After you've read this column, read this one by Spiked's Chief Political Writer, Brendan O'Neill: Andy Burnham’s shameful pandering to anti-Israel bigots. His pompous, fact-lite sermon on Gaza is a transparent effort to win back Muslim voters and the keffiyeh classes.
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Melanie Phillips, Jul 10, 2026
"Well that didn’t take long, did it?
"On the day that 322 politically bankrupt and panicky Labour MPs made it all but certain through their backing that Andy Burnham’s coup against Sir Keir Starmer had succeeded and he would replace him as prime minister, Burnham — whose only claim to fame is the common touch he brought to his role as mayor of Manchester — chose to celebrate by sticking it to the Jews.
"After meaningless bromides about condemning the Hamas-led atrocities in Israel on October 7 2023 and the “appalling” rise in antisemitism, as well as having “felt first-hand” the anxiety of British Jews about the “very real threat they face” after the lethal Manchester synagogue attack last year, he proceeded to parrot Hamas propaganda defaming Israel for defending itself against genocide. He did so using the same falsehoods about Israel that have fuelled the onslaught against British Jews as the presumed supporters of the cosmic and diabolical evil that apparently is the State of Israel.
"In his video on X yesterday, Burnham said:
"The terrible suffering in Gaza is a scar on our collective conscience. It’s completely unacceptable that innocent Palestinians including children continue to be killed. That there’s still a humanitarian crisis with too little aid getting in, and that the Israeli military continues to expand the area it controls in Gaza. We’ve got to do more to put pressure on the Israeli government.
"He approved of the pressure already imposed by the Starmer government including recognising “the Palestinian state”, placing sanctions on Israeli ministers and imposing “waves of sanctions on violent settlers and the organisations that support them”. He also supported the restrictions imposed on arms licences, he said,
"to make sure that no British bombs or bullets can be used by the IDF in Gaza or in the West Bank.
"He went on:
"Israel continues to violate the ceasefire agreement killing innocent Palestinians. Netanyahu’s government is clearly attempting to make a two state solution impossible. We need to do more, including … looking at further sanctions, both against those involved in the violence in Gaza but also measures to ban trade in goods with illegal settlements. I like many others feel passionately about Gaza and I will work with international partners to stop the suffering, to ensure the Israeli government adheres to international law…There’s increasing evidence that war crimes appear to have been committed. … holding the Netanyahu government to account… I will always take a fair and balanced approach and stand up for what is right.
"This was all an obscene travesty of truth and fairness and a shocking display of either brainwashed ignorance or the most shameless cynicism.
"There was zero condemnation of Hamas for causing that suffering in Gaza by using “innocent Palestinians including children” not just as human shields but as cannon fodder — war crimes against their own people.
"He made no mention that Hamas has been regularly torturing and murdering Gazans who dare oppose the tyrannical terrorist group.
"No mention that Hamas hid in the tunnels they built to commit war crimes against innocent Israelis, including children, while failing to build one single shelter for their own civilians. Hamas prevented the Gazans from sheltering in the tunnels because the Islamist barbarians wanted as many of them as possible to die under bombardment as a strategy of war to get the credulous, post-truth progressive world to support barbarism against civilisation. As has happened, and as Burnham has now done.
"It is Hamas, not Israel, that’s been repeatedly breaching the ceasefire in Gaza. Burnham omitted that bit, thus reversing aggressor and defender as is routinely done against Israel to delegitimise and destroy it.
"No mention that Hamas, although much depleted, are still attacking Israeli soldiers in Gaza and refusing to disarm because, as they have repeatedly declared, they intend to commit more atrocities against Jews.
"No mention of putting more pressure on Hamas and its state sponsors in Qatar and Iran to abandon their genocidal agenda.
"Instead, Burnham stated that Britain would refuse to provide a single bomb or bullet to help defend civilians in Israel under attack from Gaza or in the disputed territories known as the “West Bank”.
"Just think about that. The incoming British prime minister believes it’s doing “what is right” to refuse to assist the prospective targets of genocide against their attackers.
"Defaming the half million or so Jewish residents of these disputed areas, of whom a few hundred delinquent boys are genuinely mounting unprovoked attacks against local Arabs — a real issue that’s being grossly exaggerated as another weapon of delegitimisation against Israel — Burnham made no mention of the dozens of murderous attacks and plots against these Jewish residents that are being perpetrated or hatched every day.
"He also parroted the untruth that the Jewish “settlements” in these areas are illegal. This reflects Britain’s long-standing and cynical misrepresentation of international law. The fact is that the Jews alone are entitled to live in the “West Bank” under international law many times over.
"As for Israel committing war crimes, this is the foulest lie. Israel, which goes to enormous lengths to behave in accordance with the laws of war, has committed no war crimes. These have been committed instead in their thousands by Hamas against Israeli and Gazan civilians.
"Why is Burnham parroting this disgusting rubbish? Why, indeed, is he giving Gaza top priority while the British public is still waiting to hear how he proposes to govern the United Kingdom? Why doesn’t he identify the murder of more than 40,000 Iranian men and women by the fanatical Tehran regime as a “stain on our collective conscience”?
"The reason is simple. Amoral Andy is falling over himself to suck up to the “Gaza first” Islamists and the “Zios out” gang in his own party and throughout so-called liberal Britain, because he believes that this is where electoral success now lies.
"Referring to Starmer saying shortly after October 7 that Israel had the right to defend itself, and subsequently being criticised for being seen to be slow to call for Israel to cease fire, Burnham also said:
"I know many people feel that, at the start of Israel’s military action in Gaza, my party didn’t get it right, and I am sorry about that. The response has too often not been good enough.
"In fact, by parroting Hamas’s propaganda and then rewarding its murderous behaviour by recognising “Palestine”, Labour’s response to Gaza helped cause the killing of yet more Israelis at the hands of a galvanised Hamas that actually thanked it for “justifying” the October 7 atrocities. By defaming Israelis as diabolical and wanton killers, Labour also ramped up the Jew-hatred which has subjected British Jews to unprecedented vilification, intimidation, harassment and murderous attack.
"If Britain had been subjected to a fraction of the thousands of missile and terrorist attacks on Israeli civilians, not to mention the increasing stranglehold through a “ring of fire” by a regime intent on wiping it off the map, does anyone doubt that Britain wouldn’t have gone to war just as Israel has been forced to do — and would have been far less scrupulous than the Israelis have been about trying to safeguard civilian lives?
"Yet for Burnham and the entire progressive west, Israel alone is not to be allowed to defend itself against annihilation. For Burnham and his ilk, all of Israel’s defensive military measures are instead acts of aggression.
"This is not morality but depravity, and the disintegration of reason.
"Burnham’s video will have caused a shudder among all who respect truth and justice, and all who understand the threat to Britain and the west from the Islamist onslaught that’s being laundered through the Palestinian cause. And he hasn’t yet even got his feet across the Downing Street welcome mat.
"Nevertheless, it’s still not enough for the Israel-baiting far-left. The Telegraph reports:
"But on Thursday night, both the Greens and Your Party said the comments had not gone far enough, as Mr Burnham refused to accuse Israel of committing war crimes unequivocally.
"Robespierre, the architect of the French revolutionary terror who went to the same guillotine to which he had condemned an entire class of people, had the same problem.
"Progressives always eat their own. But they help kill the rest of us first."
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