分类： politics

Just 24 hours before millions of American voters head to the polls for high-stakes midterm congressional elections, former and sitting U.S. President Donald Trump publicly stated on Monday that his administration has no plans to launch offensive military operations against Iran in the post-midterm period, pushing back against viral, high-profile speculation that he was weighing extreme military action including the use of nuclear weapons.
The clarification came during a public appearance at the Washington Reflecting Pool, when an NBC reporter directly questioned Trump about rumored impending strikes on the Islamic Republic. The announcement arrived on the heels of a widely shared warning from prominent conservative podcast host Tucker Carlson, whose post on social platform X had amassed more than 70 million views by Monday evening. Carlson, who has had public falling-outs with Trump in the past but retains close ties to administration insiders including Vice President JD Vance, had claimed Netanyahu was pressuring Trump to deploy nuclear weapons against Iranian targets.
Prior to his on-stage remarks, Trump doubled down on his restrained stance in an interview with Axios released the same day, noting that Washington had already imposed crippling financial pressure on Tehran that left the country starved of revenue and basic supplies such as gasoline, leaving the Iranian public increasingly frustrated with ongoing economic hardship. “One way or the other, we will do something, but there is no rush,” Trump told Axios. In a separate social media post shortly after, he added, “Iran wants a settlement, as soon as possible. It could happen!”
Numerous political analysts have pointed out that the carefully timed remarks appear calibrated to ease voter anxieties ahead of the midterms, where pre-election polling has predicted significant losses for Trump’s Republican Party amid widespread public anger over soaring inflation and energy costs, partially driven by ongoing regional tensions tied to U.S. and Israeli confrontations with Iran.
The de-escalation signals immediately rippled through global energy markets: Brent crude, the international benchmark for oil prices, tumbled 7% on Monday to settle at $104 per barrel, erasing weeks of sharp gains driven by widespread market fears of imminent U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iranian territory. Trump celebrated the market shift during his Monday remarks, noting the $10 single-day drop was the largest recorded in oil price history, and predicted further declines as diplomatic progress moves forward.
Parallel diplomatic efforts have gathered pace behind the scenes in recent days, with Qatari mediators shuttling between Doha and Tehran, as confirmed by independent flight tracking data and multiple regional media reports. Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian had already signaled earlier that his administration was engaged in active shuttle diplomacy to reinstate a bilateral truce with Washington, a position expanded on by senior Iranian diplomatic officials on Monday. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told state news agency IRNA that mediated consultations were proceeding at an intense pace, and that Tehran had submitted formal conditions to U.S. representatives, with all further progress contingent on Washington demonstrating political rationality.
Iran’s foreign ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei outlined a detailed seven-step diplomatic roadmap that Tehran claims could be fully implemented in just 48 hours: the sequential framework requires the U.S. to first lift its blockade on Iranian ports, followed by Iran reopening the critical Strait of Hormuz waterway, Washington issuing formal waivers for Iranian oil sales, the U.S. rolling back all newly imposed sanctions on Iran, and subsequent formal negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program. The two nations had previously agreed to a temporary ceasefire in the spring of this year, and even signed a 14-point memorandum of understanding to guide follow-on talks, but that deal collapsed after U.S. negotiators refused to accept terms that would grant Iran authority over traffic flows through the Strait of Hormuz, the chokepoint that carries roughly one-fifth of global oil supplies. Regional diplomats and energy analysts continue to warn that any unprovoked military strike on Iranian territory would almost certainly trigger immediate retaliatory attacks across the energy-rich Persian Gulf, risking catastrophic disruptions to global energy supplies and far broader regional conflict.

