标签： Asia

As speculation builds over the race to replace Keir Starmer as British prime minister, one critical issue has so far been sidelined by political commentators: Starmer’s controversial handling of Israel’s military campaign in Gaza and ongoing settlement expansion in the occupied West Bank. For now, media coverage has fixated on candidate horse-trading and critiques of Starmer’s governing style, but political insiders agree this dynamic will shift dramatically once the leadership contest formally gets underway. When it does, Starmer’s approach to the Gaza crisis will emerge as one of the race’s defining flashpoints.

Across the Labour Party, a growing consensus holds that whoever succeeds Starmer will need to adopt a far more uncompromising stance toward Israel, with potential policy shifts ranging from targeted sanctions on illegal West Bank settlements and a ban on settlement goods to sweeping, state-level sanctions against Israel itself. Senior Labour figures have already framed the issue as a critical electoral and moral turning point for the party. “Labour’s refusal to properly oppose Israel’s actions in Gaza is one of the key issues that has appalled huge numbers of former Labour voters and driven them away from the party,” Labour MP Richard Burgon told Middle East Eye. Fellow MP Kim Johnson echoed that sentiment, noting: “Any future leader must demonstrate a clear willingness to challenge the Israeli government over the continued violence in Gaza and illegal settlement expansion in the West Bank. I will be looking closely at where any future leader stands on these issues. This includes their willingness to take tough, principled action and their independence from foreign interests in the form of financial backing.”

The field of likely contenders has begun to take shape, with former Health Secretary Wes Streeting, Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner, and Energy Secretary Ed Miliband all tipped as potential candidates. Currently, Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham has emerged as the early frontrunner, should he win the upcoming by-election in Makerfield — a seat vacated by former Starmer ally Josh Simons. Burnham holds overwhelming popularity among Labour’s grassroots membership, but his record on Israel and Middle East policy is nuanced.

As a regional mayor, Burnham has not shaped national Labour policy on the conflict, and he has never positioned himself as a strident pro-Palestine advocate in the mold of former leader Jeremy Corbyn. He joined Labour Friends of Israel (LFI) in 2015, during his first unsuccessful run for the party leadership, when he stated his first overseas visit as leader would be to Israel and described the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement as “spiteful.” Yet even then, Burnham criticized Israeli leadership, calling Benjamin Netanyahu’s 2015 re-election “depressing” and noting that Palestine would require increased international support. After the October 7 2023 Hamas attack, Burnham broke sharply with Starmer’s pro-Israel line, calling for an immediate ceasefire just weeks into the war — at a time when Labour MPs were ordered not to support parliamentary ceasefire votes. He has since cited lessons from the 2003 Iraq War, which he voted for as a young MP, to justify his stance: “the US-UK action resulted in huge harm to innocent civilians,” he has said, adding that those experiences shaped his opposition to the Gaza campaign. Most analysts agree that as prime minister, Burnham would almost certainly toughen Britain’s stance on Israeli violations of international law.

Ed Miliband, Labour leader between 2010 and 2015, has also signaled he would take a harder line than Starmer. Like Burnham, Miliband has long identified as a friend of Israel and opposed boycott campaigns, but he broke with Conservative government policy during the 2014 Israeli bombing of Gaza, which killed more than 1,400 Palestinian civilians. He sharply criticized then-Prime Minister David Cameron’s “inexplicable silence” on “the killing of innocent Palestinian civilians caused by Israel’s military action,” calling Cameron’s position outright wrong. That same year, Miliband backed unilateral recognition of Palestinian statehood, a policy rejected by the Tories. Within Starmer’s cabinet, sources confirm Miliband was a leading voice pushing Starmer to formally recognize a Palestinian state, a step Starmer ultimately took in September 2025. He also successfully lobbied Starmer privately to block the U.S. from using British bases to strike Iran in February 2026, before Starmer partially reversed his decision. For her part, Angela Rayner has been publicly tied to Starmer’s Gaza position as deputy prime minister, but has a longstanding record of supporting Palestinian statehood recognition.

