Keir Starmer denounces Israel’s plan to take control of Gaza City, saying it will ‘only bring more bloodshed’
Good morning. Keir Starmer has this morning denounced the Israeli government’s decision to take over Gaza City, agreed overnight, saying it will “only bring more bloodshed”. He has been under growing pressure for a long time, from within the Labour party, as well as from the Liberal Democrats, the Greens and the Corbyn/Sultana independent leftwingers, to be more critical of Israel, and that led to the decision last week to recognise the state of Palestine. This morning’s statement, which will almost certainly have no practical impact but which is marginally stronger than what Starmer has been saying in the past, is fresh evidence of a shift in thinking.
In his statement, Starmer said:
The Israeli government’s decision to further escalate its offensive in Gaza is wrong, and we urge it to reconsider immediately. This action will do nothing to bring an end to this conflict or to help secure the release of the hostages. It will only bring more bloodshed.
Every day the humanitarian crisis in Gaza worsens and hostages taken by Hamas are being held in appalling and inhuman conditions. What we need is a ceasefire, a surge in humanitarian aid, the release of all hostages by Hamas and a negotiated solution. Hamas can play no part in the future of Gaza and must leave as well as disarm.
Together with our allies, we are working on a long-term plan to secure peace in the region as part of a two-state solution, and ultimately achieve a brighter future for Palestinians and Israelis.
But without both sides engaging in good faith in negotiations, that prospect is vanishing before our eyes. Our message is clear: a diplomatic solution is possible, but both parties must step away from the path of destruction.
Amy Sedghi has more coverage, with the global perspective, on our Middle East live blog.
There is not much happening in UK politics today, but the only item in the diary is David Lammy, the foreign secretary, hosting JD Vance, the US vice-president, at Chevening. Vance is starting a family holiday in England, and the visit is mostly social (Daniel Boffey has a good account of the counter-intuitive Lammy/Vance friendship here), but the two men are also due to have a formal bilateral at around lunchtime and Gaza is bound to come up.
If you want to contact me, please post a message below the line when comments are open (normally between 10am and 3pm at the moment), or message me on social media. I can’t read all the messages BTL, but if you put “Andrew” in a message aimed at me, I am more likely to see it because I search for posts containing that word.
If you want to flag something up urgently, it is best to use social media. You can reach me on Bluesky at @andrewsparrowgdn.bsky.social. The Guardian has given up posting from its official accounts on X, but individual Guardian journalists are there, I still have my account, and if you message me there at @AndrewSparrow, I will see it and respond if necessary.
I find it very helpful when readers point out mistakes, even minor typos. No error is too small to correct. And I find your questions very interesting too. I can’t promise to reply to them all, but I will try to reply to as many as I can, either BTL or sometimes in the blog.
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Updated at 04.21 EDT
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Lammy says he’s ‘hugely concerned’ about Israel’s decision to take control of Gaza City
Vance said he was not taking any more questions, but a reporter asked Lammy if he thought his relationship with Vance might help the US and the UK agree a position on a ceasefire in Gaza.
Lammy said Keir Starmer discusses these issues with President Trump on a weekly basis. They all want a ceasefire, he said. And they all want the hostages out.
He went on:
We are hugely concerned by the humanitarian suffering that we’re seeing in Gaza … I am concerned about what is developing in Gaza at this time, and the recent decision by the [Israeli] cabinet. I’m hugely concerned, as I think a lot of Israeli people are, about the impact, particularly on the hostages, and we’ll be able to discuss these issues in the hours ahead.
And that was the end of the questions.
Lammy’s language was a lot weaker than what has been said by most British politicians commenting on the Netanyahu decision today, including Keir Starmer. (See 9.04am.)
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Vance says his free speech concerns about UK reflect his worry it is following what happened in US under Biden
Q: Will you be raising concerns about free speech in the UK in your talks with Lammy? You have talked about that before?
Vance said he had also raised concerns about free speech in the US. He went on:
I think the entire collective west, the transatlantic relationship, our Nato allies, certainly the United States under the Biden administration, got a little too comfortable with censoring rather than engaging with a diverse array of opinions. So that’s been my view.