In a stunning 11th-hour political about-face less than 48 hours before Michigan’s critical 2026 U.S. Senate Election Day, long-serving Democratic U.S. Representative Haley Stevens has ignited a firestorm of cross-party condemnation after publicly throwing her support behind Republican nominee Mike Rogers — a direct break from repeated, explicit assurances she gave to fellow party members that she would stand behind her former 2024 primary rival, progressive Democratic candidate Abdul El-Sayed. Per CNN’s verified on-the-ground reporting, Stevens reaffirmed her unwavering commitment to El-Sayed as late as 10 p.m. on Saturday night to a senior, trusted Democratic Party ally, with no hint of a coming policy shift. Just 12 hours later, on Sunday morning, she stood side-by-side with Rogers at a prominent Detroit-area church to formally announce her full endorsement of the GOP candidate, a move that caught nearly every member of Michigan’s Democratic political ecosystem completely off guard. The abrupt reversal immediately set off a wave of fierce pushback from Democratic elected officials, grassroots organizers, and political commentators, with widespread scrutiny focusing on Stevens’ disjointed, often contradictory attempts to justify her last-minute decision during a live primetime CNN interview with anchor Anderson Cooper that same Sunday. When pressed repeatedly by Cooper to name a specific, verifiable event that had triggered her overnight change of heart, Stevens evaded direct answers for several minutes before stating, “Well, look, this is just a weight off my shoulders, OK?” She went on to make unsubstantiated claims that El-Sayed’s campaign had grown increasingly hostile and alienating to moderate Democratic voters, before doubling down with the baffling assertion: “Nothing with me changed, Anderson.” Cooper quickly called out the logical inconsistency of that claim, pointing out that Stevens had spent months on the campaign trail describing Rogers as a de facto rubber stamp for former President Donald Trump’s far-right policy agenda, and repeatedly warning voters that handing Republicans an additional U.S. Senate seat would put critical Democratic priorities at catastrophic risk. As Stevens continued to ramble through vague grievances about El-Sayed without citing a single concrete incident that had shifted her position, Cooper openly expressed frustration at her refusal to answer straightforward questions, noting, “You’re not really answering any of my questions, so it’s somewhat frustrating.” The viral clip of the tense exchange spread across every major social media platform within hours, drawing thousands of critical posts from voters and political observers who mocked the obvious contradictions in Stevens’ public statements. New York City public advocate Zohran Mamdani was among the first high-profile figures to publicly condemn the move, posting on X that Stevens had “betrayed the working class” by endorsing the exact Republican she had previously pledged to campaign against, at a time when Michigan voters’ access to affordable healthcare, housing security, and cost of living relief were all directly on the ballot. Stevens later attempted to frame her endorsement as a stand against antisemitism, claiming she could no longer support El-Sayed due to his public association with popular progressive streamer Hasan Piker, and invoking Piker’s uncle, left-wing political commentator Cenk Uygur, as a core justification for her decision. She also cited a controversial outside group campaign ad that drew widespread criticism for deploying antisemitic tropes by tying Michigan household cost of living struggles directly to U.S. foreign aid for Israel — a spot that El-Sayed had already publicly rejected and disavowed per Axios reporting. But Cooper quickly pointed out that all of these associations and the ad controversy were fully public knowledge weeks, if not months, before Stevens’ sudden endorsement flip, leaving no logical explanation for why she had waited until 48 hours before polls opened to abandon her party’s nominee. The explanation sparked a second wave of viral backlash online, with hundreds of social media posts highlighting the blatant timing gap, including a widely shared clip from a Hasan Piker fan account that mocked Stevens’ disjointed, unhinged on-air rant that left even Cooper visibly confused. Most notably, Stevens’ attempt to wrap her decision in a stand against antisemitism was forcefully rejected by the national leadership of the Democratic National Committee’s Jewish-American Council, which released a blistering joint statement from chair Adam Goldwyn and vice chair Steph Newton. The pair acknowledged that many Jewish Democratic voters held legitimate policy disagreements with El-Sayed over Israeli policy and community safety, but emphasized that those serious, nuanced debates deserved thoughtful public dialogue rather than cynical, last-minute political exploitation. The council’s leadership went on to call out Stevens for her glaring double standard, noting that she had completely ignored well-documented antisemitism controversies tied directly to Rogers’ campaign — including confirmed reports that members of his youth outreach team had defended a local Young Republicans group chat that contained explicit praise for Adolf Hitler. “If Stevens actually cared about protecting Jews, she would have raised those concerns with Rogers’ campaign before endorsing the MAGA Republican. She did not,” the statement read. Multiple high-profile Jewish Democratic officials across Michigan echoed that condemnation, including state congressional candidate Jeremy Moss, who noted that while he had publicly disagreed with several of El-Sayed’s past remarks, Rogers’ far-right alignment with Trump made him an unacceptable alternative for the U.S. Senate seat. The controversy also spilled over into Stevens’ own congressional office, with multiple members of her senior staff submitting immediate resignations in protest of her endorsement, while fellow Democratic lawmakers publicly voiced their shock. Maryland Representative Jamie Raskin, who had spoken directly with Stevens on Saturday night just hours before her endorsement, told reporters he could not wrap his head around the sudden reversal, and veteran Michigan Democratic Representative Debbie Dingell publicly questioned why Stevens had chosen to drop the bombshell endorsement so close to Election Day, with no advance warning to state party leadership. For his part, El-Sayed has largely declined to engage in the public drama, telling reporters gathered at a campaign stop on Sunday that he remains fully focused on speaking directly to Michigan’s voters about their top economic priorities, rather than addressing Stevens’ last-minute political about-face.

