Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy has said Labour’s initial response to the Gaza conflict was “problematic” and Sir Keir Starmer had got the party off to a “bad start” on the issue when it was in opposition.
In the early weeks of the conflict, Sir Keir was criticised for not calling for an immediate ceasefire and saying in an interview that Israel had the “right” to cut off the supply of power and water to Gaza.
A spokesman for Sir Keir later said he had only meant to say Israel had a general right to self-defence.
On Thursday, Prime Minister-in-waiting Andy Burnham apologised for Labour’s response to Israel’s military invasion of Gaza, saying the party “didn’t get it right”.
Burnham, who is expected to become prime minister later this month, was one of several high-profile Labour figures who were calling for a ceasefire in Gaza by late October 2023.
“Labour’s initial response to the treatment of Gaza caused huge hurt. We got it wrong and I am sorry for that,” he wrote on social media.
In a video message, the Makerfield MP also reiterated his condemnation of the 7 October Hamas attack, as well as antisemitic attacks in the UK.
Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s The Week in Westminster programme, Lammy said what Sir Keir had said about the Gaza conflict in an LBC interview “came out all wrong”.
In the interview, Sir Keir was asked whether it was “appropriate” for Israel to cut off the supply of power and water to Gaza.
“I think that Israel does have that right,” he said. “Obviously everything should be done within international law, but I don’t want to step away from the core principles that Israel has a right to defend herself.”
A spokesman for the Labour leader later said he had only meant to say Israel had a general right to self-defence.
Lammy said: “The PM in that LBC interview… got us off to a bad start in opposition and I think he’s acknowledged that and that’s definitely the case.”
In February 2024, Labour called for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza for the first time since the outbreak of the conflict the previous October.
The UK formally recognised the state of Palestine in September 2025, in a move announced by Sir Keir.
“So I think in office we did a lot, but clearly those initial steps were problematic,” Lammy said.
When asked if Sir Keir got too sucked into foreign policy to the detriment of domestic issues in the country, Lammy said the “two are indivisible”.
He said the cost-of-living crisis “has been driven in part by a pandemic, then by the war in Ukraine, now by the problems in the Strait of Hormuz”.
“I think there’s a trend right across the Western world for leaders to end up spending much more time on foreign policy than they’d hoped,” Lammy said.
