeal in London on Monday upheld the Labour government’s proscription of Palestine Action under the Terrorism Act of 2000.
The ban was approved in Parliament in July 2025 and outlawed expressions of support for the group. According to Amnesty International, more than 3,300 people have been arrested across Britain since last July "simply for their engagement in acts of peaceful protest opposing the proscription"—including more than 2,000 who have been arrested simply for holding signs that read "I oppose genocide, I support Palestine Action.”
Outside the Royal Courts of Justice in London, where the decision was handed down, hundreds more Britons rallied in opposition.
“We acknowledge the Court of Appeal’s judgment that the home secretary’s decision to proscribe Palestine Action was lawful,” the Metropolitan Police said in a statement shortly after. “This means that expressing support for the organization remains a criminal offense, and officers will arrest those who break the law.”
“Officers are policing a protest outside the Royal Courts of Justice today where a number of people are displaying placards in support of Palestine Action," it continued. "Arrests are underway.”
Protesters were carried away, while onlookers shouted, “Shame” and “You’re complicit” at officers.
Arrests continue outside the Royal Courts of Justice after Court of Appeal find proscription of Palestine Action to be lawful.
We will continue to protest this Government’s embarrassing attempts to cover up its crimes with intimidation tactics.
Join us: https://t.co/XhFvPsZC3U pic.twitter.com/9okcFkVVtf
— Defend Our Juries (@DefendOurJuries) June 15, 2026
As The New York Times pointed out:
Palestine Action, which no longer exists in its original form, did not promote violence against individuals. But its members damaged sites linked to Elbit Systems, an Israeli weapons manufacturer, and last June broke into [Royal Air Force] Brize Norton, Britain’s largest air force base, in Oxfordshire, vandalizing two aircraft.
The activists who were given hefty sentences on Friday have argued that “innocent lives were saved” by their destruction of military equipment in the Elbit facility. Drones manufactured by the company have been documented in use during attacks on civilians, including the April 2024 strike on a World Central Kitchen convoy that killed seven aid workers.
But although members of the group have never been accused of any premeditated act of violence against other human beings, the British government’s terror designation puts it on the same level, legally speaking, as al-Qaeda, the Taliban, or the neo-Nazi Atomwaffen Division, and expressions of support can carry maximum sentences of 14 years in prison.
In February, the High Court sided with Palestine Action, ruling that the ban on support breached the rights to free expression and assembly under Articles 10 and 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights.
However, a five-judge appeals court panel overruled this decision on Monday, with Chief Justice Sue Carr writing that while the ban was “highly controversial,” and that the group “was supported by many otherwise law-abiding citizens,” it was a “fundamental mistake to overlook the fact that Palestine Action overtly promoted unlawful violence amounting to terrorism.”
Pointing to its sabotage of Elbit, she said the group's actions were “intended to close down lawful businesses” and said that "future threats and risks posed to third-party individuals and property by Palestine Action were perhaps the most important factors to weigh in the balance.”
Carr said that the ban would "not prevent public expressions of support for the Palestinian cause or opposition to Israel and to the Israel Defense Forces, or demonstrations targeted at Elbit."
But in the process, even she acknowledged that such a severe restriction on peaceful assembly in support of Palestine Action could indeed have a "chilling effect" on otherwise law-abiding citizens and cause them to be "deterred from assembling lawfully or making their strongly held anti-Israel and pro-Palestinian views public for fear of their actions being construed as support for Palestine Action."
Palestine Action co-founder Huda Ammori, who challenged the ban in court, said her group would "fight this all the way" and planned to appeal to the UK Supreme Court and potentially even the European Court of Human Rights.
"We will not stop fighting to overturn one of the most extreme attacks on free speech and the right to protest in modern British history," she said. "This unprecedented abuse of power has devastated the lives of thousands of people while silencing dissent over Israel’s slaughter of the Palestinian people during the genocide, when that dissent could not be more urgent.”
Today's ruling by the Court of Appeal is deeply disappointing.
This case remains about much more than one group.
What’s important for all of us to understand is that proscription is one of the strongest powers the government has.
Treating protest as terrorism leaves the… pic.twitter.com/WI3O05LYEn
— Amnesty UK (@AmnestyUK) June 15, 2026
The ruling was met with outrage from supporters of Palestinian rights and human rights groups.