The most politically ambiguous contender is Wes Streeting, whose stance on the issue has shifted dramatically in recent years. A longstanding member of LFI who meets regularly with the group in Westminster, Streeting has received more than £20,000 in donations between 2021 and 2025 from Trevor Chinn, a 90-year-old philanthropist awarded the Israeli Presidential Medal of Honour in 2024 for his service to the state. Immediately after October 7, Streeting followed the official Labour line, repeating Israel’s unsubstantiated claim that Hamas used civilians as human shells and refused to back a ceasefire. In January 2024, he even dismissed South Africa’s genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice as a “distraction” from diplomatic efforts.

But in recent months, Streeting has rebranded himself as a critic of Israel. Anonymous Labour sources claim he privately pushed Starmer for a more pro-Palestinian stance while serving in cabinet. Last September, he stated that Israel’s actions in Gaza were “leading Israel to pariah status.” Then in February 2026, private text correspondence between Streeting and former U.S. ambassador Peter Mandelson was leaked — a move multiple Labour sources believe Streeting orchestrated to boost his leadership prospects. In the July 2025 texts, Streeting warned he could “become toast at the next election” in his marginal Ilford North seat, admitting: “Israel is committing war crimes before our eyes … the Israeli government talks the language of ethnic cleansing, and I have met with our own medics out there who describe the most chilling and distressing scenes of calculated brutality against women and children.” He called Israel a rogue state, arguing: “Let them pay the price as pariahs with sanctions applied to the state, not just a few ministers.”

Critics have slammed Streeting for hypocrisy, noting he remained in a cabinet that cooperated with Israel even while holding these private beliefs. But the leak itself signals a key political shift: Streeting calculates that taking a hard line against Israel will benefit his campaign, a calculation rooted in his own 2024 election experience, where he held Ilford North by fewer than 600 votes against a pro-Palestine independent challenger.

This shift reflects broader pressure across the party: grassroots Labour members are far more critical of Israel than the parliamentary party, with a June 2025 poll finding nine out of ten rank-and-file members believe the UK should take a much harder line against Israel than the current government. Once the contest begins, all candidates will face intense pressure from members to publicly address Starmer’s handling of Gaza, a record marked by inconsistency and criticism from the left.

Under Starmer, the UK has conducted at least 518 spy flights over Gaza during Israel’s campaign, sharing intelligence with Israel despite government claims the flights were solely for locating hostages. The Starmer government has also permitted British dual nationals to serve in the Israeli military, and approved $169 million in military exports to Israel in the three months after imposing a partial arms embargo — more than the entire volume of military exports approved by the Conservative government between 2020 and 2023. While Starmer broke with previous Tory policy by dropping the UK’s objection to International Criminal Court jurisdiction over Israel, imposing a partial arms embargo, and sanctioning far-right Israeli ministers Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, he has walked back repeated attempts to label Israeli actions a breach of international law, refused to accuse Israel of war crimes, and allowed the U.S. to use British bases for 2026 strikes on Iran, a move legal experts describe as illegal. Domestically, Starmer’s government outlawed pro-Palestine direct action group Palestine Action as a terrorist organization, arresting thousands of supporters — including many elderly activists — despite a High Court ruling that the ban was unlawful.

All of these policies will be put to the test during the leadership contest, with candidates forced to answer tough questions: Does Israel qualify as an apartheid state? Has it committed genocide in Gaza? Will they continue to support Labour Friends of Israel? Will they ban settlement goods, impose a full arms embargo, reverse the Palestine Action ban, or block U.S. use of British bases for future strikes against Iran?

These questions are not just internal party business. Labour faces growing electoral pressure from the left from the Green Party, which has positioned itself as the leading UK political voice opposing British support for Israel and participation in U.S.-led Middle East wars. Leading pollster John Curtice noted after recent local elections that the Greens have done far more damage to Labour’s vote share than the right-wing Reform Party, with Gaza a top driver of that defection.

The next Labour leader will face a clear choice: double down on Starmer’s strategy of courting right-leaning voters, or shift left to recoup disaffected voters lost to the Greens by returning to Labour’s historic roots of supporting marginalized and occupied populations. Even candidates with long pro-Israel records like Streeting now recognize that taking a harder line on Israel is politically beneficial, as his leaked texts make clear.