Across every partisan demographic, American voters have made their widespread frustration with the status quo unmistakable in nearly every public and private conversation in the months leading up to the 3 November midterm elections. Defying decades of historical precedent for low turnout in non-presidential election cycles, pre-Election Day early voting has already drawn a record-breaking 56 million participants, a landmark figure that signals an electorate hungry for systemic change. Compounding the ruling party’s uphill battle, incumbent President Donald Trump currently holds a lower approval rating than any of his three immediate predecessors at the equivalent point of their first-term midterm campaigns. Bipartisan polling data and internal forecasts from Republican election analysts overwhelmingly indicate that the Democratic Party is on track to reclaim control of the U.S. House of Representatives, flip a narrow majority in the Senate, and secure the largest share of state governorships across the 50 U.S. states. Despite these projected electoral shifts, legislative insiders and political analysts warn that sweeping, landmark policy changes are highly unlikely to materialise in the new Congress, even as the balance of narrative power and procedural leverage on Capitol Hill will undergo a dramatic transformation.

Rina Shah, a former Republican congressional advisor, outlined to Middle East Eye that a Democratic-controlled Senate would not seek to fully roll back the Trump administration’s existing policy portfolio, but instead deploy a targeted, strategic refusal to advance new White House priorities. A core early priority for liberal senators would be to block the Trump administration’s push to install a slate of conservative judges to federal courts, a move that follows a series of recent judicial rulings that ordered the release of multiple critics of Israel from immigration detention after Secretary of State Marco Rubio revoked their U.S. visas and green cards. Shah explained that full Senate majority control grants the party authority over the legislative calendar, committee leadership appointments, and all confirmation processes, allowing Democratic leaders to slow-walk or reject presidential nominees for ambassador and national security posts, launch oversight hearings with full subpoena power, and embed binding conditions into must-pass appropriations bills and the annual National Defense Authorization Act to place new restrictions on U.S. arms sales, overseas troop deployments, and executive war-making authority.

President Trump’s long track record of wielding the presidential veto means he will almost certainly strike down any standalone legislation that conflicts with his policy agenda. Even so, Shah noted that forcing these bills to a veto stage serves a deliberate political purpose: it compels Republican lawmakers to cast public votes on high-profile issues, laying the foundational framing for the 2028 presidential election campaign. The real legislative leverage for Senate Democrats, she emphasised, lies in so-called “must-pass” pieces of legislation such as federal government funding packages and defence authorisation bills, which the president cannot veto without taking direct public ownership of a disruptive government shutdown or a lapse in critical national security funding. Trump has already demonstrated his willingness to trigger two full government shutdowns during his first term in high-stakes standoffs with Democratic lawmakers, but analysts note that a third shutdown tied to core voter priorities of affordability and public safety would carry far greater electoral consequences for his 2028 re-election prospects.

To override presidential vetoes, offset potential partisan defections on divisive policy issues, and even secure the two-thirds majority required to convict a sitting U.S. president or cabinet member in an impeachment trial, Senate Democrats would need to win a 60-seat filibuster-proof supermajority – a threshold that all current projections confirm is unachievable in this 2026 midterm cycle. This mathematical reality means that Democratic leaders will be forced to pursue targeted negotiations and bipartisan compromise to win over a handful of moderate Republican lawmakers to advance their legislative priorities.

