Burnham Rejects Corbyn’s Call for Inquiry Into UK’s Role in Gaza Genocide

Andy Burnham has rejected Jeremy Corbyn’s call for an inquiry to be held into the UK’s complicity in the Gaza genocide. 

The former Labour leader wrote to the prime minister in July, calling on him to back a Chilcot-style inquiry to examine military cooperation with and arms sales to Israel since October 2023.. 

The government rejected that call in response to a written question in parliament on Monday, arguing there were “extensive mechanisms already available for parliamentary accountability and oversight”. 

Burnham has continued the policy of his predecessor Keir Starmer by allowing the sale of military equipment to Israel, in defiance of widespread calls for a full arms embargo, including by UN experts. 

Military flights to Israel from UK bases have also continued since Burnham became prime minister.

Starmer’s government decided to suspend 30 arms export sales to Israel in September 2025, but the UK continues to send components of F35 fighter jets, which have been used to bomb Gaza. 

A UN commission found earlier this year that Israel is committing genocide by deliberately targeting Palestinian children. Israel has killed more than 70,000 civilians in the territory since 2023. 

The Chilcot inquiry was a years-long investigation into Tony Blair’s decision to go to war in Iraq. As an MP, Burnham was among those who voted in favour of the invasion, which led to hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths. 

Burnham has sought to distinguish himself from Starmer by saying Labour “got it wrong” on Gaza. His government has also announced sanctions on illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank. 

“Andy Burnham rightly said that the last Labour government ‘got it wrong’ over Gaza,” Corbyn wrote on Instagram on Tuesday. “But his words will mean very little if he doesn’t break with the last government’s shameful record of complicity, secrecy and evasion.”

He added: “Delaying scrutiny will not make questions about British complicity in genocide disappear.”