Ammar Kazmi, the senior legal coordinator for the Derby-based Left Legal Fighting Fund, said that with this ruling, the judges allowed the political objective of criminalizing pro-Palestine speech to take precedence over the law.
"The judges allowed policy reasons to override strictly legal arguments, and they showed deference to ‘national security’ questions," he wrote on social media. "They also said that proscription is a ‘proportionate’ interference with free speech rights. In other words, they allowed the government to ride roughshod over the law."
Amnesty UK called the ruling "deeply disappointing," adding that the case "remains about much more than one group."
"What’s important for all of us to understand is that proscribing a group as a terrorist organization is one of the strongest powers the government has," the human rights group said. "The banning of Palestine Action as a terrorist organization is a grave misuse of counterterrorism powers with serious consequences for human rights."
Former Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn—whose successor, Prime Minister Keir Starmer—enacted the ban, said, "Today’s ruling to uphold the UK government's proscription of Palestine Action is a travesty of justice."
"One by one, the very foundations of our democracy are being destroyed—all to oil the wheels of British complicity in genocide," said Corbyn, who is leading an unofficial "tribunal" that presented evidence of UK participation in Israel's assault on Gaza to the International Criminal Court in March.
Noting the large number of pensioners who have been hauled off by police for holding protest signs opposing the ban—including dozens arrested on Friday for opposing the sentencing of those involved in the Elbit raid—Labour MP John McDonnell said, "Parliament should reverse the decision to proscribe Palestine Action urgently before we see large numbers of elderly people in particular being dragged before our courts."
He added that "classifying protest through direct action as terrorism brings Parliament and our judicial system into disrepute."
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Corbyn Accuses Starmer Government of ‘Echoing Tony Blair’s Obedience to Washington’
"Blair dragged the UK into an illegal war that triggered a spiral of hatred, conflict, and misery," Corbyn said. "Twenty-three years later, another Labour prime minister is doing his best to follow in Blair’s footsteps."
Mar 03, 2026
As UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer allows British bases to be used as part of the US-Israeli war against Iran, the former leader of his Labour Party says he's making the same mistake that another Labour PM made 23 years ago.
Jeremy Corbyn, the socialist member of Parliament who led Labour from 2015 to 2020, said on Tuesday that Starmer was "echoing Tony Blair’s obedience to Washington", referring to the then-prime minister's decision in 2003 to join US President George W. Bush's war in Iraq.
"Ignoring the wisdom of ordinary people who could see the catastrophe ahead, Blair dragged the UK into an illegal war that triggered a spiral of hatred, conflict, and misery. More than a million Iraqi men, women, and children paid the price." Corbyn wrote in a Tuesday piece for the democratic socialist publicationTribune.
Infamously pledging to Bush, "I will be with you, whatever," Blair helped to promote the false claims that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction. And despite a lack of support from the United Nations, he joined Bush's "coalition of the willing," committing 46,000 British troops to the war.
"This was the last time a Labour prime minister blindly backed the wishes of the US and its warmongering president," Corbyn said. "Twenty-three years later, another Labour prime minister is doing his best to follow in Blair’s footsteps and drag us into a catastrophic, illegal war."
Unlike Bush, US President Donald Trump has not yet put boots on the ground in Iran, instead waging a destructive campaign of aerial bombings and missile strikes that have taken out the nation's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and other senior Iranian officials.
As of Monday, the Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA), a US-based monitor of human rights in Iran, reported that at least 742 civilians had been killed since Saturday by US and Israeli attacks, with nearly 1,000 injured and more than 600 deaths still under review.
While Starmer has stressed that the UK "had no role" in launching the war, he has lent credence to the questionable case the US and Israel have made to justify it, including emphasizing that Iran "must never have nuclear weapons."
Iran has always contended its nuclear program was not for military purposes, and it had no desire to produce a nuclear weapon. Prior to Saturday’s strikes, reports indicated that Iranian negotiators had offered to give up the nation's entire stockpile of enriched uranium.
And though he has accused Iran of launching "indiscriminate strikes" across the Gulf, Starmer has been reticent to criticize similar actions by the US and Israel, which have had vastly larger death tolls, including the bombing of a girls' school that reportedly killed 165 people, most of them girls between ages 7 and 12, and attacks on several hospitals.
One day after the first strikes were conducted, and following mounting pressure from Trump, Starmer announced that he'd given the US approval for "specific, limited defensive" use of three Royal Air Force (RAF) bases—Fairford in England, Akrotiri in Cyprus, and Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean—in order to destroy Iran's missiles "at source" after a drone hit Akrotiri, causing minimal damage.
