'Genocide': How the Liberal Democrats became a pro-Palestine party
'Genocide': How the Liberal Democrats became a pro-Palestine party
Israel's genocide in Gaza has been one of the hot-button topics at the Liberal Democrat party conference in Bournemouth.
While it hasn't been central to the party's political messaging, it has nonetheless been one of the issues that has garnered the party the most media attention in the past week.
Leader Ed Davey's decision to boycott the royal banquet held for visiting US President Donald Trump over Gaza made headlines, as did the fact that Davey accused Israel of genocide for the first time.
He repeated the declaration in his conference speech on Tuesday, saying: "What is unfolding in Gaza is a genocide. And the United Kingdom must do all it can to make Netanyahu stop."
Davey added that he criticised the Israeli prime minister "as a friend of Israel" and "knowing that his government’s actions do not represent the Israeli people".
He also condemned antisemitism and "genocidal Hamas".
But he declared, to huge applause from party members, that "nothing - nothing - can justify what the Netanyahu government is doing to innocent men, women and children in Gaza.
"We have all seen it. The baby boy - starving and skeletal - held tight in his mother’s arms... The bodies of children, killed as they queued for water. Children.
"A famine unfolding before our eyes."
'Small step' in right direction
On Monday night, Davey spoke at a reception co-hosted by the Liberal Democrat Friends of Palestine (LDFP) and the International Centre of Justice for Palestinians (ICJP), which was attended by a number of MPs and peers.
The leader called Britain's recognition of a Palestinian state on Sunday a "small step" in the right direction.
"The big picture is stopping the fighting, getting the food in, getting the water in, getting the medicine in, getting the hostages released, and stopping the appalling illegal actions in the West Bank," he said.
"There are so many aspects of that where we still have so much to do, so as a party we are utterly committed to pressurising that."
LDFP chair Anne-Marie Simpson told Middle East Eye that she was surprised at the "timing" of Davey denouncing Israel's actions as genocide.
"We've been wanting it for so long," she said. "There's been a movement of people in the party towards our position, which has been closer to the public on this topic."
It was in September 2024, almost a year after the war started, that the Liberal Democrats called for a full arms embargo on Israel - becoming the largest British party in terms of parliamentary seats to do so.
And now, a year later, the party's position has hardened significantly.
Simpson joined the party in 2017 over Brexit and joined LDFP soon afterwards. She said the group has more than 200 members and, significantly, receives "very good engagement from the party leadership - stronger than ever now.
"We have good contact with the foreign affairs spokesperson, Calum Miller, and we've been meeting many MPs and discussing important issues to raise in parliament. We provide them with support as well - we have a policy officer."
Simpson said LDFP is on a "trajectory to push things forward".
"The party's current policy was developed with Liberal Democrat Friends of Israel and Liberal Democrats for Peace in the Middle East as well. We all input into the foreign affairs team.
"So the position we have on Palestine is so strong because it has membership support".
Daisy Cooper, the party's deputy leader, told MEE that its position on Gaza "has been driven by what we think is the right thing to say at any given point in time."
She added: "We're doing it because we're internationalists, we're humanitarians.
"And it's been our very long-standing policy for such a long time [that] we want Israelis and Palestinians to live in peace, side by side, and we'll support anything that gets us to that position."
Nailah Sharif, an executive member of LDFP, told MEE that it would be "democratically wrong if we were to isolate people. If we want unity to bring them together, we have to work with everybody. It's imperative to include every view".
Hina Bokhari, the leader of the Liberal Democrat group in the London Assembly, said that the party has "always been at the forefront when it comes to human rights and liberal values, including opposing Tony Blair".
A fringe event held on Sunday by the party's pro-Israel group, Liberal Democrat Friends of Israel (LDFI), struck a different note.
The speaker, Israeli Knesset member Shelly Tal Meron, claimed Israel does not target civilians and that accusations it is committing genocide made at the conference make her feel "uncomfortable".
Meron is a member of the opposition Yesh Atid party, the Israeli sister party to the Liberal Democrats.
During the event, LDFI chair Gavin Stollar also falsely claimed that "there's no press in Gaza". Around 250 Palestinian journalists have been killed by Israel in Gaza, according to the UN human rights office.
Meron and LDFI seemed distinctly out of step with the current mood of the party.
It was Monday's LDFP event, not the LDFI one, which was packed with MPs and addressed by the party leader.
'From that flows responsibilities'
At another fringe event on Sunday, organised by LDFP, speakers urged the party to go further than it has done in seeking to hold Israel accountable.
Ben Jamal, director of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, said that he welcomes Davey recognising the genocide, but "from that flows responsibilities".
Jamal added: "You’re not in power but you can use every lever available to you to pressure the government" to sanction Israel.
He told the party to ensure "that every [local] council under your control commits to divesting funds in pensions schemes" from Israel.
Tayab Ali, the director of the ICJP, said that by recognising Palestine, Britain has "caught up with the majority of the world", which had already done so.
"It means the right of Palestinians to determine their own fate, the right to self-determination."
Ali further accused Britain of having "failed in its legal obligations under the Genocide Convention".
"We had the president of Israel here a few weeks ago," he said. "We have British citizens, neighbours of ours, that travel to Israel to murder Palestinians as part of the IDF."
Ehab Omar, the co-founder of British Palestinian Families, received the loudest applause for his speech.
He told the crowd how his family have "had to leave central Gaza... it is my city. All my grandparents are buried there".
Omar added that "our dreams are ordinary dreams...We just want to live like anybody else."
