Sinister moves made to criminalise defence of international law

Labour want to make defending international law a criminal offence, as they appear set to criminalise any criticism of Israel’s actions. Bearing in mind that Zionist Israel has long been conducting a genocide of Palestinians, escalated further since October 7th 2023, the continuation of this blatant politicisation of the UK’s criminal justice system should terrify us all.

Frankly, this move by Labour would be pretty similar to making criticism of the Nazi regime in 1930s Germany a criminal offence in the UK. Nevertheless, it would hardly be surprising if people at the time made efforts to push exactly that outcome, given that the Daily Mail openly aligned itself with Hitler’s camp and has been an enthusiastic supporter of antisemitism generally.

But the Holocaust showed the world where that path leads, and the thought of British leaders enforcing this kind of draconian authoritarianism back then should send shivers down the spine.

As a result, no one should play naive to lawfare at the behest of a hostile state committing genocide against Palestinian men, women and children.

Deranged.

The claim here is that it's antisemitic to accuse Labour of complicity in genocide.

It's clear where this is heading:

They want to make it illegal to criticise Israel's crimes. pic.twitter.com/nTVQoacBs7

— Owen Jones (@owenjonesjourno) May 11, 2026

Ignoring international law has consequences

Alex Hearn, member of the campaign group ‘Labour against Antisemitism’, has seen fit to push the electoral commission to investigate alleged antisemitism in campaign material from the local elections. The offending material is a flyer quoting Keir Starmer’s enabling, and legally ignorant, statement, which he made when Israel was escalating its military aggression and illegal siege on Gaza.

During this siege, Israel cut off access to food, water and medicine to Palestinians, leaving them bombarded, deprived, displaced, and completely without the resources they desperately needed to survive.

However, according to ‘Labour against Antisemitism’, exposing this complicity in the actions and words of the UK PM amounts to antisemitism. Once again, we are watching Zionists continue their attempt to criminalise the defence of international law.

In response, Owen Jones has posted on X:

Deranged.

The claim here is that it’s antisemitic to accuse Labour of complicity in genocide.

It’s clear where this is heading:

They want to make it illegal to criticise Israel’s crimes.

Protecting Zionist Israel is what the British government do

This isn’t the first time that the UK government has sought to shield Israel from legal accountability.

Discussing the intimidation and threats made by then-foreign secretary David Cameron, our own Skwawkbox wrote:

A Freedom of Information Act (FOI) request has forced the Foreign Office (FCDO) to admit – finally – that then-foreign secretary David Cameron called International Criminal Court (ICC) chief prosecutor Karim Khan to threaten him and the ICC, and demand the withdrawal of an arrest warrant for Israeli war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu.

The FOI was filed last month by ‘Unredacted’ a University of Westminster research unit focusing on national security.

Unredacted asked the FCDO to confirm who was present on the 23 April 2024 call to Khan. It confirmed that David Cameron was the only one. Karim Khan confirmed last month that a “senior British official” had threatened to withdraw the UK from the ICC if Khan’s application for warrants for Netanyahu and former defence minister Yoav Gallant was not withdrawn.

Furthermore, the next Foreign Secretary then worked to construct pro-Israel propaganda to seek to ‘justify’ the genocide of Palestinians.

Exclusive: The UK gave an Israeli government-aligned project £90,000 to produce a report claiming sexual violence on and after 7 October was "systematic", a thinly-evidenced claim neither the UN nor Amnesty has been able to verify.

The Dinah Project's UK-backed report was… pic.twitter.com/HrTy4XM0Ov

— Novara Media (@novaramedia) March 2, 2026

Foreign Secretary David Lammy awarded 90% of the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office’s (FCDO) entire annual budget to the Dinah Report. The authors of this highly questionable report were explicitly instructed to conclude that Hamas used sexual violence as a weapon of war on October 7th, 2023.

We wrote at the time:

This blatant bias and conflict of interest should come as little to no surprise. Ever since October 7th, we have seen a concerted push by Israel and its lobby groups to manipulate data, grief and material facts in their own interest. All whilst conveniently and simultaneously demonising Palestinian resistance. If we have learned anything through this horrific 2.5 years, it is the reminder that every life matters and civilians should not pay the price for the sins of the powerful.

Going further, we have also learned in the most disgusting way that the saying ‘lies, damn lies and statistics’ applies all the more in times of conflict. Especially when we consider Israeli and western tactics to manufacture consent for what has been one of the most brutal bombing campaigns the world has ever seen. On the backs of the lack of condemnation afforded by the UK government for crimes against Palestinians, our governments complicity in Israel’s crimes cannot be ignored.

No evidence, no crime – apparently

Recently, we also learned that the FCDO was closing its ‘war crime monitoring unit’, a move which conveniently enables the British government to avoid documenting evidence of the egregious crimes being inflicted on Palestinian civilians.

Exposing this serious threat to international law and the rule of law itself, we wrote:

The closure also means the government is losing access to a database of at least 26,000 verified incidents involving Israel and its military in occupied Palestine and Lebanon, committed since the start of Israel’s Gaza genocide in October 2023. The ‘lost’ evidence includes videos, photographs, satellite imagery and other media – all mapped to the locations in which the atrocities were perpetrated.

‘Losing’, of course, may not be the correct word. The Starmer government has shown less than zero interest in holding Israel to account for its crimes. Starmer’s previous gig as head of the Crown Prosecution Service was also marked by conveniently disappearing evidence relating to notorious crimes and his involvement in decisions not to prosecute.

Certainly this ‘loss’ is very convenient for a UK police state all too eager to continue collaborating in Israel’s genocide, crimes against humanity, land theft and illegal wars of aggression. Human Rights Watch director Yasmine Ahmed described the decision to throw away evidence of Israel’s crimes as “damning”.

Lawfare at play to protect Zionists

Zionist and pro-Israel groups have long been using lawfare to shut down dissent against the genocidal state. The European Legal Support Center has catalogued these sinister attempts to subvert law in their database, suitably named ‘Britain’s Index of Repression’.

Subsequently, this apparent move to make ‘calling a spade a spade’ a criminal offence, whilst speeding up the prosecution of hate crimes, is deeply terrifying. After all, authorities will clearly use it to shut down and criminalise anti-Zionists, while continuing to ignore genuine antisemitism among Reform UK councillors and Nigel Farage himself.

British people must wake up sharpish and stop this before it is too late.

Featured image via the Canary