However, Starmer continued to claim that the UK had learned the "mistakes of Iraq," and "will not join offensive action now."
Corbyn said that Starmer's insistence that bases would only be used "defensively" was merely "meaningless vocabulary that reveals Starmer’s contempt for the intelligence of the British people."
In Parliament on Monday, Starmer said that "the use of the bases is to allow the US to use its ability to take out the ability of Iran to launch the attacks in the first place."
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Monday used similar reasoning to justify launching the war, explaining that Iran was likely to retaliate against a planned Israeli attack and that it therefore posed an "imminent threat" to US personnel even though that threat was contingent on Israel attacking first.
Corbyn described the idea of a "preemptive strike" as a contradiction in terms. "Under this convoluted reasoning," he said, "almost any attack on anybody can be classified as a defensive measure. Starmer’s words are Newspeak—and cannot shield his government from complicity in the devastation ahead."
Like in the United States, the British public has expressed low support for American and Israeli actions against Iran. According to a YouGov poll published on Monday, 49% disapprove of US military action, compared to 28% who support it. Fewer than 1 in 5 Labour voters said they supported it.
Voters also said they oppose their government's involvement. Compared with just 32% of Brits who said they supported letting the US use British bases, 50% said they opposed it.
"For too long, Britain has blindly followed the US as it indulges in disastrous imperial fantasies," Corbyn said, noting the UK's continued support for Israel over two years of US-sponsored genocide in Gaza.
Corbyn is now an independent MP who co-founded a new political party after being thrown out of Labour in 2020 over dubious accusations of antisemitism, which he has alleged stem from his strong criticism of Israel.
"It’s time to forge a different path. Now is not the time to try to rescue a ‘special relationship’ characterised by impunity, genocide, and war," he said. "Now is the time to forge an independent foreign policy based on international law and peace."
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UK Medical Professionals Warn Palestine Action Hunger Strikers 'Will Die in Prison'
“I hope it doesn’t have to come to that because these demands are very, very simple,” said a friend to one of the activists. “They are asking the British government to uphold international and national law.”
Dec 19, 2025
Eight Palestine Action activists in the UK are at risk of dying in prison as they remain on hunger strike to protest their detention, according to hundreds of medical professionals.
More than 800 doctors, nurses, and therapists wrote to Justice Secretary David Lammy on Thursday to warn that the detainees, who are all between the ages of 20 and 31, were not receiving adequate medical care. The activists are being held in five prisons on remand, meaning that they are kept in prison before trial without being released on bail.
"Without resolution, there is the real and increasingly likely potential that young British citizens will die in prison, having never even been convicted of an offense,” the campaigners said.
At least five of the hunger strikers have reportedly been hospitalized after refusing food for weeks. Two of the strikers, Amu Gib and Qesser Zuhrah, have refused food for 48 days, while another, Heba Muraisi, has refused for 47.
Ella Moulsdale, a fellow activist and friend of Zurah's, told ITV: "It's very hard to watch her walk right now. She has almost no energy to, so she walks extremely slowly, with her back hunched in pain. She still wants me to hug her, but she can't hug back at all."
"Any day after day 35 is considered final and severe, when your body essentially starts to eat itself," Moulsdale said. "Her body is clearly working overtime, and it doesn't have enough fuel to keep her alive."
The eight hunger strikers are among 33 people arrested in connection with two direct actions against entities they argue are taking part in Israel’s human rights violations in Palestine.
Four were arrested for alleged involvement in a 2024 break-in at a facility in Filton for Elbit Systems, Israel's largest arms manufacturer and the primary supplier of weapons and surveillance technology used in the genocide in Gaza and Israel's occupation of the West Bank.
After breaking into the facility, activists are accused of having dismantled military equipment, including quadcopter drones, which have been used to kill and maim Palestinians in Gaza, sometimes reportedly playing the sounds of crying women and babies to lure them out of hiding. The activists also allegedly destroyed other weapons systems, computers, and manufacturing equipment, totaling over £1 million. In September, Elbit quietly closed down the site.
Four others are accused of trespassing at a British Royal Air Force base in Norton, where they reportedly sprayed red paint on the engines of two aircraft. According to one report, since December 2023, the RAF has conducted over 1,000 hours worth of surveillance over Gaza, communicating intelligence to the Israeli military.
