Miliband set on sanctions regardless of Israel election outcome as officials try to weaken measures
Imran Mulla and Peter Oborne report in Middle East Eye on 30 October 2026:
Britain will press ahead with sanctions on Israeli settlements whatever the outcome of Israel’s elections, senior UK government figures have privately insisted. Even if Benjamin Netanyahu is no longer prime minister, Labour ministers intend to implement comprehensive sanctions, including against companies providing construction and real estate services for settlement expansion.
Implementing the sanctions, however, will not be an easy task and the process could take up to nine months. Speaking to Middle East Eye, multiple government and Labour sources accused some civil servants of causing “blockages” and attempting to weaken the sanctions.
Within the Foreign Office, MEE understands, some officials have been pushing for the sanctions to target Israeli companies complicit in the illegal settlements but not British companies that are complicit. Officials have also argued that companies that operate mostly within Israel itself, as well as in occupied Palestinian territory, should not be impacted by the sanctions.
This would mean a weakening of the sanctions announced by Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband in September, restricting their focus to companies that operate mostly in illegal settlements.
Uncertainty lingers over some of the measures that Miliband announced in September. He said the sanctions regime would include “appropriate religious exemptions” but it has not been publicly made clear what these exemptions are and how extensive they will be.
In August, the Charity Commission opened an investigation after Labour MP Melanie Ward said at least 32 charities registered in England and Wales had transferred more than £28m to Israeli settlements.