UK Health Secretary Wes Streeting condemned Israel for “committing war crimes before our eyes” in a series of WhatsApp messages to the disgraced politician Peter Mandelson.
The Labour leadership contender also feared he would be “toast” at the next general election in the likelihood that he would lose his seat to a pro-Gaza candidate.
Mr Streeting has released a host of correspondence with Mr Mandelson following further revelations in the Jeffrey Epstein scandal, to show that he was not unduly influenced by the former peer.
The Health Secretary is a leading candidate to succeed embattled Prime Minister Keir Starmer but it had been speculated that his friendship with Mr Mandelson could undermine his position.
Israel condemned
The messages between Mr Streeting and Mr Mandelson reveal how fractured the British cabinet was last year in the lead-up to the recognition of a Palestinian state in September.
Writing on July 24, Mr Streeting told Mr Mandelson that he wanted to “check in with you on recognition of Palestine and the domestic politics of it”.
With President Emmanuel Macron of France signalling that he would recognise Palestine, Mr Streeting argued that “morally and politically” Britain needed to join the French.
“Morally, because Israel is committing war crimes before our eyes. Their government talks the language of ethnic cleansing,” he wrote in a long message.
He also revealed that, as health secretary, he had met British medics recently returned from Gaza who described “the most chilling and distressing scenes of calculated brutality against women and children”.
Given the depth of anger in Labour backbenches over the deaths of Palestinians in Gaza – more than 60,000 had been killed in the territory by the end of July – he admitted that the government would not be able to prevent a vote on recognition.
“There are no circumstances in which people like me or Shabana [Mahmood] could abstain or vote against, for example.” He added that the Labour party conference in late September would also be “a sea of Palestinian flags” waved by moderates if recognition was not accomplished.
He ended by stating the government needed to “lead not follow”.
‘Death spiral’
However, Mr Mandelson’s response was more nuanced, stating his concerns that recognition could “blow a 2 SS [two-state solution] out of the water” if Israel then decided to proceed with full occupied West Bank annexation “which the US would be powerless to stop or reverse”.
He argued that “practical means” were needed for a two-state solution and this could be advanced with new leadership from the Palestinian Authority and Arab, US and European support.
“The alternative is a further deadlocked death spiral on an even greater scale than now,” he concluded, to which Mr Streeting replied: “Israel is doing it anyway. This is rogue state behaviour. Let them pay the price as pariahs with sanctions applied to the state, not just a few ministers.”
Gaza vote
A political crisis continues to grip Downing Street. Mr Starmer’s position is under scrutiny with MPs questioning his political judgment in appointing Mr Mandelson, despite knowing about his connections to convicted paedophile Epstein.
Mr Streeting’s chances of succeeding Mr Starmer are threatened not only by his association with Mr Mandelson, although he has now roundly condemned him. They are also undermined by his vulnerability to pro-Gaza candidate Leanne Mohamad in his Ilford North constituency. The London constituency is one third Muslim and she lost to him by just 1.2 per cent of the vote in 2024.
“I fear we're in big trouble here and I am toast at the next election,” he wrote in March after a local by-election in a neighbouring ward in Ilford South was won by a “Gaza independent” candidate.
The concern in any future leadership contest will be Mr Streeting’s inability to remain an MP after an election.
Since the crisis broke, Mr Mandelson has surrendered his peerage and is facing a police investigation over allegations of misconduct in a public office for leaking confidential UK government information to Epstein at the height of the financial crisis in 2008. He denies the allegations.
