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Sir Keir Starmer on Friday put strains on Britain’s relations with the US and Israel after he dropped a proposed UK challenge to the International Criminal Court’s right to issue an arrest warrant against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for alleged war crimes in Gaza.
The UK prime minister had until Friday to decide whether to make legal arguments to support questions raised by the previous Conservative government over the ICC’s jurisdiction to issue warrants against Netanyahu and his defence minister Yoav Gallant.
Downing Street said: “The government will not be pursuing this in line with our long-standing position it’s a matter for the courts to decide.”
A spokesman for Starmer insisted the government had not “withdrawn” the challenge, rather it was not proceeding with “a proposal by the previous government”, which was not formally submitted to the ICC before the UK election on July 4.
US President Joe Biden had previously called the ICC prosecutor’s request to obtain arrest warrants against Netanyahu and Gallant “outrageous” and Washington had hoped Britain would lead a challenge to the move.
But since winning the UK election Starmer has shifted Britain’s stance on the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza away from the one taken by Rishi Sunak, former Tory prime minister, and from that taken by the Biden administration.
ICC prosecutor Karim Khan applied for arrest warrants against the two Israeli politicians, as well as senior Hamas leaders, in May for alleged war crimes in Gaza, triggering immediate opposition from the Sunak government. Neither the US nor Israel are members of the ICC, but the UK ratified the Rome Statute that established the court.
Andrew Mitchell, former Tory foreign office minister, said in May: “We do not think the ICC has jurisdiction in this case, the UK has not recognised Palestine as a state and Israel is not party to the Rome Statute.”
David Lammy, Labour’s new foreign secretary, said at the time that the ICC was a “cornerstone of the international legal system”, adding: “Democracies who believe in the rule of law must submit themselves to it.”
The ICC set a deadline of July 26 for Britain to make legal arguments about the court’s jurisdiction, creating a difficult choice for Starmer, who is now opening up policy divides with Washington over the war in Gaza.
This month, Lammy announced that Britain would restore funding to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA. Britain was among the countries that suspended funding for the agency this year, following the US lead, in the wake of Israeli allegations that several UNRWA staff had participated in the October 7 attack by Hamas which triggered the war.
The Conservative government largely moved in lockstep with the Biden administration regarding the Israel-Hamas war. It was staunchly supportive of Israel, but pressed for a ceasefire and was increasingly critical of Israeli restrictions on the flow of aid into Gaza after UN agencies warned about the threat of famine and widespread disease.
The UK continued to sell weapons to Israel while legal experts, the Foreign Office and other government agencies conducted assessments into whether it had violated international humanitarian law in Gaza.
The Labour government will have to make a similar decision shortly on whether Israel has violated humanitarian law, and if so, whether to suspend arms sales. That is deemed both a political and legal decision, with further consequences for the UK’s relationship with the US and Israel.
Netanyahu called the ICC’s proposed arrest warrants “a moral outrage of historic proportions”. He added there was “no equivalence — none — between Israel and Hamas”.
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