Yesterday, Keir Starmer announced the UK’s recognition of a Palestinian state, a move the BBC described as “a significant change in government policy”.

Commentators were quick to suggest that the decision reflects pressure from backbenchers concerned about losing support to the Greens and independent candidates motivated by British foreign policy, but this does not tell the whole story.

While it is true that many Labour MPs have faced intense lobbying on this issue from constituents and local members, it would be wrong to attribute Labour’s position simply to these recent pressures. Recognition of a Palestinian state has been Labour policy for over a decade. What is perhaps most remarkable is that Starmer has actually followed through with this commitment — given his tendency to jettison policies that could be read as too “Left-wing”.

It is well-known that Jeremy Corbyn, Keir Starmer’s predecessor, is a passionate supporter of Palestinian statehood, and this issue is central to his nascent political project. But, so was Jeremy Corbyn’s predecessor, Ed Miliband.

As early as 2012, Miliband confirmed that a Labour government would back Palestinian recognition, and ahead of the 2015 general election, he told The Times he would support recognising Palestinian statehood within the first year or two of a Labour government.

Miliband’s support for Palestinian statehood in the early 2010s was widely felt across the Labour Party. In 2014, the Labour MP for Easington Grahame Morris proposed the backbench motion, “That this House believes that the Government should recognise the state of Palestine alongside the state of Israel.” The motion commanded supporters from expected quarters, with most Labour MPs giving supportive speeches. But so too did several Conservatives, including Nicholas Soames, who said “I am convinced that recognising Palestine is both morally right and in our national interests.”

Ultimately, 274 MPs voted for the motion, with just 12 opposed. The government had instructed its own MPs to abstain, but Labour had placed a one-line whip in favour.

Palestinian statehood, then, does not sit neatly in Labour’s internal factional divides. They have been misled in this impression by the fact that rhetoric about Israel became central to the factional disputes in the Corbyn years. But it would be a mistake to think that ​​the MPs who felt that some Corbyn supporters’ criticism of Israel had gone too far were not opponents of Palestinian statehood. Even Mike Gapes, a perennial thorn in Jeremy Corbyn’s side, spoke and voted for the Palestinian statehood motion in 2014.

Starmer’s support for Palestinian statehood is therefore not a capitulation to the Labour Left. Rather, it reflects the realisation of a long-standing party policy. Most Labour MPs have historically supported statehood — as a point of principle, not as the outcome of some further negotiations.

The policy is unlikely to move the dial on the conduct of the Israeli government, but from Labour’s perspective, the decision to recognise statehood has not been a question of whether it has any impact on Israeli conduct. In 2014, Labour’s Shadow Minister for the Middle East said, “We are clear that Palestinian statehood is not a gift to be given, but a right to be recognised.”

So, while electoral pressures have played an important and perhaps even decisive role in Keir Starmer’s calculation about whether to declare Palestine a state, it cannot be said that the Labour Party has only just arrived at this position in the wake of the 2024 election. Labour MPs can now be happy that their own principled beliefs and the leader’s electoral calculations have, for once, aligned.

---

Richard Johnson is a Senior Lecturer in Politics at Queen Mary University of London.

richardmarcj

---