Obviously, I’ve raised some criticism and concerns about our friends on this side of the Atlantic.
But the thing that I’d say to the people of England or anybody else, to David, is many of the things that I worry most about were happening in the United States from 2020 to 2024.
I just don’t want other countries to follow us down what I think was a very dark path under the Biden administration.
At that point Vance tried to wrap up the Q&A.
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Vance claims fighting in Middle East has been going on for thousands of years, so making peace ‘very complicated’
Asked if the US was given prior warning of Benjamin Netanyahu’s decision to order the occupation of Gaza City, Vance said he was not going to talk about private conversations.
He said he expected President Trump to speak to the media himself about this.
He repeated his point about the US being focused on making sure Hamas could not attack Israel again, and dealing with the humanitarian crisis is Gaza. The US government was “in constant negotiations and conversations” about the aid situation, he said.
But it was not simple, he said.
It’s a tough situation. Of course, we’re not going to know exactly how to solve a very complicated problem.
As the president has said himself, the people, in some ways, have been fighting for thousands of years. If it was easy to bring peace to that region of the world, it would have been done already.
David Lammy (left) and JD Vance in Chevening. Photograph: Suzanne Plunkett/ReutersShare
Updated at 09.58 EDT
Vance ducks questions about Trump describing him as his ‘most likely’ successor
Q: What did you think of President Trump saying recently you were his “most likely” successor in 2028?
Vance said he did not want to talk about “lowly things like politics in this grand house”. He went on:
I think my view on the politics of 2028 is I’m not really focused even on the election in 2026, much less one two years after that.
And if we do a good job for the American people, the politics will take care of itself. So I’m going to try to do a good job for the American people, just as David’s trying to do a good job for the people of UK.
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Updated at 09.50 EDT
Vance says UK and US have ‘disagreements’ over Gaza policy, as he confirms Trump does not back Palestinian state recognition
Q: What do you think of the UK’s decision to recognise the state of Palestine?
Vance says this is one of the issues he and Lammy will discuss. He goes on:
Obviously, the United Kingdom is going to make its decision. We have no plans to recognise a Palestinian state.
I don’t know what it would mean to really recognise a Palestinian state, given the lack of functional government there.
And what the president has made very clear is our two goals are very simple right now, vis-a-vis the situation in Israel and Gaza.
Number one, we want to make it so that Hamas cannot attack innocent Israeli civilians ever again, and we think that has to come through the eradication of Hamas.
Second, the president has been very moved by these terrible images of the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. So we want to make sure that we solve that problem.
I think all of us can work on how to solve that problem. Obviously, it’s not an easy problem to solve, or it would have already been dealt with, but we share, I think, that focus and that goal.
We may have some disagreements about how exactly to accomplish that goal, and we’ll talk about that today.
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Updated at 09.50 EDT
Vance is now replying.
He says his children have been sleeping on Lammy’s floor already, and they caught fish.
He praises Kent.
It is great to be here in Kent again. My wife and I love this area of the UK. We actually were here a couple of years ago. We went to Dover and to the cathedral in Canterbury. So we love this country. We certainly love this part of the country, and so it’s great to be here.
He says they have big issues to discuss.
But he also says Lammy is a good friend, and their children get on well, he says.
He ends by praising the house.
I really love this country – and in particular, having never been to this beautiful house before and seen the surrounding area – I just say that the people who built it, the people who sustained it, I think, really love the human spirit, and being here lifts up the human spirit.
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Lammy is doing the opening spiel.
He says:
I’ve spent lots of time in the US, and I’m very, very fond of the country. Our bilateral relations are in a wonderful place, having struck our economic prosperity deal and working hard on a new technology partnership, which will be very, very exciting.
Today, of course, we will be discussing the developing situation in the Middle East and in Gaza, which is of great concern. And of course, the ongoing war in Ukraine, and our desire to see that come to an end.
He ends by saying: “Welcome to my home here.”
