Britain’s Middle East minister has been challenged for not being tough enough on Israeli illegal settlers, while admitting relations with Israel are at a low ebb.
After two years in post during which he answered a record 19 “urgent questions” in parliament, Hamish Falconer made what was possibly his last appearance before the foreign affairs committee.
And the MPs did not let up in their hard-nosed questioning on Israel and Palestine, a topic on which he has often defended the government’s position, which has seldom reflected public opinion.
Mr Falconer, who was unusually appointed to his post straight after being elected as an MP for the first time in 2024, now harbours hopes of a position in a future government led by Andy Burnham.
The Labour Party scion has had to defend in parliament stances that have become increasingly untenable.
“It has at times been difficult, volatile and emotional, and I have done my best as a relative newbie to parliament,” Mr Falconer told The National after the hearing. He then had to quickly leave to summon the Iranian ambassador over Tehran’s latest wrongdoing.
Condemnation questions
In part his main issue was down to Keir Starmer’s government's unwillingness to roundly condemn Israel’s actions in Gaza and to call them "genocide" as the bodies of dead Palestinian women and children mounted.
Mr Falconer, a diplomat in the foreign office before parliament, time and again had to respond to the tirades from Labour MPs who were furious about Israel’s actions.
For more than a year he had to defend the British government’s decision not to recognise a Palestinian state, only to reverse the position in September 2025 after immense pressure from MPs.
That incremental approach, a hallmark of Mr Starmer’s government, resulted only in sanctions imposed on two of the most egregious members of the Israeli cabinet, a partial arms export ban, and the suspension of negotiations for a free trade deal.
Urgent questions are issues of high importance granted time for debate by the Commons’ Speaker, and Mr Falconer has regularly stood as the government’s shield to criticism.
Tangible action?
MPs did not let up on him at what could be his valedictory appearance. Emily Thornberry, the committee chairwoman, pressed the government on its inability to tackle illegal settlements.
She was relentless, especially over Israel’s E1 occupied West Bank development plan that could kill off the two-state solution. Mr Falconer said “tangible action” would be taken against it.
“Tangible action, what does it mean?” Ms Thornberry retorted. “We still don’t see any.”
He was then asked if high-level communications between Britain and Israel were now “non-existent?”
“I acknowledge relations between myself and Israeli counterpart are obviously not strong,” Mr Falconer replied.
He was also pressed on the government’s failure to officially announce its position on the “advisory opinion” of the International Court of Justice in 2024, under which Israel's continued presence in the territories it occupied in 1967 was unlawful under international law.
As he constantly fiddled with his gold wedding band, sometimes taking it off, Mr Falconer replied: “I cannot give you an answer on the AO.” The government had promised to give a formal response on it but has not done so for the past two years.
Interrupting the MP who had questioned him, Ms Thornberry interjected: “When are we going to get it? It’s been more than 700 days. We pride ourselves on abiding international law and all we get is ‘la la la’.”
“I will talk to the foreign secretary,” the unflappable minister replied.
Corbyn spat
The pressure over Israel’s illegal occupation has been continuous in parliament, leading to a dispute last week with former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, who is now an independent MP.
Mr Corbyn said that merely condemning the E1 development was insufficient and the reality was it was “part of the Greater Israel plan".
Defending the government, Mr Falconer, 40, replied that the settlements were not supported across Israeli society. “We must be really careful in our language,” he added. “We must not tar communities in this country or the whole nation of Israel with the same brush.”
Mr Corbyn later called this a “shocking and disgraceful response”, arguing that Mr Falconer had shifted the discussion from Israeli government policy to allegations of anti-Semitism.
Burnham approach
There may well be a firmer line when, as is likely, Mr Burnham takes office, with the probability that “genocide” will be used to describe the Gaza conflict. The Council for Arab-British Understanding revealed in a YouGov poll that half the British public subscribed to that view. The survey found that only 17 per cent of Britons believe Israel is not committing genocide in Gaza.
Mr Burnham will also probably press forward banning sale of goods from illegal settlements, something Mr Falconer was challenged with. “We are working in detail on this question,” he said. “I believe it can be done.”
The privately educated son of Labour grandee Lord Charlie Falconer has often shown polite resilience in the face of some forceful questioning. But for a moment there was an opening into how he viewed the Israeli government.
“Two years ago I thought the Israeli justice system worked well," he said. "That is a concern now.”
Perhaps it will come as a relief for Mr Falconer to find new political circumstances having endured a two-year task of bombardment by those who accuse Keir Starmer's leadership of defending the indefensible.
