Starmer holds emergency cabinet meeting on Gaza amid calls for Palestinian state recognition – British Politics Live

Badenoch claims Starmer holding cabinet meeting on Gaza just to resolve 'internal party problem'

In her Talk interview Kemi Badenoch also criticised Keir Starmer’s decision to hold a rare, summer recess cabinet meeting to discuss Gaza this afternoon. She claimed that recognising Palestinian statehoood would not help and that Starmer was only holding the meeting to resolve an internal Labour problem (pressure from ministers and MPs for statehood recognition).

Asked if she supported recognising Palestine as a state, she replied:

No. I think it would be a mistake at this point… Statehood empowers Hamas. And it's yet another trick. Why is he calling the cabinet to talk about Gaza? He's not calling it to talk about the migration crisis. Now he's calling it to talk about all those farmers who are closing their businesses, what they'll do about the economy, and the debt crisis that seems to be looming.

He's calling the cabinet to talk about Gaza. He's not in a position to solve that problem. But, well, let's suppose we grant statehood, and then what? Does the problem go away? No, it doesn't. It doesn't solve anything at all. He's doing it to solve a political problem because many in his cabinet want statehood for Palestine. They're student activists, lifelong activists. This is the kind of thing they like. And he's dealing with an internal party problem instead of addressing the problems of this country.