Around 140 Labour MPs urge UK Government to ban trade with Israeli settlements

New Israeli settlement homes near the Palestinian village of Umm al-Khair, in the southern West Bank, May 2026

Ben Kroll reports in Haaretz on 8 June 2026:

Nearly 140 British Labour lawmakers have called on the U.K. government to ban all trade with Israeli settlements in the West Bank, citing an uptick in Jewish settler violence and specific plans to expel the residents of a Palestinian village.

In a letter sent on Sunday, the MPs urged Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper to “take urgent, concrete action to counter the escalation of violations against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.”

The MPs urged Cooper to follow other European states in banning products from Israeli settlements. “The case for ending trade with settlements is clear. The international court of justice has directed third states not to enter into ‘trade dealings with Israel concerning the occupied Palestinian territory’, which is widely interpreted as meaning states must not trade with settlements.”

Together with almost 140 fellow Labour MPs, I have written to the Foreign Secretary to call for a ban on trade with illegal Israeli settlements. Our group includes every Labour select committee chair. It’s time to be clear that settlements have no viable economic future.  There is an urgent need for accountability and concrete consequences in response to Israel’s violations against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, ⁠which are spiralling by the day,” said the letter. “We believe ending trade with settlements is a vital next step.”

The lawmakers also make specific mention of Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich’s announcement last month that he would sign an order to clear the Palestinian Bedouin village of Khan al-Ahmar – ostensibly in response to reports that the International Criminal Court had requested to issue an arrest warrant against him. Forcibly driving out the village’s residents would constitute a war crime, the MPs said.

“Khan al-Ahmar has been embroiled in a gruelling struggle against erasure, displacement and state-backed settler violence as part of Israel’s E1 plan, which as you know seeks to bisect the West Bank and will make the two-state solution that we all want to see an impossibility,” they wrote, referring to a small area that connects the northern and southern parts of the West Bank.

Last week, dozens of U.S. lawmakers demanded that the Trump administration pressure Israel to halt all plans to effectively split the West Bank in two.

The letter was initiated by Melanie Ward, previously the chief executive of Medical Aid for Palestinians, a British charity. It was signed by 136 additional lawmakers, including MP Wes Streeting, who resigned from his position as Health Secretary last month cited a lack of confidence in Prime Minister Keir Starmer.  Streeting, who has previously accused Israel of committing war crimes in Gaza and described Israel as a “rogue state,” is expected to challenge Starmer for the leadership of the Labour Party. “Settlement expansion is illegal, it is an injustice inflicted on the Palestinians, it undermines two states and doesn’t make Israel any safer,” Streeting wrote on X on Sunday, sharing the lawmakers’ letter.

In their letter, the lawmakers said that while they welcome sanctions that have already been placed, including those on Smotrich and fellow far-right minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, “it is abundantly clear that those sanctions are not enough.”

Additionally, the letter states that while the U.K. government said earlier this year that it would take steps “to counter settlement expansion and to challenge policies and threats of forcible displacements and annexation” in the West Bank, in the past few months, “the situation has worsened considerably and the government has taken no further action. This is unacceptable.”

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