(Technically, it is not really his home. It is a grace-and-favour property, traditionally allocated to the foreign secretary.)
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Lammy and Vance speak to media from Chevening
David Lammy and JD Vance are about to speak to the media from a room in Chevening.
Or maybe they are speaking already. The signal from Chevening does not seem to be very good, and the footage froze at first.
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Updated at 09.51 EDT
SNP call for recall of parliament to approve sanctions covering Benjamin Netanyahu and his ministers
The SNP is calling for the recall of parliament so that MPs can approve sanctions against Benjamin Netanyahu in the light of his decision to extend the occupation of Gaza. In a statement Stephen Flynn, the SNP leader at Westminster, said:
A genocide is happening before our eyes in Gaza. Words of condemnation aren’t anywhere near enough – if we have any hope of stopping this genocide strong actions are desperately needed, now.
That means Keir Starmer needs to recall Westminster and take concrete steps to sanction the Israeli government.
Those sanctions must include ending all arms sales to the Israeli military, stopping all training, logistical and military support to the IDF, directly and personally sanctioning Netanyahu and his ministers and finally and immediately recognising the state of Palestine before it is brutally wiped off the map.
If the international community fails to act – we are consciously and complicitly standing idly by – allowing Benjamin Netanyahu to plan, implement and inflict an ongoing genocide in Gaza.
Technically parliament does not need to be recalled for the UK government to impose sanctions on Netanyahu, but the recall of parliament (which almost certainly will not happen over this) would be a powerful act of political messaging.
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There is no word yet as to what David Lammy, the foreign secretary, and JD Vance, the US vice president, have been talking about at Chevening today, but we do have a picture of them fishing together in the lake there.
JD Vance, the US vice president, fishing with David Lammy, the foreign secretary, at Chevening. Photograph: Suzanne Plunkett/ReutersShare
Former justice secretary Alex Chalk says court service IT bug exposed by BBC could be like Post Office Horizon scandal
An IT bug causing “technical issues” within the body running courts in England and Wales is “unbelievably serious” and could be compared to the Post Office Horizon scandal, a former justice secretary has said.
The BBC has reported that it took HM Courts & Tribunals Service (HMCTS) several years to react to the bug, which is said to have caused evidence to go missing, be overwritten or appear lost, resulting in judges in civil, family and tribunal courts making rulings on cases when evidence was potentially incomplete. PA Media reports:
HMCTS said there is no evidence to suggest any case outcomes were affected as a result of the issues.
The bug was found in case-management software used by HMCTS and the Social Security and Child Support (SSCS) Tribunal, which handles benefit appeals, is thought to have been most affected, according to the BBC.
Referred to as Judicial Case Manager, MyHMCTS or CCD, the BBC said the software is used to manage evidence and track cases, and is used by judges, lawyers, case workers and members of the public.
Documents seen by the BBC show the bug caused data to be obscured from view, meaning some evidence was sometimes not visible as part of case files used in court.
The BBC said a leaked internal report said HMCTS did not know the full extent of the data corruption, including whether or how it had affected cases.
Alex Chalk, a former justice secretary, said what has happened was “incredibly serious” and could have involved cases which determine whether a child is taken into care.
Chalk told the Today programme:
“And the thing that is so troubling is that this report evidently got on to the desk of the senior leadership of HMCTS in March 2024 when I was in office, and it was never brought to my attention.
“And I am incredibly troubled by that, because any lord chancellor, of any stripe, if they discover that there’s potentially a situation in the courts which is leading to injustice, then you will immediately want to investigate that, and yet in effect that was covered up and I’m afraid I think that is extremely serious.”
The BBC said several sources within HMCTS have likened the situation to the Horizon Post Office scandal.
Chalk was asked on Today if what has happened could be compared to the Post Office scandal, and he said: “It could be.”
An HMCTS spokesperson said: “Our internal investigation found no evidence that any case outcomes were affected as a result of these technical issues. The digitisation of our systems is vital to bring courts and tribunals into the modern era and provide quicker, simpler access to justice for all those who use our services. We will continue to press ahead with our important modernisation.”
