Jeanine Hourani says Gaza is the final nail in Labour's coffin

Jeanine Hourani from the Palestinian Youth Movement spoke at a Your Party rally in Leeds on 8 October, and she insisted that:

Palestine has well and truly been the final nail in the coffin of the Labour Party of this country.

She added:

Whether it’s supporting genocide abroad or austerity at home, the political elite of this country will never act in the interest of the people. This is what Palestine has illuminated over the last two years.

On top of the horrors of Israel’s genocide in Gaza, she pointed out that:

Every day in this country nearly half of parents skip a meal so that their children have enough to eat. This winter it’s estimated that over two million households will not be able to heat their homes.

A survey in early 2025 revealed that “48% of parents [say] they have skipped a meal to ensure their children are fed”, with 32% doing this on multiple occasions. And another report from last month stated that “more than two million households plan to avoid turning on their central heating this winter – a 22% increase on last year – for fear of soaring energy bills”.

In organising the resistance to this system, Hourani believes we can learn important lessons from the movement for Palestinian liberation.

Jeanine Hourani: grassroots pressure matters

Jeanine Hourani’s media visibility has attracted attention from the Israeli settler-colonial project. And as she argued, the activism of the Palestinian Youth Movement has absolutely made an impact in Britain.

In May, she noted, the group co-released a report that exposed UK arms sales to Israel. This revealed the shocking extent of Britain’s support for Israel as it committed genocide against Palestinians in the occupied Gaza Strip. And it revealed that Keir Starmer’s Labour Party had continued to send munitions despite the September 2024 suspension of some export licences. As Hourani stressed:

In the weeks that followed, we saw the mounting pressure materialise.

This included dozens of MPs calling on Labour to respond to the report’s findings.

The government began to threaten more symbolic action in response to Israel’s war crimes. But after many months of insufficient action, Hourani said:

we continued to take matters into our own hands. We shut down 17 Labour offices around the country and successfully disrupted this year’s Labour Party conference.

The ongoing resistance on the ground against Labour’s complicity in genocide, meanwhile, has kept pressure on media outlets to do their job too. For example, a recent Channel 4 News investigation revealed that the value of UK arms going to Israel actually reached a record high of around £400,000 this June. And last month was the second highest on record, at £316,000:

EXCLUSIVE: Israel’s arms imports from the UK have hit record high values in recent months, our @FactCheck team can reveal. pic.twitter.com/H85TtjHlA2

— Channel 4 News (@Channel4News) October 6, 2025

Building on these lessons in a new left party

The struggle against Labour’s support for Israel’s crimes is not over. But as Jeanine Hourani insisted:

If the research produced by a group of young, unpaid volunteers who are fighting to end the genocide of our people can expose the lies of the Labour Party of this country, make its way into parliament, catalyse shutdowns at Labour Party offices and events, and strike at the political establishment of this country, what can a new socialist party achieve if we get organised?

The shocking establishment support for Israel’s genocide has undoubtedly been a turning point. People have witnessed the horrors in Gaza for two years now. We’ve seen politicians drop their masks of civility and throw all morals in the bin. And at the same time, we’ve faced ongoing attacks on our own rights and wellbeing.

This genocide hasn’t just woken us up. It has shown us the power of grassroots resistance. And the lessons we’ve learned can help us to reshape our country and world into places of compassion, peace, and justice.

Featured image via the Canary