The Labour Party government, led by Prime Minister Keir Starmer, added Palestine Action to a list of banned "terrorist" organizations in July, which made membership in or support for the group a criminal offense.
According to Amnesty International, more than 600 people were arrested for peacefully supporting the group between November 18 and 29. In October, over 500 protesters were arrested on a single day, mostly for holding signs calling on British authorities to lift the ban.
Since the ban went into effect, more than 2,700 people have been arrested across the UK over support for or involvement with Palestine Action. The UK has seen a more than 660% increase in "terrorism" related arrests since September as a result of the ban.
Dr. James Smith, an emergency physician and lecturer at University College London, told ITV that the activists on hunger strike need specialist medical care that they are not receiving.
According to Smith, 200 members of the British Medical Association wrote a letter to the organization's leadership "to sound the alarm" about "substandard monitoring and treatment" for the prisoners.
"The hunger strikers are at imminent risk of irreversible damage to their bodies, and of death," Smith said. “It is my view, as [a National Health Service] doctor, that the complexity of the hunger strikers’ care needs must now be managed with regular specialist input if not continuous monitoring in hospital.”
"Put simply, the hunger strikers are dying,” he added at a press conference Thursday. “They are all now at a critical stage.”
Earlier this week, a group of 51 members of parliament and peers wrote a separate letter urging Lammy to meet with lawyers for the eight prisoners. UK Prison Minister Lord James Timpson dismissed the request, saying he would not meet with any of the prisoners or their attorneys: "I don't treat any prisoners any differently from any other," he said.
On Wednesday, former Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, who is now an independent MP, wrote Lammy another letter asking if he shared the minister's satisfaction, and reiterating that the eight prisoners are "at serious risk of death" amid "regular breaches of prison conditions and prison rules."
"The Ministry of Justice is still refusing to meet with the lawyers or families of hunger strikers being held on remand," Corbyn said in a post on social media. "This is a shambolic dereliction of duty. I have written to David Lammy, again, imploring him to do the right thing before it is too late."
Starmer responded to Corbyn's criticisms himself in Parliament that same day: “He will appreciate there are rules and procedures in place in relation to hunger strikes, and we’re following those rules and procedures."
The hunger strikers have demanded immediate bail and the right to a fair trial. They have also called for an end to the censorship of their communications, a lift on the ban against Palestine Action, and the closing of all UK sites run by Elbit.
Asked if her friend Zurah would continue to refuse food even as she reaches deadly stages, Moulsdale said, "That's ultimately her decision to make."
"I hope it doesn't have to come to that because these demands are very, very simple," she said. "They are asking the British government to uphold international and national law."
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UK Labour to Let Authorities Take Jewelry From Asylum-Seekers as Part of Sweeping New Immigration Crackdown
"Labour won't redistribute wealth from billionaires," said former party Leader Jeremy Corbyn. "But they will seize belongings from those fleeing war and persecution."
Nov 17, 2025
A new asylum policy announced Monday by the UK Labour Party will allow authorities to confiscate the jewelry and other belongings of asylum-seekers in order to pay for their claims to be processed.
The policy, which some critics said was "reminiscent of the Nazi era," was just one part of the Labour Party's total overhaul of the nation's asylum system, which it says must be made much more restrictive in order to fend off rising support for the far-right.
In a policy paper released Monday, the government announced that it would seek to make the status of many refugees temporary and gave the government new powers to deport refugees if it determines it to be safe. It also revoked policies requiring the government to provide housing and legal support to those fleeing persecution, while extending the amount of time they need to wait for permanent residency to 20 years, up from just five, for those who arrive illegally.
The UK government also said it will attempt to change the way judges interpret human rights law to more seamlessly carry out deportations, including stopping immigrants from using their rights to family life under the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) to avoid deportation.
In an article for the Guardian published Sunday, UK Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood called the reforms "the most significant and comprehensive changes to our asylum system in a generation." She said they were necessary because the increase in migration to the UK had stirred up "dark forces" in the country that are "seeking to turn that anger into hate."
Nigel Farage, the leader of the far-right Reform UK Party, is leading national polls on the back of a viciously anti-immigrant campaign that has included calls to abolish the UK's main pathway for immigrants to become permanent residents, known as "leave to remain."
