Andy Burnham hasn’t even moved into Downing Street yet, and he’s already picking fights — not with Britain’s crumbling NHS waiting lists, not with the justice system creaking under case backlogs, but with one of the country’s few stable democratic allies in the Middle East.
In what was billed as his first major foreign policy statement, the Greater Manchester mayor used an interview with The Guardian to grovel over Keir Starmer’s handling of the Gaza war, declaring that Labour “didn’t get it right” and should have pushed for a ceasefire earlier. He then went further, floating fresh sanctions on Israeli individuals and entities and dangling the prospect of trade bans once he takes the keys to No 10.
It didn’t take long for the backlash to arrive. The Board of Deputies of British Jews and the Jewish Leadership Council (hardly fringe voices) issued a pointed rebuke, warning that Burnham’s remarks risked feeding a one-sided narrative that ignores Hamas’s role in prolonging the suffering in Gaza through hostage-taking, embedding fighters among civilians, and refusing to disarm. The two organisations reminded Burnham that he, of all people, ought to understand the connection between anti-Israel rhetoric and real-world violence against British Jews, given he was mayor of Greater Manchester when the Heaton Park synagogue was attacked just last October.
Even his own party isn’t impressed. Alex Hearn of Labour Against Antisemitism didn’t hold back, branding it “concerning” that Burnham’s opening move as prime-minister-designate was to wade into a foreign policy row he has no power to actually resolve, rather than addressing the domestic crises voters actually care about. Labour MP Graham Stringer was equally blunt, warning that Burnham risks “severing ties with one of our strongest allies and the only democracy in the area.”
Conservative Friends of Israel’s parliamentary chairman Greg Smith put it plainly: turning Israel into a totem to appease Labour’s Left flank would be a reckless way for an incoming prime minister to start.
The irony, of course, is that this looks less like principled foreign policy and more like a transparent bid to woo back the voters who fled to the Greens and Jeremy Corbyn’s Your Party after Starmer’s own missteps early in the conflict. Burnham even insists there’s “no contradiction” between opposing anti-Semitism and going after the Netanyahu government, a line he’ll need to repeat often, given how quickly Jewish community leaders have called his judgment into question.
With 322 nominations already banked and the Labour leadership all but sewn up, Burnham looks set to enter Downing Street a week on Monday. Britain’s allies, and its Jewish community, will be watching closely to see whether this is a preview of the leadership to come.