Jennifer Hendrixson White, a former senior staffer for the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee and current visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace’s American Statecraft Programme, told MEE that the success of Democratic legislative efforts will hinge entirely on how party leaders frame policy debates and position proposed bills for floor votes. She noted that Senate Republicans, who hold six-year terms that extend well past the remaining duration of Trump’s current term, are far more willing to challenge the president’s agenda than they were in the early months of his first administration. If lawmakers centre their proposals around reclaiming the Article One constitutional responsibilities of the legislative branch – the core system of checks and balances designed to constrain unilateral presidential power – they can draw bipartisan support from Republicans who are eager to reassert congressional authority over executive overreach.

To secure a narrow 51-seat Senate majority, Democrats will need to defend all 47 of their currently held seats and flip four Republican-held districts, with Texas, Maine, North Carolina and Alaska widely viewed as the most likely pickup targets, while Iowa and Ohio remain fiercely competitive toss-up races. There is near-universal consensus among election forecasters that Democrats will easily retake the U.S. House of Representatives, but the Senate carries outsized institutional weight, as its six-year terms insulate senators from the shorter two-year electoral cycles that define House membership and the four-year presidential term. A recent YouGov survey of competitive Senate races published on Monday shows most contests running neck-and-neck, but with Democrats holding a consistent aggregate advantage, while 75 percent of bettors on the prediction market Polymarket have placed wagers on a full Democratic sweep of both congressional chambers. High-profile Republican figures including former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy also publicly stated on ABC News on Sunday that they expect the Democratic Party to win control of both chambers, with Christie additionally projecting that Democrats will secure 27 of the 36 available governorship seats up for election this cycle.

Voters across the entire political spectrum have expressed widespread shared frustration over soaring cost of living, and widespread disapproval of the Trump administration’s aggressive domestic and foreign policies – including highly publicised violent confrontations between immigration enforcement agents and civilian communities, and the ongoing nine-month joint U.S.-Israeli military campaign against Iran that has no clear end in sight. These priorities directly contradict the core 2024 campaign pledges Trump made to voters, which centred on delivering widespread affordability, public safety, and a full end to all ongoing U.S. foreign wars.

Even on highly polarising issues such as the traditionally unconditional U.S. security partnership with Israel, analysts note that tangible policy shifts will be gradual, but will begin with sustained, open debate on the Senate floor. David McCuan, a political science professor at Sonoma State University, explained to MEE that a major emerging priority for the new Democratic caucus will be pushing to conditionalise U.S. military aid to Israel, a policy debate that is far more politically viable than attempting to pass formal sanctions on the ongoing Iran war. He noted that the rising political power of progressive left figures such as Michigan’s incoming Democratic leader Abdul El-Sayed and independent Senator Bernie Sanders will give Democrats the narrow margin of votes they need to force these long-suppressed policy debates onto the legislative agenda. Wajahat Ali, a *Daily Beast* columnist and author of *Go Back to Where You Came From*, emphasised that Israel’s plummeting unfavourability ratings among U.S. voters, particularly young liberal demographics, can no longer be sidelined by party leadership. He warned that unwavering pro-Israel hawkishness will become a non-negotiable litmus test issue for any Democratic politician with national presidential aspirations, and that party leaders and major donors face an imminent choice between doubling down on unqualified support for Israel, or evolving their positions to align with the shifting priorities of the broader U.S. electorate. Since the 7 October 2023 Hamas-led attacks in southern Israel and the subsequent Israeli military assault on Gaza that the United Nations and leading Holocaust scholars have formally labelled a genocide, U.S. public approval of Israel has fallen to the lowest recorded level in national polling history.

Hendrixson White noted that the Trump administration has proven far more resistant to traditional congressional political pressure than previous presidential administrations, and warned that a key risk for the new Democratic Congress is wasting limited legislative time on non-binding symbolic statements that do not force tangible action from the White House, rather than advancing substantive policy priorities or rigorous oversight. She raised concerns that excessive focus on anti-corruption investigations could distract the party from the core economic issues that drove voters to the polls in 2026. Critics of the Trump administration have long demanded formal congressional investigations into a wide range of alleged improprieties, including a $100 million private jet gifted to the president by the Qatari government, his long-documented ties to convicted child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, and the undisclosed personal financial benefits his son-in-law Jared Kushner accrued while serving as an unpaid White House Middle East peace negotiator. Trump, his immediate family, and all members of his cabinet have repeatedly denied all allegations of wrongdoing.