The end result is inevitable: whoever wins the contest will rewrite Britain’s Israel policy. Even if Starmer survives his current leadership crisis, he will likely be forced to adjust his stance to shore up support from the party’s left. For Labour, a break from Starmer’s approach is not just morally necessary, it is politically smart, argues Burgon: “Sanctioning Israel to bring the government into line with its legal obligations under international law would not only be the right thing to do, it would also be popular. And if Labour under a new leader wants to convince people it has genuinely changed, then such a clear break with the failures of the Starmer era on Gaza will be essential.”

BEIJING – As U.S. President Donald Trump concluded his fast-paced diplomatic visit to China on Friday, he remained steadfast in his public framing that relations between the world’s two largest economies are strong and improving, even as deep, unresolved divisions over flashpoint issues from Taiwan to the Iran conflict continue to test bilateral ties.

On his final day in the Chinese capital, Trump took to social media to claim that Chinese President Xi Jinping had praised his “tremendous successes” in office. He also sought to clarify Xi’s recent comment describing the U.S. as a potentially declining power, arguing the remark was directed exclusively at his predecessor Joe Biden, not his own administration.

Yet Trump’s upbeat assessment of the U.S.-China relationship runs headlong into tangible disagreements that dominated closed-door negotiations this week, with no sign of breakthrough on the most contentious items on the agenda.

### Taiwan: Core Interest Sparks Sharp Warnings
The Taiwan question emerged as the most sensitive topic of this week’s talks, with Chinese officials confirming that Xi privately warned Trump that mishandling differences over the self-governing island could push the two global powers into open confrontation.

For Beijing, Taiwan has long been framed as an non-negotiable core national interest, and Chinese leaders have ramped up this messaging in recent weeks amid growing defense cooperation between Washington and Taipei. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who joined the U.S. delegation for negotiations, emphasized that longstanding U.S. policy toward Taiwan remains unchanged, warning that any attempt to seize the island by force would be a catastrophic error, while also noting that Beijing’s tough rhetoric on the issue follows longstanding diplomatic norms.

The current state of play on Taiwan exposes conflicting strands of Trump’s policy toward the island. In December, his administration approved a record $11 billion arms package for Taiwan – the largest ever offered to the democracy – but the deal has yet to be implemented, and Trump has publicly questioned the value of U.S. security commitments to Taipei. He has complained that Taiwan “stole” the U.S. semiconductor industry and repeatedly demanded the island pay full cost for American military protection, while using tariff threats and incentives inherited from the Biden administration to pressure Taipei into committing to massive new investments in U.S. semiconductor manufacturing and multi-billion dollar purchases of American crude oil and liquefied natural gas. These inconsistent stances have fueled widespread speculation that Trump could be willing to scale back U.S. support for Taiwan in exchange for concessions on other issues.

Ma Chun-wei, a specialist in cross-strait relations at Taiwan’s Tamkang University, explained that growing defense ties between Washington and Taipei have directly prompted Beijing’s harder line on the issue. “For Xi Jinping, he must show that the Taiwan issue is in China’s hands. He must demonstrate this image, or else he would be criticized,” Ma noted.

### The Iran Conflict: Disagreement Over Global Energy Security
The ongoing war in Iran, which has effectively closed the critical Strait of Hormuz chokepoint for global oil trade, also featured prominently in Thursday’s two-hour talks between the two leaders at Beijing’s Great Hall of the People.

Trump told Fox News in an interview that both he and Xi agreed the Strait of Hormuz – which carried roughly 20% of the world’s global oil supplies before the war began in February – must be reopened to meet global energy demand. Trump claimed that Xi privately offered to mediate to help end the conflict, though details of any potential Chinese role remain unclear, particularly given Beijing’s longstanding strategic partnership with Tehran. The U.S. has repeatedly pressed China to use its unique leverage as Iran’s largest trading partner to pressure Tehran into negotiating an end to the war, but Beijing has shown little public willingness to take steps that would damage its relationship with the Iranian government.

“He’d like to see the Hormuz Strait open,” Trump said of Xi. “He said if I can be of any help whatsoever, I would like to help.” Trump added that Xi also opposes the imposition of tolls on ships transiting the strait and signaled China could increase purchases of American oil to reduce its reliance on Gulf energy supplies in the future.

