Foreign Secretary David Lammy praised the government’s decision to restore funding to controversial UN Palestinian refugee agency Unrwa in a keynote speech at the Labour Party conference.

Addressing a packed hall in Liverpool on Sunday afternoon, Lammy attacked the Conservative Party and said it “damaged our reputation abroad”.

Signalling a change from the previous Tory policy of defunding the controversy-ridden body Lammy said: “When we restored funding to Unrwa for their work in Gaza, what did we say conference? Britain is back.”

The Foreign Secretary then made an implicit defence of the government’s decision to suspend some arms sales to Israel, telling his party: “When we stood up for international law when it was not easy: what did we say? Britain is back.”

The UK was one of several countries that stopped funding Unrwa in January 2024 after Israel accused its employees of participating in the October 7 attacks and subsequent violence.

Last year, Labour’s annual conference coincided with the atrocities unleashed by Hamas, something Lammy acknowledged in his speech: “as we boarded trains up to Liverpool, we read the horrific news that Hamas terrorists had murdered around 1200 Israelis and kidnapped 250 others.”

“What has followed those atrocities is a horrific war. Tens of thousands of Palestinian women and children killed and injured. Their homes turned to rubble, leaving Gaza a vision of hell on earth,” he added, before noting that Israeli hostages “remain cruelly held captive” by Hamas.

He repeated calls for the hostages to be released, a ceasefire in Gaza to allow for more aid and his belief in a two-state solution between Israel and the Palestinians.

The Foreign Secretary said that escalation in Lebanon between Israel and terrorist group Hezbollah in recent days was in “nobody’s interest”, but called for “not only destabilising the Middle East but providing support to Putin’s barbaric war through exporting ballistic missiles.

“That is why we put new restrictions on Iran Air that will stop it entering the UK and new sanctions against the IRGC,” he said.

Lammy is not the only Labour frontbencher to single out Iran. Speaking to The Sun, Defence Secretary John Healey said that the Islamic Republic, along with Russia and North Korea created a new “axis of menace” that threatens world peace.