Former UK diplomats urge Starmer and Macron to recognise Palestinian state
The letter has been signed by former British ambassadors to numerous Middle Eastern countries, including Sir Dominick Chilcott, a former ambassador to Turkey, Peter Millett, a former ambassador to Libya and Lord Andrew Green, who was ambassador to Saudi Arabia.
The Times published the letter on Monday morning, although the headline of the letters page online was about how "tech-free 'cloisters' can help young minds".
Signatories to the letter on recognising Palestine also include Sir William Patey, a former ambassador to Afghanistan, as well as Peter Jenkins, Sir Jeremy Greenstock and Lord David Hannay, three former ambassadors to the United Nations.
Macron is set to visit the UK on Tuesday.
Read more: Former UK diplomats urge Starmer and Macron to recognise Palestinian state
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and France's President Emmanuel Macron during a bilateral meeting at the G7 summit, in Kananaskis, Alberta, Canada, 16 June 2025 (Suzanne Plunkett/Reuters)
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Middle East Eye
10 hours ago
- Middle East Eye
Britain once jailed suffragettes. Now it jails Palestine activists
On a quiet Saturday in London, beneath the statue of Gandhi in Parliament Square, police arrested 83-year-old Reverend Sue Parfitt. Her crime? Holding a placard that read: 'I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action.' She smiled as they took her away - dignified, calm, unafraid. She was one of more than two dozen people arrested that day - many of them women and elderly, most carrying nothing but banners and conscience. Their 'offence' was to stand in solidarity with Palestine Action, the group newly branded a terrorist organisation by the British government, despite never having harmed a single person. Its methods? Spray paint, red dye, road blockades - all part of a non-violent campaign to end Britain's role in arming Israel's destruction of Gaza. The irony is almost unbearable: this proscription was ordered by Home Secretary Yvette Cooper and backed overwhelmingly in parliament on the very anniversary of women in Britain winning the right to vote. Most female MPs voted to criminalise Palestine Action - and many of them later smiled for photos celebrating the suffragette legacy of militant resistance. New MEE newsletter: Jerusalem Dispatch Sign up to get the latest insights and analysis on Israel-Palestine, alongside Turkey Unpacked and other MEE newsletters That legacy wasn't meek. The Women's Social and Political Union, led by Emmeline Pankhurst, planted bombs. They disrupted postal services, set fire to public buildings and politicians' homes, smashed windows, handcuffed themselves to railings, attacked Church of England buildings, and vandalised golf courses and male-only clubs. They disrupted political meetings, broke the law, and starved themselves in protest. Silencing dissent Palestine Action has never come close to such tactics. And yet today, it is labelled a terrorist threat. As Baron Peter Hain put it: 'Palestine Action members spraying paint on military aircraft at Brize Norton seems positively moderate by comparison [to the suffragettes' actions].' But while most female MPs today celebrate the suffragettes in words, they vote to criminalise their spirit in action. One of the few exceptions is Baroness Jenny Jones, a Green peer who has been outspoken in her defence of Palestine Action and searing in her condemnation of Britain's complicity. She is everything the suffragette legacy demands: principled, defiant, willing to speak uncomfortable truths in a chamber soaked in political cowardice. She stands with those resisting oppression - not those funding it. UK arrests 83-year-old priest for backing Palestine Action and opposing Gaza genocide Read More » She is the type of female legislator who was in Pankhurst's mind when she spoke at one of her trials: 'We are here, not because we are law-breakers; we are here in our efforts to become law-makers.' And it is no surprise that while the likes of Cooper target campaigners - including women such as Parfitt and the cofounder of Palestine Action, Huda Ammori - Jones calls out the state's duplicity: the criminalisation of protest, the arming of apartheid, the silencing of dissent. As she put it in parliament: 'If you want Palestine Action to disappear, then stop sending arms to Israel and giving military support to a foreign government engaged in ethnic cleansing.' This isn't just hypocrisy. It's a violent moral inversion. At the same protest on Saturday stood a Welsh nurse who only weeks ago was at the Rafah border pleading with Egyptian security forces to let him through into Gaza to facilitate aid delivery. Now back in the UK, he continues to protest - heartbroken, undeterred. This