It is understood that while the bug resulted in some documents not being accessible to users on the digital platform, they were in fact always present on the system.
It is also understood that because of a number of “fail-safes”, parties and judges involved in these cases always had access to the documents they needed.
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The Times is running a story today saying that Israel is considering withdrawing defence and security cooperation from the UK if Keir Starmer goes ahead with his plan to recognise Palestininian statehood in September. In their story, which is based on comments from unnamed sources, Matt Dathan, the paper’s home affairs editor, and Gabrielle Weiniger, the paper’s Israel correspondent, say:
Diplomatic sources have told The Times that Binyamin Netanyahu’s government is examining the response as one of a range of options if Britain presses ahead with Palestinian recognition next month.
An official warned that Britain and other countries considering diplomatic recognition should “carefully consider” the consequences of such a move.
Another diplomatic source said: “London needs to be careful because Bibi [Netanyahu] and his ministers have cards they could play too. Israel values its partnership with the UK but recent decisions mean it is coming under pressure and the UK has a lot to lose if Israel’s government decides to take steps in response.”
Dathan and Weiniger say that “Israel intelligence has provided crucial information to Britain’s spy agencies about Iranian-backed threats in the UK”, and also that British arms producers rely to a great extent on components from Israeli companies.
Reports like this help to explain why Keir Starmer, like previous prime ministers, has been more supportive of Israel than critics of its treatment of Palestinians would wish. But ministers will have to decide to what extent threats like this are a bluff. Given the conditions that Starmer set for the UK not to go ahead and recognise Palestinian statehood in September, and Israel’s response, it would be impossible for Starmer to withdraw the recognition proposals (as Israel wants) without a colossal loss of face.
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UK ‘complicit in genocide’ in Gaza, because it has not ended all arms supplies, Jeremy Corbyn claims
In a statement about the latest decision from the Israeli government, the independent MP and former Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, has restated his claim that the UK is complicit in genocide.
If the government was truly horrified by Israel’s occupation of Gaza, it would stop supplying them with the weapons they need to carry it out.
The prime minister can condemn Israel’s plans all he wants. He cannot hide the truth: his government is complicit in genocide.
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Updated at 05.38 EDT
John Swinney, Scotland’s first minister, says Israel’s decision to occupy Gaza City is “completely and utterly unacceptable”. In a message on social media, the SNP leader said:
The decision of the Israeli government to seize control of Gaza City is completely and utterly unacceptable. It will create even more human suffering for the Palestinian people and further escalate the conflict. The international community must stop Israel and secure a ceasefire.
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Updated at 04.53 EDT
The Green party has also called for the end of all arms sales to Israel. Ellie Chowns, the Green MP and a candidate to be co-leader in the current leadership contest, posted this on social media.
Netanyahu’s brutal plan to take control of Gaza is yet another declaration of intent to commit war crimes. The UK must do more than express disapproval: end military cooperation and arms sales, recognise Palestine, demand an immediate ceasefire and accountability for war crimes.
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Updated at 04.53 EDT
Ed Davey urges Starmer to end all arms sales to Israel, and place entire Israeli cabinet under sanctions, after Gaza City takeover decision
The Liberal Democrat leader, Ed Davey, has also condemned Israel’s decision to expand the takeover of Gaza. Davey said:
[Benjamin] Netanyahu’s plans to occupy the whole of Gaza are utterly abhorrent – and it’s increasingly clear that his goal is ethnic cleansing.
This plan will only serve to wreak more devastation on the lives of millions of Gazans – whose homes and communities have already been destroyed – while endangering the lives of those hostages still held by Hamas.
Rather than sitting on its hands and issuing strongly worded statements, the UK government needs to take decisive action. Keir Starmer needs to stop the export of all UK arms to Israel – today – and sanction Netanyahu and his cabinet.
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Updated at 04.40 EDT
Rupert Lowe reports charity rowers to coastguard as possible ‘illegal migrants’
The independent MP Rupert Lowe has agreed to donate £1,000 to a charity after mistaking its rowing crew, including a former Royal Marine, for “illegal migrants”, Kevin Rawlinson reports.
