Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy, who served as foreign secretary until earlier this month, announced that Prime Minister Keir Starmer will make an announcement on the recognition of a Palestinian state later on Sunday.
“Any decision to recognise a Palestinian state, if that were to take place later on today, does not make a Palestinian state happen overnight,” Lammy told Sky News. He suggested that recognition would help keep the prospect of a two-state solution alive and stressed that identifying the Palestinian people with Hamas was mistaken.
In July, amid intense pressure within his governing Labour Party, Prime Minister Keir Starmer stated that the UK would recognise a Palestinian state unless Israel agreed to a ceasefire in Gaza, allowed the UN to bring in aid, and took other steps toward long-term peace.
The anticipated move comes ahead of the UN General Assembly this week, where other nations—including Australia, Canada, and France—are also preparing to recognise a Palestinian state.
The UK’s recognition of a Palestinian state arrives just days after a state visit from US President Donald Trump, who voiced his disapproval of the plan. “I have a disagreement with the prime minister on that score,” Trump said. “It’s one of our few disagreements, actually.”
Critics, including the US and the Israeli government—which has shown no interest in a two-state solution—have condemned the plans, arguing that recognition rewards Hamas and terrorism.
Starmer has insisted that Hamas will have no role in the future governance of the Palestinian people and must release the Israeli hostages it still holds from the attacks on October 7, 2023.
More than 140 countries have already recognised a Palestinian state. However, the decisions by France and Britain are significant as both are members of the Group of Seven (G7) and the UN Security Council.
Historically, these two countries have played a crucial role in Middle East politics over the past 100 years, having shaped the region following the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in World War I. As part of that division, the UK became the governing power of what was then Palestine.
The UK was also the author of the 1917 Balfour Declaration, which backed the establishment of a “national home for the Jewish people.” However, the second part of the declaration, which noted “that nothing shall be done, nothing which may prejudice the civil and religious rights” of the Palestinian people, has largely been neglected over the decades.
Lammy, who will represent the UK at the UN this week, said in July that this promise had not been upheld and represented “a historical injustice which continues to unfold.”
For decades, the UK has supported an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel but has insisted that recognition must come as part of a peace plan to achieve a two-state solution.
UK officials are increasingly worried that such a solution is becoming all but impossible—not only because of the razing of Gaza and displacement of most of its population during nearly two years of conflict but also because Israel’s government is aggressively expanding settlements in the West Bank, land Palestinians want for their future state.
Much of the world regards Israel’s occupation of the West Bank as illegal.
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