Ex-UK Labour MP: No Palestinian state until Israel's security guaranteed

The United Kingdom's new Labour Party-led government must not recognize a Palestinian state until safety and security for Israel can be established, former Labour MP Dame Louise Ellman told Tamar Uriel-Beeri on The Jerusalem Post Podcast. 

"Labour has said they'll recognize Palestine. But they've also said very clearly, they're not recognizing Palestine now," Ellman explained.

"Until there are proper negotiations, and safety and security for Israel can be established, there can't and shouldn't be a Palestinian state. So Labour is committed to a Palestinian state, but says it will recognize them at an appropriate point in negotiations."

This interview comes off the Labour Party's dominant victory in the recent UK elections, ending 14 years of Conservative rule and bringing Keir Starmer into 10 Downing Street. 

Much concern has been raised over the Labour Party's alleged tendency to side with the Palestinians over Israel in a given conflict. 

Ellman explained that this was also reflected in the outcomes of the elections.

"The Labour Party lost four very safe seats that were held by Labour MPs, to independents who stood on a Gaza platform," she said. "And they did that because they said that the Labour Party could be too supportive of Israel."

How Labour won Jewish support after being dogged by antisemitism allegations

Labour's victory in the elections was aided by a surge of support from the Jewish community. This is a stark change from 2019, where the party under then-leader Jeremy Corbyn saw relatively miniscule levels of support from British Jewry amid a stream of accusations of antisemitism pervading the party. 

Ellman, a British Jew originally from Manchester, had been serving as a Labour MP for Liverpool Riverside since 1997. However, she resigned in 2019 due to the antisemitism in the party.

"I resigned in 2019 because once Jeremy Corbyn became leader, antisemitism and anti-Jewish hatred became rampant in the Labour Party," she recounted. "It happened nationally, where in many, many areas, Jewish people simply didn't feel safe."

Labour suffered a massive electoral defeat in 2019 to the Boris Johnson-led Conservatives. After that, Corbyn was replaced as leader by Starmer, who had been very vocal about making a priority out of cracking down on antisemitism in the party. 

Ellman believes his efforts were successful.

"The culture was changed, the rules were changed, and now the Labour Party is a very different place," she said.

And it seems she may not be alone in thinking that. In 2024, amid the ongoing Israel-Hamas War, antisemitism skyrocketed in the UK. 

"There was an explosion of antisemitism in the streets, and marches in support of the Palestinians, which in itself is quite legitimate, became filled with hatred," Ellman recounted. 

But despite this, Jews still came out in droves to support Labour.

"In the 2019 general election... it's estimated that about 7% of Jewish people felt able to vote for the Labour Party - a shockingly low figure, given the connection of the Jewish community to the Labour Party in the years before that," Ellman said. "In the recent general election, it appears that over 40% of Jewish people voted for the Labour Party."

She also noted the vocal support the Labour Party has been giving to the country's Jews, such as new Home Secretary Yvette Cooper vowing to give greater financial support to the Community Security Trust (CST), an organization that helps police deal with antisemitism.

But regardless, Ellman still feels there is more work to be done. 

"I think most Jewish people are still unnerved and disturbed by what happened in the past," she said. "And then what happened following the Hamas attacks and massacres of Israeli civilians, I think people feel more disturbed again. because [while there was] initially some sympathy, it didn't take long for their to be a spike in antisemitic incidents and hate marches in our streets."