Andy Burnham was funded by director of Gaza genocide-linked arms firm

Any illusions of Labour Party “change” under Andy Burnham were dispelled last week when he appointed lobbyist, Blairite minister, ex-Labour Friends of Israel chair, and Peter Mandelson’s “boy” James Purnell as his chief of staff.

The line from Team Burnham is that Purnell has cut all ties with Flint Global, the lobbying firm he led and held shares in until last week. But it seems that the firm has a history when it comes to conflicts of interest.

Flint Global

Flint Global’s current Defence Advisory Practice lead, James Clark, was previously outed as being a co-founder of the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Defence Technology.

The APPG was forced to shut down when it was revealed that its secretariat had been funded by RUK Advanced Systems Limited, a subsidiary of Israeli state-owned weapons manufacturer Rafael.

Before joining Flint, Clark was a special advisor to Conservative Defence Minister Grant Shapps, providing:

expert advice [on] various crisis events including … Gaza.

According to parliamentary rules, APPGs are not allowed to be funded by foreign governments. But unbelievably, the British subsidiary of Rafael, Pearson Engineering, owns an arms factory in Newcastle and is led by John Hutton, a sitting Labour Party peer.

In April 2024, the Israeli military reportedly used a Rafael spike missile to obliterate seven aid workers working for World Central Kitchen, including three British citizens.

MBDA

Burnham’s appointment of Purnell may have set off alarm bells, but the Prime Minister-in-waiting has his own links to the arms industry. As the Canary previously reported, one of the financers of his 2015 Labour leadership bid was Howard Borrington, who was then the Director of UK Government Affairs at arms firm MBDA.

According to a 2025 investigation, MBDA sold:

key components for bombs that have been shipped in their thousands to Israel.

The MBDA “wings” were designed to unfold mid-air and guide GBU-39 bombs to their target. Those targets included schools, tents, and family homes.

In the Fahmi al-Jarjawi School attack of May 2025, the Israeli military dropped GBU-39 bombs fitted with MBDA Inc. folding wings. 18 children were killed.

One of the survivors of that attack was five-year-old Hanin al-Wadie. As she stumbled out through the fire that engulfed the school on May 26th 2025, Hanin suffered second- and third-degree burns. GBU-39 fragments and MBDA Inc. “wings” were found at the site.

BAE Systems

Before his time at MBDA, Borrington worked at BAE Systems. BAE has long supplied components and systems to the Israeli military, including for F-35 jets, with weapons often “gifted” through the U.S. government’s Foreign Military Financing program.

In the past, BAE Systems has collaborated with the Israeli state-owned arms firm Rafael to upgrade their MK-38 Typhoon gun system. The Typhoon is a remote-controlled naval weapon used to enforce the illegal siege of Gaza by firing on Palestinian fishermen.

In 2021, BAE Systems sold their Jerusalem-based subsidiary, Rokar, to another Israeli arms dealer: Elbit Systems. Rokar routinely arms the Israeli military. BAE also has a long history of providing Head Up Display systems for target selection in Israeli F-16 fighter jets.

Labour Friends of Israel

When Andy Burnham served as a Labour government minister, his most senior special adviser was Jennifer Gerber, an ex-chair and current director of Labour Friends of Israel. Until today, LFI refuses to reveal its donors.

Campaign Funding

We will have to wait to find out who has funded Burnham’s present campaigning, but we do know that his last Labour leadership bid in 2015 received over £130,000 in private donations, including from Borrington. Another of his donors was David Garrard, a former director of Labour Friends of Israel who passed away last year.

It is hard not to conclude that Burnham’s links to LFI and the arms industry may have impacted his decision this month to refuse to recognise the genocide in Gaza.

Keir Starmer

On June 11th, and in one of his last attempts to reassert control over his cabinet, Keir Starmer promoted Dan Jarvis, a Burnham supporter and fellow LFI veteran, to Defence Minister. But now, Starmer’s disastrous premiership is drawing to a pathetic close.

His “island of strangers” rhetoric and support for the Gaza genocide has led us to a showdown between Nigel Farage and Andy Burnham. Both are selling the public a dream, but both have donors they would rather voters did not ask about.

Featured image via the Canary