Just days before arriving in Beijing, Trump downplayed the urgency of resolving the Iran conflict during talks with Xi, telling reporters “we have Iran very much under control” and framing the issue as a lower priority. But senior administration officials struck a different tone ahead of the meetings, arguing that it is directly in China’s economic interest to help end the war. Rubio noted that the conflict has driven up global energy prices, slowing consumer demand around the world and leading to fewer purchases of Chinese goods, which harms China’s export-driven economy. While Beijing has so far cushioned the impact of the energy crisis using its strategic oil reserves, economists warn that that buffer is not unlimited, and prolonged disruption to global energy markets could cause significant damage to Chinese economic growth.

On another longstanding point of friction, the White House still maintains that China could do more to crack down on the flow of Chinese-made precursor chemicals to Mexican drug cartels, which are used to produce illicit fentanyl that has caused a public health crisis across thousands of American communities.

### Trade and Business: Expectations of Potential Deals Ahead of Departure
Heading into the visit, White House officials signaled that Trump would not conclude the trip without tangible progress on trade, suggesting new announcements could be coming before his departure for Washington. The U.S. side is pushing for formal Chinese commitments to increase purchases of American soybeans and beef, while Trump confirmed Friday that Xi had indicated China would move forward with a purchase of 200 Boeing commercial jets.

According to a White House readout of Thursday’s talks, the two leaders discussed expanding Chinese agricultural imports from the U.S. and exploring opportunities for reciprocal investment expansion. The Trump administration is also pushing to establish a new bilateral Board of Trade to address ongoing commercial disputes between the two countries.

Chinese Premier Li Qiang struck a conciliatory tone during separate talks with American business leaders, including Elon Musk of Tesla, Tim Cook of Apple and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang – all of whom joined Trump’s delegation for the visit. “China and the United States have been able to maintain frank and smooth dialogue and communication and actively safeguard a stable and healthy bilateral relationship” despite global upheaval, Li said.

As Friday wraps up, Trump and Xi are scheduled for additional informal talks at Xi’s official Beijing residence before the U.S. president departs for the return trip to Washington, with no clear sign that the two sides have bridged the deep divides that continue to shape the world’s most important bilateral relationship.

A high-profile British-Iraqi interfaith activist was turned away from Canadian soil and detained for 11 hours at Montreal-Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport earlier this week, in a move that has sparked intense debate over freedom of speech and political pressure shaping Canadian border policy. Anas al-Tikriti, founder of the London-based Cordoba Foundation, an organization dedicated to fostering cross-cultural dialogue between Western nations and Muslim communities, had been scheduled to address a national convention hosted by the Muslim Association of Canada in Toronto between May 16 and 18 before his entry was blocked. He was ultimately deported back to London following hours of questioning by Canadian border officials. In a formal statement released after his deportation, al-Tikriti described his detention as a prolonged, unfocused process marked by repetitive questioning that mirrored queries he had already completed on his Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA) application form. Among the repeated questions, he said, was what he called the absurd and demeaning inquiry asking if he had ever been linked to narcotics networks, terrorist organizations or criminal groups. Al-Tikriti added that at no point did officials ask to discuss his planned remarks at the convention, his academic or political views, or the purpose of his visit. When he volunteered to provide additional context or clarification for his travel, the overseeing officer explicitly declined to hear any further information. “It was clear to me within the first three hours that they had no intention of allowing me into Canada, and that the hours that followed were a search for a pretext,” al-Tikriti said in his statement. By the afternoon of his arrival, officials had settled on a justification for the denial: they claimed al-Tikriti had provided false information on his ETA application when he stated he had never been refused a visa by another country, pointing to a 2023 U.S. visa refusal as evidence of the inaccuracy. Al-Tikriti has strongly pushed back on this claim, stating unequivocally that he did not intentionally misstate his travel history on the form. The activist founded the Cordoba Foundation in 2005, and the organization works to build intercultural dialogue and provides strategic and security policy advice to political stakeholders working on Middle East issues. The designation has long been a point of controversy: in 2014, the United Arab Emirates, where al-Tikriti spent his adolescence and early adulthood, labeled the Cordoba Foundation as a terrorist organization – a classification that rights advocates argue is politically motivated. Al-Tikriti has also been targeted by state surveillance in the past: in 2021, forensic analysts confirmed his personal iPhone had been compromised by Pegasus, the powerful military-grade spyware developed by Israeli cybersecurity firm NSO Group, with evidence pointing to the UAE as the actor behind the hack. The Muslim Association of Britain has publicly linked the Canadian decision to ongoing political pressure around the Israel-Palestine conflict, arguing the entry ban was pushed by bad-faith actors seeking to silence public criticism of Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, which critics have labeled a genocide. The organization added that the incident raises serious, troubling questions about the state of free speech in Canada, and the growing trend of targeting activists who publicly advocate for Palestinian human rights. Al-Tikriti echoed that sentiment in his statement, saying he would have respected Canadian authorities more if they had been transparent about the real reason for his denial. “I would, frankly, have had more respect for the Canadian immigration authorities had they simply said so. That they were under pressure not to admit me,” he said. “That my views on Palestine were unacceptable to them. That my criticism of Israel’s crimes against humanity was intolerable.”