is the face of the movement: ordinary people moved by the extraordinary obscenity of genocide, and by the complicity of their own governments in enabling it. Growing movement Just a week earlier, punk duo Bob Vylan sent shockwaves through Glastonbury by chanting 'Death to the IDF' on stage, referencing the Israeli army. The words were echoed by thousands and broadcast live on the BBC. Palestine was everywhere at the festival - in lyrics, on flags, spoken from the stage. The crowds cheered. The establishment panicked. Prime Minister Keir Starmer rushed to condemn the chant, and even the White House weighed in. What the same western political establishment has failed to condemn, of course, are the crimes giving rise to those chants: the bombs dropped on hospitals, mass starvation, and body parts in rubble. Follow Middle East Eye's live coverage of the Israel-Palestine war Two days later, London's high court ruled it lawful for the UK to supply parts for F-35 fighter jets - the very aircraft used to flatten Gaza. The message was unmistakable: chanting against genocide perpetrators is a scandal. Arming a genocidal army is lawful. Yet despite every effort to suffocate the pro-Palestine movement - police vans, proscription orders, media blackouts - it is only growing. A long-suppressed BBC documentary on Palestinian medics, which the broadcaster delayed and ultimately dropped, was finally aired by Channel 4. It showed in harrowing detail the systematic targeting of doctors and hospitals by Israeli forces. As commentator Gary Lineker said: 'The BBC should hang its head in shame.' The people are already ahead of their leaders. And sooner or later, the leaders will follow - whether they want to or not Meanwhile, Haaretz, Israel's own paper of record, published testimonies from Israeli soldiers describing how they were ordered to shoot starving Palestinians gathered for food. Not militants - children, parents, civilians. The body count in Gaza now exceeds 56,000. And Britain is arresting the people trying to stop it. But the tide is turning. Public opinion is not just shifting; it is collapsing around the western establishment. In the UK, net favourability towards Israel is now at -46. Nearly half of Britons believe Israel is committing genocide, while a majority support the arrest of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Across Europe, it's the same, with net favourability towards Israel at -44 in Germany, -48 in France, -54 in Denmark, -52 in Italy and -55 in Spain. In the US, the shift is also stark. A Pew poll conducted in March found that 53 percent of Americans now view Israel unfavourably, a rise of more than 10 percentage points from three years ago. A Reuters/Ipsos poll found that four in 10 Americans now believe Israel's problems are 'none of our business.' Unstoppable shift The battle to liberate Palestine is no longer being fought solely in Gaza or the occupied West Bank. It is being waged just as critically in the heart of the western world: between an increasingly awakened public and an establishment determined to suppress it. The Israeli project is not a self-contained national affair. It is, at its core, a western colonial enterprise. And the last two years have exposed how deeply its survival depends on the political and military sponsorship of western governments - above all, the United States. This is why the frontline now runs through London, Paris, Berlin and Washington - through parliaments, universities, media outlets and courtrooms. It is a battle for moral authority, a contest between power and truth. And its outcome will shape the fate of Palestine. But history teaches us something else too: that the most transformative struggles - from the abolition of slavery and women's suffrage, to the civil rights movement - were won not because the powerful saw the light, but because the public made them feel the heat. And that public pressure, relentless and sustained, forced open doors long held shut. So it will be with Palestine. The people are already ahead of their leaders. And sooner or later, the leaders will follow - whether they want to or not. Public opinion will, in time, impose its will on those in power. It may take years. It may come slowly. But this shift is already underway, and it is unstoppable. History is watching. And when Palestine is finally free - as it will be - the names remembered won't be those who armed Israel with bombs. It will be the ones they tried to silence. The ones they arrested. The ones who marched. The ones who healed. The ones like Reverend Sue Parfitt, who smiled as they took her away. The ones like Baroness Jenny Jones, who refused to betray what justice means. We will remember who stood on the side of freedom - and who stood in its way. The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.