McCuan, who regularly briefs foreign diplomats on U.S. election outcomes and their policy implications, argued that a Democratic-controlled Senate is far more likely to prioritise a forward-looking policy agenda than to focus exclusively on retrospective accountability measures. He cited decades of peer-reviewed political science research showing that midterm elections function first and foremost as a public backlash against the sitting president, rather than a narrow referendum on specific administrative missteps. This means Senate Democrats will need to roll out a proactive, voter-focused policy platform that is explicitly designed to position the party for victory in the 2028 presidential election cycle. Given the structure of the U.S. political calendar, prospective 2028 presidential candidates are already required to launch formal exploratory committees to gauge public support, raise campaign funds, and hire full campaign staff, meaning the 2028 election cycle will effectively begin the day after the 2026 midterms conclude. McCuan stressed that the Democratic agenda will need to centre directly on kitchen-table voter priorities: reducing household costs for groceries, gasoline, and diesel fuel, rather than dedicating the majority of legislative time to impeachment proceedings or punitive investigations. Ali, however, expressed deep scepticism of Democratic congressional leadership, arguing that Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries lack the strategic vision to meet the current political moment, citing their history of opposing Medicare for All, attacking progressive socialist candidates, accepting large campaign donations from the pro-Israel lobbying group AIPAC, and holding undisclosed private meetings with Jared Kushner. He warned that the projected Democratic midterm gains do not represent a permanent national political realignment toward the Democratic Party, but a temporary, short-term electoral backlash against the excesses of the MAGA movement that will expire quickly if the party fails to deliver tangible results for working-class voters. The 120th U.S. Congress will be formally sworn into office on 3 January 2027.

A cross-party coalition of 15 United Kingdom Members of Parliament has formally submitted a letter to the UK government, calling for immediate intervention to block a major upcoming international travel expo in London from featuring promotional activities linked to an Israeli state agency heavily involved in the construction of illegal settlements on occupied Palestinian land. The three-day World Travel Market (WTM) London, one of the global travel industry’s most high-profile annual gatherings, is scheduled to run from 3 to 5 November, with its opening day falling on a Tuesday. As first uncovered by Middle East Eye (MEE) last week, the event’s exhibition floor will host an official stand operated by the Israeli government’s national tourism office, which is co-shared by a network of Israeli commercial and public organizations. One of these featured partners is iTravelJerusalem, a tourism promotion initiative focused on Israeli-occupied East Jerusalem that falls under the oversight of the Jerusalem Development Authority (JDA). The JDA, a statutory body jointly governed by the Israeli national government and the Jerusalem municipal authority, leads urban development projects across the city and has been a central operational player in the planning, construction, and ongoing expansion of illegal Israeli settlements built on internationally recognized occupied Palestinian territory. The formal demand for government action was drafted and sent to UK Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband on Monday by Independent MP Adnan Hussain, and has garnered signatures from a diverse cross-section of parliamentary representatives spanning multiple political parties. Signatories include prominent Labour backbenchers John McDonnell and Kim Johnson, former Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, all five sitting Green Party MPs (Carla Denyer, Ellie Chownes, Hannah Spencer, Sian Berry, and Adrian Ramsay), three additional Independent MPs (Shockat Adam, Iqbal Mohamed, and Ayoub Khan), and Scottish National Party MP Chris Law. The letter, whose full text was reviewed by MEE, lays out two core explicit requests: first, that the UK government immediately contact WTM London’s event organizers and mandate the full removal of any exhibitor and associated promotional materials whose presence at the expo would enable or advance the normalization of illegal Israeli settlements; and second, that ministers provide formal confirmation of concrete, actionable steps being taken to enforce the UK’s existing ban on the advertising of illegal settlements, rather than leaving the policy as a series of unenforced verbal commitments delivered only during parliamentary debates. The coordinated parliamentary push comes in the wake of a landmark policy announcement made by the UK government just one month prior, in which officials formally recognized Israel’s long-running occupation of Palestinian territories as illegal and unveiled a sweeping new package of sanctions targeting Israeli settlement operations. The letter’s signatories emphasize that the UK government cannot maintain any credible moral or political standing if it continues to publicly condemn the forced displacement of Palestinian communities, acknowledge the risk of ethnic cleansing in occupied Palestinian territories, and publicly vow to ban the promotion of illegal settlements on UK soil, while simultaneously permitting organizations directly implicated in these contested activities to leverage a high-profile international event hosted in central London to advance their work. To back up their demands, the MPs cite a 2025 official report published by the Office of the European Union Representative for the West Bank and Gaza Strip, which documents the JDA’s formal plans to evict roughly 40 Palestinian families from the Umm Haroun compound in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood to make way for a new 320-unit illegal settlement development. Additional documented JDA projects referenced in the letter include a 2020 Israeli government-approved Jerusalem cable car scheme that would require mass uprooting of local trees and the demolition of critical Palestinian civilian infrastructure including water, sewage, and telecommunications lines, as well as a planned large-scale settlement housing development directly adjacent to the Palestinian residential community of Beit Safafa in East Jerusalem. Palestinian Ambassador to the UK Hussam Zomlot issued a public statement responding to MEE’s initial reporting last Thursday, criticizing the upcoming WTM event for granting a platform to Israeli entities that he described as complicit in ethnic cleansing, and urging the UK government to translate its previously stated policy commitments into tangible enforcement that imposes real consequences for parties involved in illegal occupation and settlement activity. In their closing message to Foreign Secretary Miliband, the 15 MPs note that they will not accept a perfunctory response that merely restates the UK government’s existing public position, and demand a detailed, urgent reply outlining specific actionable steps that will be taken before WTM London opens its doors to attendees. “The question is no longer simply what the Government believes, but whether it is prepared to act on what it has said,” the letter stresses. As of the time of MEE’s publication, requests for comment submitted to both WTM London event organizers and the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office had not received a formal response.