Meanwhile, in September, over 100,000 people gathered in London for an anti-immigrant rally led by Tommy Robinson, a notorious far-right figure who founded the anti-Muslim English Defence League (EDL). The event saw at least 26 police officers injured by protesters.
Last summer, riots swept the UK after false claims—spread by Robinson, Farage, and other far-right figures—that the perpetrator of the fatal stabbing of two young girls and their caretaker had been a Muslim asylum-seeker. A hotel housing asylum-seekers was set on fire, mosques were vandalised and destroyed, and several immigrants and other racial minorities were brutally beaten.
Mahmood said that if changes are not made to the asylum system, "we risk losing popular consent for having an asylum system at all."
But as critics were quick to point out, the far-right merely took Labour's crackdown as a sign that it is winning the war for hearts and minds.
Robinson gloated to his followers that "the Overton window has been obliterated, well done patriots!" while Farage chortled that Mahmood "sounds like a Reform supporter."
Many members of the Labour coalition expressed outrage at their ostensibly Liberal Party's bending to the far-right.
"The government should be ashamed that its migration policies are being cheered on by Tommy Robinson and Reform," said Nadia Whittome, the Labour MP for Nottingham East. "Instead of standing up to anti-migrant hate, this is laying the foundations for the far-right."
In a speech in Parliament, she chided the home secretary's policy overhaul, calling it "dystopian."
"It's shameful that a Labour government is ripping up the rights and protections of people who have endured unimaginable trauma," she said. "Is this how we'd want to be treated if we were fleeing for our lives? Of course not."
The UK has signed treaties, including the ECHR, obligating it to process the claims of those who claim asylum because they face persecution in their home countries based on race, religion, nationality, group membership, or political opinion. According to data from the Home Office, over 111,000 people claimed asylum in the year from June 2024-25, more than double the number who did in 2019.
The spike came as the number of people displaced worldwide reached an all-time high of over 123.2 million at the end of 2024, according to the Norwegian Refugee Council, with desperate people seeking safety from escalating conflicts in Sudan, Ukraine, Myanmar, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and across the Middle East.
In her op-ed, Mahmood lamented that "the burden borne by taxpayers has been unfair." However, as progressive commentator Owen Jones pointed out, the UK takes in far fewer asylum-seekers than its peers: "Last year, Germany took over twice as many asylum-seekers as the UK. France, Italy, and Spain took 1.5 times as many. Per capita, we take fewer than most EU countries. Poorer countries such as Greece take proportionately more than we do."
The Labour government, led by Prime Minister Keir Starmer, already boasts that it has deported more than 50,000 people in the UK illegally since it came to power in 2024, but it has predictably done little to satiate the far-right, which has only continued to gain momentum in polls despite the crackdown.
Under the new rules, it is expected that the government will be able to fast-track many more deportations, particularly of families with children.
The jewelry rule, meanwhile, has become a potent symbol of how the Labour Party has shifted away from its promises of economic egalitarianism toward austerity and punishment of the most vulnerable.
"Labour won't redistribute wealth from billionaires," said former party leader Jeremy Corbyn, who is now an independent MP. "But they will seize belongings from those fleeing war and persecution."
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UK Grants Police New Powers to Crush Peaceful Protests as Palestine Action Demonstrations Continue
"Just because you have freedom doesn’t mean you have to use it at every moment of every day," said Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood after hundreds of peaceful demonstrators were arrested.
Oct 06, 2025
After the British government's ban on the group Palestine Action earlier this year failed to silence demonstrations against the genocide in Gaza, the UK's Home Office announced Sunday that it would give police sweeping new powers to crush peaceful protests.
Police arrested nearly 500 more pro-Palestine demonstrators on Saturday—including many Jewish activists—who participated in a protest calling for the government to "Lift the Ban" on the protest group Palestine Action, which was outlawed under Britain's anti-terrorism law in July.
Those arrested included an 83-year-old Anglican priest, the 79-year-old daughter of a Holocaust survivor, and a 79-year-old Jewish man with terminal illness, among hundreds of others who held signs in opposition to the ban as part of a "silent vigil."
That ban was instituted after members of Palestine Action were accused of vandalizing planes at a military base and has been widely criticized, including by former members of the Labour government that passed it. Even the UK’s Joint Terrorism Analysis Center acknowledged in a leaked March report revealed last month by the New York Times that the vast majority of the protest group's actions “would not be classified as terrorism.”
