Wes Streeting confesses government broke law over Gaza

An accidental confession - but still a confession

A British Cabinet minister has de facto admitted that his government is breaking the law in relation to Israel and its genocidal onslaught against the Palestinian people.

That’s the most important detail to emerge in the transparent attempt by Wes Streeting, the ultra-Blairite Health Secretary, to overthrow the Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, who is, politically speaking, the walking dead.

Quick bit of context: Morgan McSweeney, supposedly Starmer’s chief of staff but in reality running the show, was forced to resign over the appointment of Peter Mandelson, a close friend of the late paedophile Jeffrey Epstein, who was McSweeney’s mentor and secretly had huge sway over the whole government.

As part of the inquiry into this shitshow, ministers are obliged to hand over their correspondence with Mandelson, which is then to be made public. So Wes Streeting has now released his text messages and WhatsApps with Mandelson and published a Guardian column about it - and that column is quite something.

Supposedly, Streeting’s aim is to rebut smears about his association with Mandelson - but it’s obvious what he’s doing. He’s been running a secret leadership campaign for months, he’s seeking to overthrow the prime minister, and he knows his association with Mandelson is a big weakness, so he’s trying to neutralise that - and he also clearly believes these messages will help him curry favour with what remains of the Labour membership.

The correspondence makes clear both Streeting and Mandelson are despairing over the government, believing its problems “do not stem from comms” and lack an economic philosophy or growth strategy.

Before I get on to his confession about the government and Gaza, in March 2025, so 11 months ago, Streeting suggests Peter Mandelson hires Starmer’s former director of communications, Matthew Doyle, and Mandelson asks why he was forced out, Streeting says “God knows.”

In this particular exchange, Mandelson says “The government problems do not stem from comms”, and Streeting says “Quite”.

Streeting observes that “There isn’t a clear answer to the question: why Labour?”, and Mandelson bemoans the lack of an economic philosophy which is then followed through in a programme of policies, and Streeting says there’s “no growth strategy at all”.

Clearly he’s right that there isn’t a clear answer to the “why Labour” question, but what do we honestly think would be the answer under Streeting? He’s even more naturally right-wing than Starmer is - he would just double down on the same problems with more ideological fervour.

When Labour was in opposition, Wes Streeting told his colleagues: “Every day, we should drag a sacred cow of our party to the town market place and slaughter it until we are up to our knees in blood.”

What that means in practice is literally abandoning Labour’s principles - indeed defining the party against its natural principles, and adopting Tory ideas. That’s what Mandelson champions too - as we know from the Epstein emails, he literally encouraged bankers to threaten Gordon Brown’s government, which he served in, to try and stop a tax on bankers’ bonuses being introduced after the financial crash.

Both of them support a Labour party which is neutralised as a threat to wealth and power - that’s what drove their visceral opposition to Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership.

What they’re actually upset about is the fact that Starmer’s government adopted their ideological worldview and it has gone down like a cup of sick. Naturally, they want to find excuses for the resulting failure.

And then Streeting gos on to say he’s in big trouble in his constituency - and that he is “toast at the next election”, noting Labour lost their safest ward in the London borough of Redbridge, and that he doesn’t think the party will hold either of the two Ilford seats - Streeting represents Ilford North.

At the last election, Wes Streeting came so close to losing his seat - and he had no idea whatsoever in advance that he was in danger. In 2019, when Labour suffered a terrible national defeat, Streeting had a majority of over 5,000. This time, his majority collapsed to just 528 votes.

Why? Because he was nearly defeated by 23-year-old British-Palestinian Leanne Mohamad - a phenomenal result for an independent candidate taking on one of the most important figures in the Labour party.

And Wes Streeting is absolutely right - not a phrase I am accustomed to uttering - he is toast, and Leane Mohamad is going to do the toasting.

But then let’s come on to what Streeting had to say about Gaza:

Am sure this will come up in coming days, so wanted to check in with you on recognition of Palestine and the domestic politics of it.

Keir’s statement today was excellent, but Macron’s statement tonight ups the ante.

Morally and politically, I think we need to join France.

Morally, because Israel is committing war crimes before our eyes. Their government talks the language of ethnic cleansing and I have met with our own medics out there who describe the most chilling and distressing scenes of calculated brutality against women and children.

Politically, a Commons vote will be engineered in September on recognition and we will lose it if we’re not ahead of it. There are no circumstances in which people like me or Shabana could abstain or vote against, for example. Conference will be a sea of Palestinian flags and the moderates will be waving them.

We need to be leading the charge on this. The alternative is being dragged there with enormous damage to Keir, the govt and the party.

I’ve never been a shrinking violent [sic] on Israel. I’ve supported LFI for over 20 years. Our sister party, Haaretz, and progressives are clear about what’s being done in their name and they oppose it.

I appreciate these things are always more complicated than they appear to those of us who aren’t up close as you are and I also appreciate how much Keir and David are giving to this personally.

But it is what it is. We need to lead, not follow.

Mandelson then claims such a gesture could blow a two-state solution out of the water if Israel responds with further West Bank annexation and an unspecified reform of the Palestinian Authority. Streeting says Israel is doing it anyway, adding

This is rogue state behaviour. Let them pay the price as pariahs with sanctions applied to the state, not just a few ministers.

But then Streeting refers to risk and considerations Starmer is weighing up “that aren’t necessarily obvious to the rest of us.”

A few things here.

