On October 1, the UK’s Daily Telegraph quoted a senior Israeli official accusing the British government of being “hell-bent on destroying a relationship that has saved countless British lives.”
Strong language. What sequence of events could have led him to this conclusion?
Early in September, Israeli intelligence warned MI5, Britain’s secret service, that an Iranian-backed attack was imminent on an air base in England used by the US Air Force. The very next day, Ed Miliband, the UK foreign secretary, announced plans to ban the import of goods from Israeli settlements in the West Bank.
In the early hours of September 27, armed police intercepted three suspicious vans near RAF Fairford in England. Fairford is an air base used by the US Air Force. Five British men in their 20s were arrested. Police later released the men on bail while the investigation continued.
Former counterterrorism police officers have since speculated that the incident was a “hostile reconnaissance operation,” intended as a “dry run” for a more sinister attack.
Britain’s prime minister, Andy Burnham, said there were “strong indications” that Iran had played a part in the suspected plot, and on October 1, police arrested a 27-year-old British-Iranian on suspicion of preparing terrorist acts. He, too, was later released on bail, and the investigation continues.
That same day, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was interviewed on Fox News.
“Do you want to hear how absurd things are there,” he said, referring to Britain, “and how far the anti-Israeli propaganda has gone?
“We gave the Brits the intel that there was going to be an attack, and it’s an Iranian-sponsored attack, and pretty much the next day they slap sanctions on us. It’s wild, the caving in. The collapse before the Islamist-Marxist alliance is very dangerous for the future of the West.”
Netanyahu is, of course, in the run-up to a vital general election. His political future is at stake. He needs to project as strong and positive an image as possible. Opposing Britain’s tougher pro-Palestinian approach gives him that opportunity.
Relations unravel
The political situation in the UK is similarly abnormal.
Burnham has been the UK’s prime minister only since July. He was shoehorned into office after Sir Keir Starmer’s resignation, so he has no direct mandate from the electorate.
As a new broom, he needed to gain the strong support of the Labour majority in the House of Commons. One certain way was to announce an even more stringent pro-Palestinian policy than his hapless predecessor, who had gone so far as to recognize the nonexistent state of Palestine.
So it was that on September 8, Britain’s foreign secretary, Ed Miliband, came to the Commons to announce a “reset in our relations with Israel,” including a sweeping new sanctions regime targeting Israeli settlements in the West Bank.
This new deterioration in UK-Israeli relations dates back to October 7, 2023.
When details of Hamas’s attack on Israel first emerged, Starmer, then leader of the opposition Labour Party, stood shoulder to shoulder with then-UK prime minister Rishi Sunak, then-US president Joe Biden, and most Western political leaders, proclaiming Israel’s right to defend itself.
Unfortunately for Starmer, his moral stance was unacceptable to two groups he faced on his own political terrain. One was the powerful hard-left element within his party; the other, the strong Muslim presence in some Labour-held constituencies.
Britain’s general election in July 2024 resulted in a massive win for the Labour Party. Starmer came to power with a huge majority. But the activities of a brand new organization calling itself The Muslim Vote cost the Labour Party five seats, slashed Labour majorities in a fair number of other constituencies, and placed a caucus of rabidly anti-Israel MPs in the House of Commons.
Domestic pressures
Traditionally, general elections in Britain turn on domestic issues. This time, though, for one bloc of ethnic minority voters, a foreign war taking place 3,000 km. away was more important than all the usual domestic concerns. Any support for Israel, justified or not, is anathema to pro-Palestinian activists.
The Muslim Vote was an alliance of 23 such organizations. Its purpose was to unseat those MPs deemed insufficiently hostile to Israel, particularly Labour Party members.
They succeeded beyond their expectations. Once voted into Parliament, the five candidates who beat their Labour opponents formed themselves into a new pro-Palestinian bloc – the Independent Alliance – headed by Jeremy Corbyn, onetime leader of the Labour Party.
Their success shook Starmer, despite his huge majority. When, in November 2024, the International Criminal Court, alleging war crimes and crimes against humanity, issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and defense minister Yoav Gallant, Starmer declared that the UK “respects the independence of the ICC,” and indicated that Israel’s prime minister would face arrest if he entered Britain.
A new political factor came into play in September 2025 when Zack Polanski, a charismatic young politician, won the Green Party leadership. He rapidly repositioned the party as a much more assertive, left-wing national force. In a February by-election the Greens took a parliamentary seat from Labour, and in May won the mayoralty of the London borough of Hackney.
These successes precipitated the eventual removal of Keir Starmer as prime minister. Polanski then decided to contest Starmer’s vacated parliamentary seat, but in the by-election on October 8 he was beaten by the Labour party candidate.
His defeat has been ascribed in no small measure to the furor created within the party and the media by the motion debated at the Green party conference on October 4 that defined Zionism as racism, advocating a single Palestinian state. It passed, with 55.7% of those voting in favor, and is now party policy.
Although Burnham has called the Green party motion a mistake, his government gains domestic credit by maintaining an uncompromising stand over settlements. Meanwhile Netanyahu gains domestic credit by depicting Britain as an unreliable ally.
An uneasy compromise has been reached over the closure – or rather the renaming – of Britain’s consulate in east Jerusalem, but the danger is that the spat could evolve into a mutually reinforcing cycle.
The forthcoming Israeli elections may help resolve it.■
The writer is a former senior civil servant. Follow him at: www.a-mid-east-journal.blogspot.com