Prior to Saturday, more than 2,000 people had already been arrested since the ban went into effect for voicing support for the outlawed organization. Despite this, the demonstrations have continued, and the Home Office, which handles matters of public safety, announced Sunday that more drastic measures would be taken.
It said police forces would be given new powers under the UK's existing policing law, the Public Order Act, to put new conditions on "repeat protests" and allow senior police authorities to relocate or "to ban protests outright" based on their "cumulative impact."
"The right to protest is a fundamental freedom in our country. However, this freedom must be balanced with the freedom of their neighbours to live their lives without fear," said Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood. "Large, repeated protests can leave sections of our country, particularly religious communities, feeling unsafe, intimidated, and scared to leave their homes. This has been particularly evident in relation to the considerable fear within the Jewish community, which has been expressed to me on many occasions in these recent difficult days."
In the wake of the deadly attack on a Manchester synagogue last week, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer had called on the group Defend Our Juries (DOJ) to call off Saturday's demonstration in order to "respect the grief of British Jews this week.”
But DOJ organizers said in a statement Friday that "many Jewish supporters of Defend Our Juries have warned that postponing tomorrow’s action would risk conflating the actions of the state of Israel with Jewish people around the world, as [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu seeks to do, who bear no responsibility for Israel’s crimes, which could fuel antisemitic hatred and prejudice."
Other leading Jewish figures in Britain have denounced the UK's criminalization of Palestine Action. In August, more than 300 of them, including Jenny Manson, chairperson of Jewish Voice for Labour, signed a letter to Prime Minister Keir Starmer and then-Home Secretary Yvette Cooper denouncing the ban as “illegitimate and unethical.”
According to a poll by YouGov in July, 37% of British people said that in the Israel-Palestine conflict, they sympathized more with the Palestinians, while just 15% said they sympathized more with the Israelis. Others said they sympathized with both equally or were unsure.
In a widely circulated BBC News interview on Sunday, Mahmood defended the Home Office's new restrictions on the basis that it was distasteful for DOJ to protest against Israel at a time when Jewish people were in mourning and that police should have the ability to intervene in such protests.
"I don't think it's offensive to ask people to show a little humanity towards a community that's suffered a terrible tragedy. That's the first loss of Jewish life, simply for being Jewish, on British soil in centuries," she said. "Just because you have a freedom doesn’t mean you have to use it at every moment of every day."
DOJ responded in a post on X: "This is what the home secretary thinks of democracy. Your freedoms are only freedoms within a specific timeframe, a designated location, and only if permitted to be used by Shabana Mahmood. We are fighting for all our freedoms. We will not be deterred." The group has said it will only continue to escalate its protests and called for more demonstrations in November.
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Declassified Report Belies UK 'Terrorism' Designation for Palestine Action
The report acknowledges that "the majority" of Palestine Action's activities "would not be classified as terrorism" under the highly contentious Terrorism Act of 2000.
Sep 12, 2025
A declassified British intelligence report published Friday by The New York Times undermined the UK government's claims and rationale for banning the direct action group Palestine Action under the country's dubious anti-terrorism law.
Speaking earlier this week, UK State Security Minister Dan Jarvis defended the government's terror designation for Palestine Action under the Terrorism Act of 2000, accusing the group and its supporters of an "escalating campaign involving intimidation and sustained criminal damage, including to Britain's national security infrastructure."
The report was published by the Times as former Labour Party leader Neil Kinnock condemned the government of Prime Minister Keir Starmer's stance on Palestine Action, telling Middle East Eye that "simply, I can't see how belonging to or demonstrating for a group that is rightly extremely concerned about the appalling situation in Gaza is terrorism."
Former Labour leader Neil Kinnock says Palestine Action are not terrorists in split with StarmerMost high-profile divide so far: Kinnock tells @MiddleEastEye people have a right to be appalled at situation in Gaza and proscription 'blunting' terror lawswww.middleeasteye.net/news/exclusi...
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— Defend Our Juries (@defendourjuries.bsky.social) September 12, 2025 at 8:31 AM
But the leaked report, issued March 7 by the UK's Joint Terrorism Analysis Center (JTAC) and first reported by journalist Craig Murray in August, acknowledges that "the majority" of activities by Palestine Action "would not be classified as terrorism" under the law because they typically involve relatively "minor" property damage, such as "graffiti, petty vandalism, occupation, and lock-ons."
