Will the UK recognise Palestine as a state?

The UK government is "deeply committed" to recognising a Palestinian state, cabinet minister Jonathan Reynolds told LBC this morning.

As anger grows over Israel's killing of starving civilians in Gaza, ministers are piling pressure on the statehood question. Among them is Health Secretary Wes Streeting, who called for recognition of Palestine "while there's still a state of Palestine left to recognise".

What did the commentators say?

Recognising a Palestinian state would be a "foundational first step towards breaking the deadly status quo", argued a group including more than 30 former UK ambassadors in an open letter published in The Guardian. The state of Israel can never be "secure from threats" if "the question of Palestine" isn't "taken forward to a political settlement", the signatories said.

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If a "large new wave of countries" together recognise a state of Palestine, it would be a "powerful symbol of growing international frustration with Israel's obliteration of Gaza" and "apartheid-like domination" of the West Bank, wrote Marc Lynch and Shibley Telhami on Foreign Affairs. But "recognition" in "the absence of real change on the ground would be a trap" and "cannot be an end unto itself".

Despite years of statements indicating that the UK wants to recognise Palestine, so far "no concrete step" has been taken, wrote Dr Afaf Jabiri for international development network Bond. So "we must ask whether the focus on state recognition is serving as a distraction" from the fact that Starmer's government has "materially supported Israeli actions in Gaza" through "arms exports and diplomatic cover".

There are no specific plans for the UK to recognise Palestine, but doing so would be a "superficial" and "dangerous" idea, wrote Stephen Pollard on The Spectator. It would "demonstrate with unambiguous clarity that terrorism works" and it could damage our trade relationship with Donald Trump, which would pose a "direct threat" to British jobs and the economy.

Indeed, it's "barely believable" that a liberal democracy would "think that this is the moment" to "reward" Hamas by taking such a step, wrote John Woodcock in The Telegraph. It's "post-empire arrogance" to think that we can "short-circuit" the peace process by officially recognising Palestine "without any agreement" between those "who will have to live side by side and make it work".

What next?

The UK is committed to recognising a Palestinian state "at a time most conducive to the prospects of peace" in the region, Starmer told the Commons Liaison Committee this week.