The ongoing indirect negotiations between Iran and the United States, mediated by Pakistan, have hit a fresh impasse following Tehran’s response to Washington’s latest peace proposal and former President Donald Trump’s outright rejection of the deal. At the heart of the deadlock is Iran’s insistence on asserting exclusive sovereignty over the Strait of Hormuz – a demand that stands in direct conflict with established international maritime law, and has thrown global energy markets into turmoil.

The dispute over Hormuz’s status is a secondary outcome of the current conflict, not its root cause, and it cannot be resolved as a bilateral issue between the two nations. Free and unimpeded transit through the strait is an internationally recognized right held by all maritime states, making it a matter of global concern rather than a bargaining chip between Tehran and Washington. Experts widely agree that separating the Hormuz question from other outstanding disagreements between the two powers is the most logical path forward. Restoring unconditional transit through the chokepoint is critical to reversing what has become the most severe disruption to global petroleum supplies in modern history, and to securing long-term navigation freedom after the bulk of U.S. military forces withdraw from the region.

Right now, the ongoing blockage has already triggered a global energy crisis, pushing up prices for crude oil, agricultural fertilizers, and a wide range of consumer and industrial goods worldwide. With every additional day of restricted shipping, supplies continue to dwindle, and price pressures are projected to intensify. That makes urgent diplomatic action to fully reopen the strait a top global priority.

To understand the legal framework governing Hormuz, it is important to place it in context alongside other critical global maritime chokepoints, including the Strait of Gibraltar, the Strait of Malacca, and the Bab-el-Mandeb. Like these waterways, the Strait of Hormuz is extremely narrow: the 12-nautical-mile territorial seas of coastal states Iran and Oman actually meet in the middle of the shipping channel. To codify navigation rights for such strategic international straits that connect two open bodies of water, the 1994 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) – ratified by 168 nations – explicitly requires that coastal states may not block or suspend transit passage through international straits. They are also prohibited from charging tolls or discriminating against shipping from any country. While the United States has never formally ratified UNCLOS, it has long abided by this provision and many others, recognizing them as codification of centuries of customary international maritime law.

This legal regime functioned smoothly in the Strait of Hormuz for years before the current conflict broke out. Restoring full compliance with UNCLOS rules must be a core non-negotiable international objective. The precedent matters: if Iran is allowed to charge transit tolls or assert exclusive control over Hormuz, coastal states controlling other chokepoints around the world will almost certainly follow suit, driving up global trade costs dramatically. Already, a former Indonesian finance minister has publicly floated the idea of charging tolls for ships passing through the Strait of Malacca, a key route for trade between Asia, Europe, and the Middle East. Major global trade routes could easily see multiple tolled chokepoints if the Hormuz precedent is broken.

In the wake of Israeli and U.S. strikes on Iran earlier this year, Tehran declared the central navigation channel, which runs through Omani territorial waters, to be dangerous due to alleged mining. This forced all commercial shipping to reroute to the Iranian side of the strait, giving Tehran greater control over traffic and opening the door to potential transit fees. The U.S. responded with its own naval blockade of Iranian shipping in mid-April, a move that followed logically from Tehran’s actions.