The group's actions include damaging property belonging to weapons makers such as the Israeli firm Elbit Systems, spray-painting warplanes at a British military base, and defacing US President Donald Trump's Turnberry golf resort in Scotland—acts experts say do not constitute terrorism.
"UK domestic counterterrorism legislation defines terrorist acts broadly to include 'serious damage to property.' But, according to international standards, terrorist acts should be confined to criminal acts intended to cause death or serious injury or to the taking of hostages, for purpose of intimidating a population or to compel a government to take a certain action or not," United Nations human rights chief Volker Türk said in July.
Türk added that the UK legislation "misuses the gravity and impact of terrorism to expand it beyond those clear boundaries, to encompass further conduct that is already criminal under the law."
Still, JTAC asserted that Palestine Action "commits or participates in acts of terrorism" under the law by perpetrating "incidents that have resulted in serious property damage with the aim of progressing its political cause."
The report accuses Palestine Action members of "using weapons, including sledgehammers, axes, and whips, to cause a significant amount of property damage" in one action, during which "two responding police officers and a security guard were assaulted and suffered injuries."
However, JTAC noted that it is "highly unlikely" that Palestine Action would ever "advocate for violence against persons."
"Any such call for action would constitute a significant escalation" of Palestine Action's "strategy and intent," the report states.
At least 138 people have been charged with terrorism offenses under Section 13 of the Terrorism Act, which bans displays of symbols or wearing clothing that "arouse reasonable suspicion that [a person] is a member or supporter of a proscribed organization."
The Terrorism Act has long been condemned by civil liberties defenders, who decry the law's "vague and overbroad" definition of terrorism, chilling effect on free speech and expression, invasive stop-and-search powers, pre-charge detention and control orders, sweeping surveillance and data collection, and other provisions.
More than 1,600 people have been arrested during demonstrations of support for Palestine Action—mostly organized by the group Defend Our Juries—since the group's proscription, including nearly 900 attendees of a September 6 rally in London's Parliament Square.
Many of those arrested did nothing more than hold up signs reading: "I Oppose Genocide. I Support Palestine Action."
Arrestees include many elders, including 83-year-old Rev. Sue Parfitt, who argued that "we cannot be bystanders" in the face of Israel's US-backed genocide in Gaza, which has left more than 237,000 Palestinians dead, maimed, or missing, hundreds of thousands more starving by design, and around 1 million others under the threat of imminent ethnic cleansing as Israeli forces move to conquer and occupy the coastal strip.
"I know that we are in the right place doing the right thing," said Parfitt, who was arrested at a July 6 Defend Our Juries protest in Parliament Square against the terror designation for Palestine Action.
Last week, two Metropolitan Police officers speaking under condition of anonymity said they felt guilty and ashamed of having to arrest peaceful Palestine Action supporters.
“Instead of catching real criminals and terrorists," one of the officers told Novara Media, "we are arresting pensioners and disabled people calling for the saving of children’s lives."
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'No Red Carpet' for Israel's Herzog: UK Urged to Arrest 'Genocide President' in London
"The only reason to welcome this man into our country," said one critic, "is to immediately facilitate his transfer to The Hague to be tried for war crimes."
Sep 10, 2025
Thousands of people turned out in London Tuesday to call for the arrest of visiting Israeli President Isaac Herzog—who is the subject of criminal complaints alleging incitement to genocide and crimes against humanity—and to denounce UK complicity in the annihilation of Gaza.
Demonstrators rallied outside UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer's office in central London, where they waved Palestinian flags and chanted messages including, "Keir Starmer, you can't hide, we charge you with genocide!" and, "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!"
"Herzog's presence here is an insult to every Palestinian who has lost their home, their family, their life," said Amina, a 34-year-old protester holding a sign that read, "Stop the Genocide in Gaza."
"Starmer must act now—arrest Herzog and show the world that the UK stands against war crimes," she added.
Zarah Sultana—a member of Parliament (MP) who recently quit Starmer's Labour Party and joined with fellow former Labour MP Jeremy Corbyn and others to launch the Independent Alliance—told protesters that Herzog has "dehumanized an entire population and openly called for their extermination."
"This Labour government is complicit, is enabling genocide," she added.
Later on Tuesday, protesters gathered outside the InterContinental London Park Lane Hotel, where Herzog was reportedly staying, calling him the "genocide president" and chanting, "Free Palestine!" and "No justice, no peace!"