As Streeting notes he’s been a supporter of the pro-Israel lobbying group Labour Friends for Israel for two decades. This is no minor point: they promote the interests of an apartheid state - indeed a genocidal state. It should be a mark of profound shame for any MP to be part of it.

I do not believe for one second that he would be talking like this without the pressure put on him by Leane Mohamad and his own constituents - and by the fact, by his own admission, he is “toast” at the next election, not least because of this issue.

When he says - regarding a parliamentary vote on recognition of Palestine - “There are no circumstances in which people like me or Shabana could abstain or vote against, for example”, what he is clearly saying, in my view, is that MPs in seats where anger over Palestine is high cannot afford to vote against it because they will be, in Streeting’s words, “toast”.

Streeting doesn’t deserve any plaudits here. Every single politician knows that Israel is committing war crimes. The ones who publicly claim Israel isn’t are just lying about it. They simply believe Israel has the right to commit war crimes in an ‘end justifies the means’ sort of way, and don’t really consider Palestinians to be human beings.

It’s so easy, isn’t it, to tell the truth in private, to say what is transparently happening when almost no one else can hear, but politicians and journalists who spoke up about Israel’s war crimes in public have been sacked or careers damaged, monstered, marginalised.

Streeting says that “Israel is committing war crimes before our eyes” - that is, he is saying it is transparently obvious that Israel is committing war crimes, that there is no need to do any special investigation or trial to conclude this, that simply using your eyes can establish incontrovertible reality.

He also notes that medics have spoken to him about “calculated brutality against women and children.” So have I - like Dr. Nick Maynard, who testified about babies being shot in the head and Israeli soldiers selecting different anatomies of teenagers to shoot on different days.

So let me spell out what he meant in that exchange, so there is no room for misunderstanding. He means that Israeli soldiers have deliberately targeted women and children, deliberately maimed women and children, and deliberately murdered women and children. In other words, the most obscene war crimes imaginable.

It is infuriating that this is not treated as an undeniable fact, even though there is as much evidence as there is that the sky is blue. Even the New York Times carried testimonies about Palestinian kids being shot in the head and chest, offered up by dozens of US-based doctors who served in Gaza.

But Streeting didn’t state what he correctly regards as an obvious, undeniable fact in public, did he? And do you know why he didn’t? Not simply because he was undoubtedly rationally fearful of the consequences for his career.

It’s because there is a legal obligation on the British government not to provide weapons to states which are committing war crimes.

The British government continues to supply crucial components for Israel’s F-35 jets which have played a pivotal role in wiping Gaza from the face of the earth and slaughtering its people - yes, including the women and children Wes Streeting refers to.

Under the Export Control Act 2002, the Export Control Order 2008, the Strategic Export Licensing Criteria, and the Arms Trade Treaty of 2014, the government is legally obliged to refuse or revoke licenses where there is a clear risk that the items “might be used in the commission or facilitation of a serious violation of international humanitarian law”.

That includes components for fighter jets.

Wes Streeting is therefore willingly serving in a government which, on the basis of what he has concluded, is breaking the law and helping Israel to facilitate war crimes.

And yes, Streeting is also privately correct that sanctions should be applied to Israel as a state, rather than what his government has done, which is appoint token sanctions to a few ministers who can be portrayed somehow as the real extremists, unlike Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister who is personally subject to an arrest warrant on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

But again, it’s so easy to be honest in private, isn’t it? We say ‘silence is complicity’ for a reason. That means it isn’t just those who actively commit crimes and loudly cheer them on who are responsible. Those in positions of power who know crimes are being committed but choose not to speak out or act on them are also responsible. And yes, that particularly goes for ministers serving in governments providing the crucial components for the fighter jets of a state committing genocide.

It’s also striking that Streeting believed that recognising Palestine was the appropriate response to this. When I visited Palestine last September, Palestinians were damning about this move, describing it as two decades too late, a substitute for meaningful action - and indeed a symbolic gesture that was for domestic consumption.

Streeting clearly wanted recognition of Palestine not because it would stop Israel’s crimes - but because he thought it would help him reduce the electoral pressure he was under.

As for the Guardian column he wrote:

To coin a phrase: I did not have friendly relations with that man, Mr Mandelson.

It’s fascinating how Streeting recently deleted tweets fawning over Mandelson going back years, isn’t it?

“Close friend” is obviously a sort of term you can make difficult to define, but before all of this, there is no doubt in my mind that Streeting would have referred to Mandelson as a friend, an ally and an inspiration. The messages between the two are full of affection and kisses.

In the piece, he says he won’t wash his hands of his “actual association” with Mandelson, that they saw each other for dinner on average once a year in a group setting, he offered advice, that his partner worked for him 25 years ago, and so on.

Well, he doesn’t explain over what time frame “dinner on average once a year” refers to, because their association goes back a very long way.

The basic fact is - when Streeting was affectionately corresponding with him, he knew that Mandelson was a friend of Jeffrey Epstein because it was in the public domain. I went on BBC Radio 2 in December 2024, when Mandelson was appointed as Ambassador, and specifically spoke about his association with Epstein as the reason he should not have that job. I wasn’t a sleuth, and I certainly wasn’t a government minister. I just knew the public record!

But to return to the point about Wes Streeting and his texts about Gaza.

As those of us who actually spoke out have said all the way through the genocide - everybody knew. There are no excuses. There could not have been more evidence, and the perpetrators of this genocide endlessly boasted about their crimes. And as this Cabinet minister admits the government broke the law and assisted war crimes, we must make sure they do not get away with it.