Here is the message that Lowe posted on X last night about the “illegal migrants”.
Dinghies coming into Great Yarmouth, RIGHT NOW.
Authorities alerted, and I am urgently chasing.
If these are illegal migrants, I will be using every tool at my disposal to ensure these individuals are deported.
Enough is enough. Britain needs mass deportations. NOW. pic.twitter.com/1mCg0ljRQ4
— Rupert Lowe MP (@RupertLowe10) August 7, 2025
Quite why Lowe thought small boat migrants might be landing at Great Yarmouth is a mystery. It is 90 nautical miles from Calais (from where the boats normally leave), and 85 nautical miles from Dover (where they normally land, or are brought shore).
And here is the message Lowe posted this morning owning up to his mistake.
Good news. False alarm! The unknown vessel was charity rowers, thank goodness.
As a well done to the crew, I’ll donate £1,000 to their charity – raising money for MND.
Keep going, and watch out for any real illegal migrants!
We received a huge number of urgent complaints from constituents – I make no apologies over being vigilant for my constituents. It is a national crisis.
No mass deportations for the charity rowers, but we definitely need it for the illegal migrants!
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Updated at 04.24 EDT
Keir Starmer denounces Israel’s plan to take control of Gaza City, saying it will ‘only bring more bloodshed’
Good morning. Keir Starmer has this morning denounced the Israeli government’s decision to take over Gaza City, agreed overnight, saying it will “only bring more bloodshed”. He has been under growing pressure for a long time, from within the Labour party, as well as from the Liberal Democrats, the Greens and the Corbyn/Sultana independent leftwingers, to be more critical of Israel, and that led to the decision last week to recognise the state of Palestine. This morning’s statement, which will almost certainly have no practical impact but which is marginally stronger than what Starmer has been saying in the past, is fresh evidence of a shift in thinking.
In his statement, Starmer said:
The Israeli government’s decision to further escalate its offensive in Gaza is wrong, and we urge it to reconsider immediately. This action will do nothing to bring an end to this conflict or to help secure the release of the hostages. It will only bring more bloodshed.
Every day the humanitarian crisis in Gaza worsens and hostages taken by Hamas are being held in appalling and inhuman conditions. What we need is a ceasefire, a surge in humanitarian aid, the release of all hostages by Hamas and a negotiated solution. Hamas can play no part in the future of Gaza and must leave as well as disarm.
Together with our allies, we are working on a long-term plan to secure peace in the region as part of a two-state solution, and ultimately achieve a brighter future for Palestinians and Israelis.
But without both sides engaging in good faith in negotiations, that prospect is vanishing before our eyes. Our message is clear: a diplomatic solution is possible, but both parties must step away from the path of destruction.
Amy Sedghi has more coverage, with the global perspective, on our Middle East live blog.
There is not much happening in UK politics today, but the only item in the diary is David Lammy, the foreign secretary, hosting JD Vance, the US vice-president, at Chevening. Vance is starting a family holiday in England, and the visit is mostly social (Daniel Boffey has a good account of the counter-intuitive Lammy/Vance friendship here), but the two men are also due to have a formal bilateral at around lunchtime and Gaza is bound to come up.
If you want to contact me, please post a message below the line when comments are open (normally between 10am and 3pm at the moment), or message me on social media. I can’t read all the messages BTL, but if you put “Andrew” in a message aimed at me, I am more likely to see it because I search for posts containing that word.
If you want to flag something up urgently, it is best to use social media. You can reach me on Bluesky at @andrewsparrowgdn.bsky.social. The Guardian has given up posting from its official accounts on X, but individual Guardian journalists are there, I still have my account, and if you message me there at @AndrewSparrow, I will see it and respond if necessary.
I find it very helpful when readers point out mistakes, even minor typos. No error is too small to correct. And I find your questions very interesting too. I can’t promise to reply to them all, but I will try to reply to as many as I can, either BTL or sometimes in the blog.
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Updated at 04.21 EDT