Today, both sides remain convinced that their respective blockades give them greater negotiating leverage, that time is on their side, and that the opposing party will eventually be forced to concede to their demands. Iran’s push for a new regulatory regime and exclusive sovereignty over the strait directly contradicts internationally accepted maritime law, while the U.S. has tied the resolution of the Hormuz dispute not just to a full reopening of the waterway, but also to the outcome of other contentious issues on the negotiation table.

Weeks into the opposing blockades, both sides have demonstrated they are capable of maintaining their restrictions against challenges from the other. The net result is that commercial transit through the strait has slowed to a tiny fraction of pre-crisis volumes. A coalition of nations led by France and the United Kingdom has indicated it is prepared to deploy a symbolic naval presence to defend freedom of navigation, but it will only act after the broader conflict is resolved. This leaves the world in a dangerous holding pattern – so what actionable path forward exists to break the deadlock?

A temporary, mutually agreed opening that allows shipping to use channels along both the Iranian and Omani coasts while mine-clearing operations proceed in the central channel would immediately address the urgent humanitarian issue of freeing dozens of commercial ships and their crews currently trapped in the Persian Gulf. This could be achieved as part of a ceasefire extension, or negotiated as a standalone humanitarian corridor similar to the 2022 Black Sea Grain Initiative that allowed Ukrainian grain exports during the war. However, such a measure would only be a temporary fix, not a permanent resolution to the underlying dispute.

The core of the problem is that two nations are clashing over a right that belongs to the entire international community. While individual major powers including China have called for the strait to be reopened, there has been no unified collective action from the global community to date.

A more effective, permanent path forward would be a coordinated, high-impact diplomatic initiative by a large coalition of UNCLOS member states demanding the immediate restoration of the UNCLOS maritime regime in the Strait of Hormuz. This coalition would need to include countries with influence over both Iran and the United States to carry weight. Logically, leadership for this initiative should come from small and middle-sized Asian economies that are most heavily dependent on unimpeded Hormuz transit, but it must also include major powers including China, India, and key European economies. Crucially, the initiative would be strictly diplomatic, and would not take sides in the broader Iran-U.S. conflict – its only demand would be compliance with existing, widely accepted international law.

Would this proposal gain traction with both parties? It is possible that both sides would embrace the initiative as a face-saving way out of their current mutual stalemate, providing a clear path to a mutually acceptable agreement. The UNCLOS-based solution fully preserves Iran’s and Oman’s sovereignty over their territorial waters and islands within the strait, just as it preserves sovereignty for the parties that control other international straits: for example, Morocco, Spain, and the United Kingdom share sovereignty over the Strait of Gibraltar in line with UNCLOS, just as Indonesia and Malaysia do for the Strait of Malacca.

It is possible that Iran’s insistence on full control is merely a bargaining tactic to gain leverage in other areas of negotiation, but ultimately Tehran must accept that no unique exception can be made for Hormuz that deviates from the rules applied to every other international strait in the world.

Neither side would surrender meaningful leverage by accepting this multilateral proposal: both have already proven their military capability to block the strait, a capability that would remain intact even if the current blockade were lifted. At the same time, both sides would see immediate economic and political gains from reopening the waterway to full commercial traffic.

Separating the Hormuz issue also allows negotiators to turn their full attention to the original core dispute between the two nations: Iran’s enriched uranium program. This is a complex, high-stakes negotiation that requires specialized technical expertise. As Trump has noted, the issue is less immediately pressing than the Hormuz blockage, since Iran’s existing enriched uranium stockpiles are deeply buried and under close international monitoring. Ultimately, the two parties should be able to agree on a clear core goal: full Iranian compliance with the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons within a defined timeframe.

If a resolution can be reached through this multilateral UNCLOS-based approach, the ongoing Iran-U.S. negotiations could serve as a tentative but transformative first step toward a broader restructuring of the Middle East regional order. The first major breakthrough of this kind came in the late 1970s, with the historic peace deal between Israel and Egypt, followed later by normalization with Jordan. Extending that difficult peace process to include Iran may seem even more ambitious today than the Egyptian-Israeli reconciliation seemed in the years immediately after the 1973 Yom Kippur War. But if pursued with patience and consistent commitment, this diplomatic effort would mark a truly unprecedented step forward for Middle East peace.