OPINION
Keir Starmer has caved to the mob (Image: PA)
Nearly a year into office, Britain’s Government is facing a moment of reckoning—one that will define how seriously it takes its foreign policy commitments, its alliances, and the moral clarity expected of a leading democratic power. The recent decision to suspend negotiations on the UK–Israel Free Trade Agreement, at a time when Israel is engaged in a legitimate campaign against Hamas, is not just poor diplomacy — it is a strategic and ethical miscalculation.
On October 7 2023, Hamas — a group proscribed under UK law — launched the single deadliest attack on Jews since the Holocaust. Civilians were slaughtered in their homes. Women were raped, mutilated, and burned alive. Children were executed in front of their parents. Around 251 people were taken hostage. The scale of savagery defies comprehension.
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Israel’s military response, however controversial in the public imagination, is grounded in law. Under Article 51 of the UN Charter, Israel has the right — and indeed the duty — to defend its citizens and dismantle the infrastructure of a terror organisation that not only promises but actively plots its annihilation.
The current operation in Rafah, targeting Hamas’s last entrenched battalions, is not indiscriminate. It is deliberate, methodical, and accompanied by unprecedented efforts to minimise civilian harm: evacuations, humanitarian corridors, leaflets, phone calls, and pauses in fire.
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This is the reality into which Britain’s decision to freeze trade talks lands. It is not a neutral gesture. It sends a clear message—that even as a democratic state confronts barbaric terrorism and seeks to recover its hostages, it can expect economic consequences and diplomatic distance from one of its oldest allies.
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No similar measures have been taken against nations whose records are unambiguously worse. Trade continues with China, despite its treatment of Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang.
Diplomatic relations are strong with Gulf monarchies whose legal frameworks institutionalise gender and sexual discrimination. No freezes, no public condemnations, no moral litmus tests.
Yet Israel — the only liberal democracy in the Middle East, a world leader in counterterrorism, cybersecurity, and medicine — is singled out. Not because it has violated international law, but because it has dared to defend itself.
This is not merely inconsistent. It is harmful. The UK–Israel trade relationship is worth over ￡7 billion annually. It supports innovation, jobs, and mutual resilience across industries including life sciences, AI, and energy.
Suspending that deal doesn’t weaken Hamas. It weakens Britain’s standing, economically and diplomatically. It also emboldens those who see terrorism not as a red line, but as a tool to manipulate the international system.
Every time democratic countries punish those who resist terrorism more than those who perpetrate it, they teach the world that hostage-taking and mass murder yield results.
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Some in government may see this decision as responsive. Perhaps even sensitive to community feeling. But this risks oversimplifying complex identities. British Muslims are not a monolith.
Many abhor Hamas’s ideology and support peace, tolerance, and pluralism. To presume otherwise is not representation — it is condescension disguised as outreach.
What’s more, this policy shift risks legitimising the very logic espoused by the BDS movement: isolate Israel economically, frame it as a pariah, and pressure it into unilateral concessions.
That such thinking now echoes from within the Foreign Office should be cause for concern across party lines. To claim support for a two-state solution while applying pressure only on Israel — and not on Hamas, Islamic Jihad, or even the Palestinian Authority which continues to glorify terrorism — is not diplomacy.
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It is selective morality. And selective morality erodes trust. If Britain is to remain a credible voice for peace and rule-based order, it must be clear-eyed about who its allies are, and who its adversaries are. That means standing with fellow democracies under siege — not just in words, but in deeds.
Freezing trade talks in this moment does not reflect principled neutrality. It reflects political expediency dressed in moral language.
The long-term cost will be measured not only in economic terms, but in the erosion of alliances, the weakening of our deterrence, and the diminishing of Britain’s moral authority.