Breaking the UK’s complicity in Israel’s genocide

On 17 June 2025, soldiers in Israeli tanks opened fire on a queue of Palestinians in Gaza. Having risen early to collect limited flour supplies, they were instead met with a rain of bullets. At least 51 were killed. It would be inaccurate to say that this attack reached new depths of depravity, because the horrors Israel has inflicted on the Palestinian people in Gaza have been consistent and barbaric. But this attack on a hungry crowd was a striking illustration of just how confident Israel is that it will face no consequences for even the most egregious war crimes. 

This confidence has been borne out through months of testing the limits of what the rest of the world will support or allow. Israel has pushed boundaries then blown them to smithereens. How many civilians can they kill in one strike before there are meaningful consequences? How nakedly can ministers state intent to commit genocide and ethnic cleansing? How many months is it permitted to starve an entire population? We still don’t know the final answer to these questions, because no matter the war crimes, the arms flows have never stopped and Israel has faced no meaningful sanctions. 

The appearance of action

At points, it has appeared as though pressure was building to force a change in the UK’s complicity in war crimes. As Israel’s blockade of all aid into Gaza reached deep into its third month, the UK, alongside France and Canada, warned that Israel would face ‘concrete action’ if it didn’t change course.  Following days of immense pressure, Foreign Secretary David Lammy announced two new measures. 

First, he suspended talks over a deeper trade deal with Israel. These talks should have never been taking place, not least because among the UK’s stated aims for these trade talks has been closer ties with Israel’s technology industry, large parts of which are involved in developing tools for the surveillance and oppression of Palestinians. Lammy also placed sanctions on a small collection of Israeli settler groups, individuals and outposts in the West Bank.  

While Lammy’s tone in the Commons was solemn, even angry, neither of these measures will have an immediate effect on Israel’s ability to wage its war of annihilation. The trade talks are simply paused, so the UK may relaunch them at a later date when the news cycle makes it look less psychopathic to do so. And while sanctions on violent settlers are no doubt justified, the UK’s targeting of individuals and small groups actively distracts from the fact that it is the Israeli state which drives the deepening colonisation of the West Bank. 

No doubt the government wants to look like it is doing something in the face of huge public demand to put more pressure on Israel. But after suspending around 30 arms licenses in September, it has fought tooth and nail against demands for a full arms embargo on Israel, most egregiously failing to stop the supply of key parts for F-35s, the fighter jets which Israel has used throughout its attacks on Gaza. Challenged in court, government lawyers have argued that the UK’s role in the production of these jets takes precedence above stopping genocide. 

Meanwhile, in the three months after its limited suspension of arms authorisations, the UK government licenced £127.6m worth of military equipment to Israel – more than the UK has exported in four years from 2020-23. As long as arms flow and military support continues, the UK remains an active partner in Israel’s genocide.

Meaningful sanctions

If the suspension of talks over a new trade deal were little more than a smokescreen for inaction, what could meaningful economic sanctions look like? First, and long overdue, is a ban on all trade and investment connected to Israel’s illegal settlements, the colonies which have been built on territory stolen from Palestinians in the West Bank over the past six decades and which have expanded rapidly in the past two years. 

Other countries, including Chile and Ireland, are finally beginning to ban trade connected with settlements. Yet, while the UK acknowledges their illegality and their severe harm to Palestinians, it still allows UK firms the option of trading with or investing in them, helping to make this illegal activity profitable. The long-running support from the UK and other countries for the settlements has no doubt contributed to the calculated impunity with which Israel now feels able to act in Gaza. And just as the West Bank settlements are part of a project of expansion which seeks to violently seize ever more land, senior Israeli ministers are already calling for Israel to build new settlements in Gaza.    

A ban on this egregious trade would be the lowest of low-hanging fruit and a straightforward legal obligation. In July 2024, the International Court of Justice confirmed that Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territory is unlawful and must end immediately, and emphasised the obligations of other states not to provide assistance to Israel’s illegal occupation, including through trade relations. Yet nearly a year after the court’s intervention, the UK government has not even raised the possibility of a ban. 

The long-running support from the UK and other countries for the settlements has no doubt contributed to the calculated impunity with which Israel now feels able to act in Gaza

More comprehensive economic sanctions would also have precedent. Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the UK has enacted comprehensive trade and financial sanctions, freezing the assets of Russian banks bankrolling the Russian occupation of Crimea, banning the export of UK goods critical for Russian manufacturing, and banning all new investment into Russia. Similar measures targeting the Israeli economy would be fully justified and, as former Israel government adviser Daniel Levy has argued, could turn public opinion against Israel’s genocidal attacks. This must include the suspension of the still-existing UK-Israel trade agreement. 

Yet the government has so far refused to budge, with David Lammy arguing that the UK’s trading relationship with Israel means ‘any discussion of sanctions is just not correct’. The double-standards at play are mind-blowing – and the consequences for Palestinians are disastrous.

Support for sanctions, repression of action

As Israel deepens its genocide in Gaza and is now attacking Iran, the UK’s military support for Israel and failure to hold it accountable is helping to shatter all norms of international law. Nearly two-thirds of the British public support a full arms embargo and economic sanctions on Israel, with only 11% opposed to either measure. 

Not only is the government failing to act on public opinion, its approach to public protest against UK complicity is growing increasingly authoritarian, shown most recently in the announcement that it will seek to use anti-terrorism laws to ban protest group Palestine Action.   

Pressure from Donald Trump, and a desire to show the UK is still the US’s most loyal lapdog, is likely a factor behind the failure to hit Israel with real sanctions.But it’s hard not to suspect that the government also wants to keep the door open to revisit those paused trade negotiations, for closer economic relations down the line, and access to Israel’s militarised tech. 

It’s a grim equation. Israel cannot be allowed to continue its genocide without consequences. We must raise the political cost of complicity for the UK government too – and hold our own leaders accountable.