Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband announced an import ban on goods from Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories in a Commons statement on Tuesday afternoon, alongside a new sanctions regime covering services and a formal declaration that the British government regards the occupation as a whole as unlawful. Israel responded within hours by ordering the closure of the British consulate in Jerusalem.
The measures mark the clearest shift in British foreign policy since Andy Burnham became Prime Minister in July, succeeding Sir Keir Starmer, according to the Associated Press. Nothing announced is yet law: the government said the legislation needed to give effect to the import ban would be brought forward and would take six to nine months to come into force.
The package covers an import ban on all goods from the settlements, sanctions on companies and individuals providing services including construction, infrastructure, financing, real estate and advertising for settlement expansion, immediate sanctions on a group of settlers, and the refusal of export licences that materially contribute to the occupation.
Miliband told MPs the British government now accepted that ethnic cleansing was taking place in parts of the West Bank.
"The British government agrees that there is ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in areas of the West Bank perpetrated by settler terrorists."
He added: "And all too often, the Israeli government has turned a blind eye to this, and worse, members of it have made statements and taken actions to support the forced displacement of Palestinians." The Press Association reported that he stopped short of saying Israel was responsible for genocide, maintaining that this could only be decided by international courts.
On the trade measures, he said: "I do not believe the British people want us supporting the occupation by accepting products from settlements in our shops and supermarkets, so I can announce today that we will introduce an import ban on goods from illegal settlements in the occupied territories."
The Foreign Secretary also set out a change in the government's stated legal position, saying that the official view of the British government is that the occupation is unlawful, and that this should be reflected in the economic relationships Britain chooses to have with the occupied territories. Previous British policy described the settlements themselves as illegal rather than the occupation as a whole.
He said the ban on arms exports used by the Israeli military in Gaza would remain in place as long as the occupation continued, adding that more than 30 licences suspended in September 2024 remained fully suspended. He referred to the new sanctions regime as including "appropriate religious exemptions", without setting out their scope.
Ministers have stressed the measures target settlement produce rather than Israeli goods generally. Miliband said the UK would continue trading with Israel inside the Green Line and said he opposed the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement. Work and Pensions Secretary Pat McFadden said before the statement that the policy "isn't intended to be a boycott of all Israeli goods."
Israel's foreign minister, Gideon Sa'ar, said in a recorded statement at the Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem that he and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had decided to close the British consulate in Jerusalem, which is accredited to the Palestinian Authority, expel British representatives from the US-backed International Gaza Support Center in Kiryat Gat, end the British team in Ramallah training Palestinian Authority security forces, and bar 12 British elected officials and citizens.
"The accusations made today by the Foreign Secretary of the Labour Government in the British Parliament were outrageous lies," Sa'ar said. He added: "The British move is morally distorted and constitutes blatant interference in the affairs of a sovereign state and in its electoral process." Israel goes to the polls on 27 October. Sa'ar said the sanctions had been imposed "for domestic political reasons ahead of the Labour Party conference taking place this month", and said: "We have nothing against the British people."
Sa'ar also disputed the basis for the announcement, saying: "Contrary to the false claims of the Labour Government, no new decisions have been made regarding development in E1." A joint statement issued the same day by 12 governments cited "the unacceptable decision to publish tenders for the E1 settlement project". Publishing tenders under an already approved plan is not the same as a new approval.
That statement, published by Global Affairs Canada, was signed by Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Iceland, Ireland, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and the UK. Only the UK, France and Canada committed to bringing forward national measures to ban trade in settlement goods; the others said they intended to introduce or support European restrictions, or were actively considering such measures.
The United States has declined to join. Mike Huckabee, the US ambassador to Israel, told the BBC on Tuesday morning, before the statement, that there would be consequences for Britain. Asked whether the UK should expect them, he said: "I think without a doubt there will be." He added: "If the Brits go and put some kind of boycott and sanctions on them, the repercussions are going to be significant." The Times of Israel reported that US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the US would not be joining.
The trade at stake is small. The House of Commons Library put UK trade with the Occupied Palestinian Territories as a whole at an estimated £38 million in 2025, a figure that is not a measure of settlement output. Total UK trade in goods and services with Israel was £5.9bn in the four quarters to the end of the first quarter of 2026, down 2.0 per cent on the equivalent period a year earlier, according to Department for Business and Trade figures published on 31 July.
Tom Tugendhat, the shadow foreign secretary, said turning Israel into a "pariah" would risk a "further rise in antisemitic violence on our own streets", the Associated Press reported. Sir Edward Leigh, the Conservative Father of the House, broke with his front bench, telling MPs: "What is happening in the West Bank is absolutely violent and egregious. It is worse than stopping the two-state solution; it is ethnic cleansing."
The Jewish Leadership Council said the sanctions "risks becoming a de facto boycott of Israel, giving legitimacy to those who reject Israel's very existence", and said the government was "simply yielding to pressure from the most extreme elements of British society". The Board of Deputies of British Jews expressed "deep regret" at the announcement in a post on X.
Miliband framed the announcement in personal terms, describing himself as "a proud British Jew, someone with the deepest gratitude to the State of Israel for giving a home to my grandmother after she lost her husband, my grandfather, and 60 other family members at the hands of the Nazis".
Husam Zomlot, the Palestinian Authority's envoy in London, welcomed the measures and pressed for more, saying: "We stand ready to work with the UK Government and British authorities to ensure remaining legal obligations are met, including a full arms embargo, sanctions on agencies and institutions of the Israeli State that sponsor illegal settlements, and an end to illegal dealings in the OPT by the business and financial services sectors."
Pressure for a settlement trade ban has been building at Westminster since June, when around 140 Labour MPs wrote to the Foreign Secretary demanding one, citing what they called an urgent need for accountability and concrete consequences. The Israeli Foreign Ministry, publishing its list of barred Britons, said it would deny entry to those "involved in antisemitic and anti-Israel activity, as well as those who deny the very existence of the State of Israel". One of those named, the solicitor Fahad Ansari, wrote on X that he is "neither British nor an MP but do take this as a badge of honour."
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