PM Considers Blocking Imports From Illegal Israeli Settlements

Andy Burnham is considering banning the trade in goods and services linked to illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank.

A ban would be the strongest response yet by the UK government in response to Israel’s escalation of settler violence and displacement of Palestinian communities. YouGov polling shows that 50% of British people would back such a ban, compared with 16% who would oppose it.

The potential ban comes after Israel opened up bidding for construction of 1,200 new settler homes in the E1 area of the occupied West Bank. Foreign secretary Ed Miliband condemned the project as a threat to a two-state solution, which would split the West Bank in two and separate Palestinian communities from East Jerusalem. 

Labour has come under internal pressure to take action against Israeli settlements since June, with more than 140 Labour MPs – around a third of the parliamentary party – signing a letter calling for a trade ban with illegal settlements.

The government said it would “set out a comprehensive set of measures” in the coming weeks in response. But it faces strong opposition from advocacy group Labour Friends of Israel (LFI), which claims that a trade ban could become a “de facto boycott” of Israel.

LFI, which counts many of Burnham’s cabinet ministers as current or former members, has argued that the ban “would be deeply damaging to the UK national interest, the British Jewish community and Palestinian workers”.

However, Chris Doyle, director of the Council for Arab-British Understanding (CAABU), described the LFI’s position as “a disgrace”. 

“Just because Israel makes it hard to tell which are Israeli goods and which are settlement goods is not the UK’s problem. It is Israel’s,” he wrote on X. “You do not get to export proceeds of crime just because the criminal party mixes the legal with the illegal.”

Several other European governments have already taken steps to implement sanctions against Israel. In July, the Irish government passed a bill banning goods imports from illegal Israeli settlements, while France and Sweden recently called on the European Union to increase tariffs and enforce stricter controls on goods from occupied Palestinian territories.