While not targeted by the International Criminal Court—which last year issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes in Gaza—Herzog is the subject of criminal complaints filed in Switzerland last year by the advocacy group Legal Action Against Genocide "for incitement to genocide and crimes against humanity."
Days after the Hamas-led attack of October 7, 2023 that left more than 1,100 Israelis and others dead—at least some of whom were killed by so-called "friendly fire" and under the intentionally fratricidal Hannibal Directive—and around 250 people kidnapped, Herzog suggested that every Palestinian man, woman, and child in Gaza was a legitimate target.
"It is an entire nation out there that is responsible," Herzog told reporters on October 13, 2023. "It is not true this rhetoric about civilians not being aware, not involved. It's absolutely not true. They could have risen up. They could have fought against that evil regime which took over Gaza."
That same month, Ezra Yachin—a 95-year-old veteran of the Zionist terror militia Stern Gang who allegedly took part in the 1948 massacre of more than 100 Palestinian civilians at Deir Yassin—delivered a motivational speech to troops about to invade Gaza, urging them to "wipe out [Palestinians'] memory, their families, mothers, and children."
Herzog hailed Yachin's speech as "a wonderful example to generations of soldiers."
When the International Court of Justice (ICJ)—which is currently weighing a genocide case against Israel filed by South Africa—issued its January 2024 order for Israel to avoid genocidal acts in Gaza, Herzog's October 13, 2023 comments were listed second in a series of "dehumanizing" statements by Israeli officials who were possibly inciting genocide.
Tuesday's protests against Herzog followed a demonstration earlier in the day outside the Defense and Security Equipment International (DSEI) arms fair at Excel London at Royal Victoria Dock, where thousands of people rallied against UK complicity in Israel's genocidal war and famine.
Israel's 705-day onslaught has left at least 237,000 Palestinians dead, maimed, or missing. Hundreds of thousands of Gazans are starving due to Israel's "complete siege" and engineered famine, and around 1 million Palestinians are facing ethnic cleansing under a US-backed plan to conquer, occupy, and resettle Gaza.
UK leaders have come under fire for cracking down on anti-genocide protests, including by banning the group Palestine Action and arresting hundreds of people who have publicly voiced support for the organization.
Condemnation of Herzog's visit was not limited to the streets of London. In the House of Commons, Scottish National Party Leader Stephen Flynn told fellow parliamentarians that "Gaza is a graveyard."
"Gaza is a graveyard...What does it say of this Prime Minister that he will harbour this man whilst children starve?"SNP Westminster leader Stephen Flynn criticises the PM's decision to host Israel's president later today. #PMQs
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— Holyrood (@holyroodmag.bsky.social) September 10, 2025 at 5:34 AM
"But rather than end arms sales, extend sanctions, and stand by international law, the prime minister will today welcome into his home.. the man who called for the collective punishment of the Palestinian people, and who signed the artillery shells that destroyed their homes, their families, and their friends," Flynn said.
"What does it say of this prime minister that we will harbor this man while children starve?" Flynn asked.
Zack Polanski, a member of the London Assembly and leader of the Green Party of England and Wales, said Tuesday in a statement that "welcoming a potential war criminal to the UK is another demonstration of how this Labour government is implicated in the ongoing genocide in Gaza."
"A refusal to detain Herzog can be seen as a contravention of the Geneva Convention, which makes clear that states have legal responsibility for preventing the targeting of civilians," Polanski added. "When this is breached, individuals must be prosecuted, and this should be applied to Herzog."
Critical media also decried Herzog's visit, with the pro-independence Scottish newspaper The National on Wednesday running the front-page headline, "Starmer Rolls Out Red Carpet for Genocide."
Tomorrow's front page 📰Starmer rolls out red carpet for genocide
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— The National (@scotnational.bsky.social) September 9, 2025 at 2:43 PM
Writing for Middle East Eye, British author, political commentator, and Labour politician Ali Milani noted Wednesday that "Starmer has... described the actions of Herzog's government as 'appalling, counterproductive, and intolerable.'"
"To say one thing in Parliament about Israel's actions, and then to roll out the red carpet for Herzog, would not only endorse the impunity granted to Tel Aviv over Israeli crimes in Gaza; it would also shred the credibility of Labour's foreign policy," he argued.
"There should be no red carpet. There should be no ministerial meetings. Instead, there should be accountability," Milani added. "The only reason to welcome this man into our country is to immediately facilitate his transfer to The Hague to be tried for war crimes."
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