Members of Starmer’s Cabinet are also pushing. The Prime Minister has recalled the ministers from recess for an emergency Cabinet meeting this week about the war in Gaza. That will come on the heels of Starmer’s meeting with President Donald Trump on Monday at his Turnberry golf resort in Scotland.
Trump appeared to give Starmer more latitude to recognise a Palestinian state. Having dismissed Macron’s move — “What he says doesn’t matter; I like him, but that statement doesn’t carry weight,” he said of the French president last week — Trump pointedly did not discourage Starmer from following suit.
“I’m not going to take a position; I don’t mind him taking a position,” Trump said of Starmer on Monday, when asked about recognition. “I’m looking to getting people fed right now. That’s the No 1 position, because you have a lot of starving people.”
Starmer pressed Trump to use his influence on Israel to get more food into Gaza — and appeared to have made some headway.
The President said the United States would work with Britain and other European countries to set up food centres “where people can walk in and no boundaries.” That was an apparent criticism of the aid distribution system managed by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which is run by American contractors and backed by Israel. Hundreds of people have been killed trying to obtain the aid.
Starmer also presented Trump with details of a European and British plan to bring lasting peace to Gaza, according to Downing Street. The Prime Minister has discussed the plan with Macron and Chancellor Friedrich Merz of Germany.
The debate over Gaza has put Starmer, a methodical former human rights lawyer, in an awkward position. He has vowed to adhere to international law in dealing with Israel. That led him to drop the previous government’s challenge to arrest warrants issued by the International Criminal Court for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel and his former defense minister, Yoav Gallant.
But Starmer also tends to shy away from symbolic acts. Critics of Palestinian recognition said such a move would fall squarely into that category and could be better used as leverage at a later stage of the crisis. They also said it raised a raft of legal questions that might vex Starmer.
“It’s a political decision but it involves a whole range of legal criteria,” said Kim Darroch, a former British national security adviser and ambassador to the United States. “Is there a government in control of the state’s territory? Can you conduct diplomatic relations with the state?”
Others contend that Britain has moved too gingerly in pressuring Israel. It suspended some arms shipments to Israel last year. And it restored funding to the main United Nations relief agency for Palestinians, which Israeli officials had accused of complicity with Hamas militants.
Last month, the British government imposed sanctions on two far-right members of Netanyahu’s Cabinet, Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, for what it said was their role in inciting violence against Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. Britain acted with Australia, Canada, New Zealand and Norway — concerted action that some diplomats said they would expect it to use again on Palestinian recognition.
France was the first member of the Group of 7 major industrialized nations to announce it would recognise a Palestinian state. Macron characterized the move as part of France’s “historical commitment to a just and durable peace in the Middle East.” Norway, Spain and Ireland recognized Palestine as a state last year.
