Starmer backs Lammy in fight with Badenoch over MPs’ removal from Israel

In a statement on X, Israel’s embassy said: “Israel will not allow the entry of individuals or entities that act against the state and its citizens, promote calls for its boycott, accuse it with false allegations, or call for sanctions against ministers and elected officials”.

Badenoch’s comments triggered a spat with Lammy, who had already called the Israeli decision to detain the Labour backbenchers “unacceptable, counterproductive, and deeply concerning”.

Responding on X to a social media clip of her BBC interview on Sunday, the foreign secretary said her remarks were “disgraceful” and accused her of “cheerleading another country for detaining and deporting two British MPs.”

“Do you say the same about Tory MPs banned from China?” he went on to ask, in reference to the sanctioning of five Conservative parliamentarians in 2021 – including former party leader Iain Duncan Smith and security minister Tom Tugendhat – banning them from entry to Hong Kong and mainland China following their criticism of alleged human rights abuses against the country’s Uighur population in Xinjiang province.

The Tory leader fired back: “Unlike China, Israel is our ally and a democracy. A good Foreign Sec would be able to make that distinction.”

On Monday, a Downing Street spokesperson clarified that the government does not consider Israel and China to be equivalent and that the prime minister backed Lammy’s criticism of Badenoch when it came to standing up for the rights of parliamentarians. “That's why we think it's counterproductive to detain British MPs,” he added.

“We don't think it's a way to treat British parliamentarians, and we've been in contact with both MPs to offer our support,” the spokesperson said, revealing that Lammy had also been in contact with Israel’s foreign minister Gideon Saar.

Asked if the prime minister shared Abtisam Mohamed’s description of Israel’s actions in Gaza as “ethnic cleansing”, Starmer’s spokesperson said “no.” He expanded: “We've always made clear, Israel has a right to defend itself, but we've also always made clear that we expect Israel to meet international obligations to let aid into Gaza.”

He described the killing by the IDF of Red Crescent emergency workers in ambulances as an “outrage”, adding: “the prime minister's thoughts are with the loved ones of the victims, and we expect that incident to be investigated transparently and those responsible held to account”.

After being removed from Israel on Saturday, Mohamed and Yang said they were “astounded at the unprecedented step taken by the Israeli authorities to refuse British MPs entry on our trip to visit the occupied West Bank”.

Several senior Labour MPs, including Wes Streeting and Chris Bryant – the health secretary and culture minister respectively – criticised the Israeli decision.

Shadow attorney general David Wolfson accused Labour MPs of hypocrisy and pointed out that several of them had campaigned against US President Donald Trump being allowed into the UK while they were in opposition.

“I seem to remember some MPs here who wanted us to refuse entry not merely to a foreign parliamentarian, but to a foreign Head of Government and Head of State”, he said on X with a screenshot of David Lammy criticising then-prime minister Theresa May of “selling out the UK to a serial liar and a cheat”.