The UK’s ruling Labour Party has formally severed collaborative governing ties with the Green Party across 11 local authorities in England, in direct response to a landmark policy passed by the Greens at their October annual party conference that labels Zionism as a form of racism. The vote by Green activists made the party the first major UK political group to formally adopt that stance, alongside a policy shift backing a single, inclusive democratic Palestinian state with equal rights for all ethnic and religious communities, replacing the longstanding two-state solution framework that has dominated mainstream UK political discourse on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Labour Party chair Bridget Phillipson laid out the party’s firm position in an official statement, emphasizing that the Green motion on Zionism had crossed an unnegotiable moral boundary. “No local power-sharing arrangement can ever justify abandoning the moral duty we hold to stand up for every member of our communities and the shared anti-racist values that define our party,” Phillipson stated. “We cannot collaborate at any level of governance with a party that endorses this divisive, discriminatory policy.” Prime Minister Andy Burnham had previously publicly denounced the Green policy as antisemitic shortly after it was passed last month.

The 11 councils where all joint working agreements with Greens will immediately cease are Arun, Derbyshire Dales, Havant, Lewes, Sheffield, Stafford, Warwick, Wealden, West Devon, and West Suffolk. Labour noted that six local Green council groups, based in Broadland, Monmouthshire, North Somerset, Rother, West Oxfordshire, and West Sussex, have already publicly rejected the national party’s new motion, a move that Phillipson’s team described as a “right and appropriate” stance. The party added that it was “disappointed” other local Green branches had declined to disavow the policy as required under Labour’s terms for continued collaboration, and called on the Green Party’s national leadership to formally rescind the motion entirely.

In an official response, the Green Party pushed back against Labour’s move, arguing that cross-party local partnerships between Greens, Labour, independents, and Liberal Democrats have long delivered stable, effective local governance, protected critical public services, and delivered tangible improvements for residents across the country. The party accused Labour leadership of issuing arbitrary ultimatums that undermined the judgment of their own local elected representatives, disrespected the will of local voters who had backed cross-party collaborative governance, and disrupted long-running successful community-focused initiatives.

Zack Polanski, the Jewish deputy leader of the Green Party, warned on Monday that Labour’s decision to end local power-sharing deals would ultimately backfire on the ruling party. “Our party is focused on delivering policies to tax billionaires, tackle the accelerating climate crisis, and end arms sales that are enabling ongoing genocide in Gaza,” Polanski said. “Labour’s choice to disrupt local public services to enforce their policy of supporting that genocide at the local level lays bare the true priorities of Andy Burnham and his administration.” The Green Party had previously hit back at Burnham’s earlier criticism of the motion, stating that it would refuse to take lectures on antisemitism from a government that continues to supply military hardware to the state of Israel.