Al Etihad
10 hours ago
- Al Etihad
Trump to meet Netanyahu in push for Gaza deal
7 July 2025 23:45 Washington (AFP) US President Donald Trump hosts Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday to push for an end to the Gaza has said he believes there is a "good chance" of an agreement this week for a ceasefire in the devastated Palestinian territory, hot on the heels of a truce in the war between Israel and US president -- who has expressed increasing concern over the situation in Gaza in recent weeks -- will have dinner behind closed doors with Netanyahu, their third meeting since Trump returned to House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said it was Trump's "utmost priority... to end the war in Gaza."Leavitt said Trump wanted Hamas to agree to a US-brokered proposal "right now".The latest round of negotiations on the war in Gaza began on Sunday, with representatives seated in different rooms in the same building. 'Good chance' Trump's special envoy Steve Witkoff was due to join the talks later this week in an effort to get a ceasefire over the line as the Gaza conflict nears its 22nd month.
Gulf Today
11 hours ago
- Gulf Today
Keir Starmer braced for fresh rebellion over reforms
Millie Cooke, The Independent Sir Keir Starmer is reportedly facing another rebellion from his backbenchers over reforms to support for children with special needs in England, just days after he was forced into a humiliating climbdown on welfare cuts. On Sunday, education secretary Bridget Phillipson insisted that ministers are committed to reforming support for children with learning difficulties or disabilities, which currently costs £12bn a year. But she refused to rule out scrapping key documents that families rely on to guarantee specialist help. Education, health and care plans (EHCPs) are statutory documents which outline the support needed to help children with special needs and disabilities achieve key life outcomes. Many seeing them as the only way to get schools to provide the support children need. Asked whether she could rule out getting rid of EHCPs, Ms Phillipson described it as a "complex and sensitive area". Speaking to the BBC's Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg programme, she added: "What I can say very clearly is that we will strengthen and put in place better support for children." "I've been spending a lot of time listening to parents, to disability rights groups, to campaigners and to others and to colleagues across Parliament as well, because it's important to get this right," she added, but said it is "tough". But now senior Labour figures have told The Times that the plans risk becoming "welfare mark two", claiming that dozens of MPs are prepared to rebel over the issue. One Labour MP urged the government to "think again now or they'll be repeating the same mistake they made with welfare reform." "We're all in favour of reforming the system but that cannot be driven by saving money and taking support away from children", they added. A second Labour MP said: "If they thought taking money away from disabled adults was bad, watch what happens when they try the same with disabled kids." It comes after Sir Keir was forced to abandon a key plank of his controversial benefit cuts in order to get them through parliament following a major revolt from his backbenchers. In a letter shared with The Guardian, campaigners have said that without EHCP documents in mainstream schools, "many thousands of children risk being denied vital provision, or losing access to education altogether". They said: "For more than 40 years, children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities have had a statutory right to an education that meets their needs. "Set alongside catastrophic plans to cut benefits for disabled people, this raises the question of who we are as a country and the kind of society in which we want to live. "Whatever the Send system's problems, the answer is not to remove the rights of children and young people. Families cannot afford to lose these precious legal protections." Signatories to the letter include the heads of charities, professors, Send parents including actor Sally Phillips, and campaigners including broadcaster Chris Packham. The government has said it "inherited a Send (special educational needs and disabilities) system left on its knees" and it is "looking at changes" to improve support for children and parents. Data from the Department for Education released in June indicated that the number of EHCPs has increased. In total, there were 638,745 EHCPs in place in January 2025, up 10.8 per cent on the same point last year. The number of new plans that started during 2024 also grew by 15.8 per cent on the previous year, to 97,747. Requests for children to be assessed for EHCPs rose by 11.8 per cent to 154,489 in 2024. A Department for Education spokesperson said: "The evidence is clear that this government inherited a Send system left on its knees — which is why we are looking at changes to improve support for children and stop parents having to fight for help. We have been clear that there are no plans to abolish Send tribunals, or to remove funding or support from children, families and schools. "This government is actively working with parents and experts on the solutions, including more early intervention to prevent needs from escalating and £740 million to encourage councils to create more specialist places in mainstream schools.
