The resignations of Defence Secretary John Healey and Armed Forces Minister Al Carns have hastened the demise of the Premiership of Keir Starmer. As Britain looks towards a new Prime Minister, their credibility will be tested by whether they are prepared to reverse the erosion of democracy and the rule of law.
Elections are only one component of a democratic system. Its health depends on human rights and legal protections being upheld without exception and enforced through effective checks on power. A recent report by the UK NGO Reform Initiative for Transparent Economies (RITE), The War on Palestine and the Decline of Democracy and the Rule of Law, draws on a series of legal cases to expose attacks on fundamental rights abroad and at home, and reveal how some of democracy's structural foundations have been compromised.
Aspiring and sitting UK Prime Ministers should act on the fact that opinion polls consistently show a majority of the British public are supportive of Palestinian rights. The public’s views, unlike government policy, are in line with the position at law.
Successive UK governments have refused to use Britain's trade, military and diplomatic leverage to press Israel to comply with its obligations under international law. Instead, UK policy has been at odds with two landmark International Court of Justice (ICJ) opinions from 2024: one in January triggering a duty to prevent genocide in Gaza, and another in July reaffirming the obligation of all states to help bring Israel's illegal occupation of the Palestinian Territories to an end.
Government policy is also in tension with findings of war crimes by the International Court of Justice (ICC). Prosecutor Karim Khan said that he was threatened by then Foreign Secretary David Cameron with pulling the UK out of the ICC if he issued arrest warrants against the Israeli Prime Minister and then Minister of Defence. The current UK government has continued its cooperation with the government of a Prime Minister wanted by the ICC.
The gap between the British government’s position and public opinion stems largely from Palestinians breaking through Israel's ban on international media entering Gaza, and outstripping the narratives prevalent in mainstream media . Through social media and independent outlets, local journalists and ordinary people documented mass civilian deaths, the destruction of essential infrastructure for life, forced displacement, starvation, torture, sexual violence, and summary executions. These were realities that official accounts often sought to excuse or obscure, but that have been recognised as war crimes or acts of genocide by leading human rights organisations , UN bodies and international courts.
Israel expanded its military campaign, occupying much of Gaza, intensifying settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, applying the Gaza playbook to Lebanon, attacking and extending its occupation of Syria unprovoked, and openly discussing the ethnic cleansing of Gaza while calling it "voluntary transfer".
The Defence Secretary's resignation focused on disagreements over defence spending while ignoring the pressing question of the UK's continued military and intelligence cooperation with Israel as it pursues policies of genocide and occupation. Yet it is imperative for UK policy to move away from complicity in Israeli impunity. The US-Israeli war against Iran has already inflicted direct economic costs on Britain, exposing the dangers of this approach. More broadly, the UK's selective application of international law has weakened the rules-based order on which it relies in opposing Russia's invasion of Ukraine and US threats to the sovereignty of Greenland and Canada. Should diplomacy and the rule of law be disregarded in favour of military strategic alliances, the cost of defence to the economy and to society would be immeasurably greater. Weak government response
Labour's response has been restricted to partial arms licence suspensions and sanctions on a small number of settlements and individuals. These measures fall short of the ICJ’s finding that the occupation is a state system. The Prime Minister should shift the dial on compliance with international law by suspending trade and cooperation with Israel until it ends its illegal occupations and war crimes.
Public outrage led unprecedented numbers of people onto the streets in protest, mobilised students against university policies that sidelined international law and human rights under the guise of neutrality, fuelled a boycott movement modelled on the campaign against South African apartheid, led to direct action, and generated a wave of transnational litigation aimed at defending rights and upholding the public interest.
Governments responded not by addressing concerns but by entrenching their position and restricting the rights of their own citizens. The same logic that treated legal obligations and human rights as optional abroad was applied at home.
Litigation has exposed a recurring pattern of restrictions on the rights to protest and free expression, discrimination, dismissals and arrests linked to political speech, the misuse of counterterrorism and immigration powers, and weaknesses in accountability mechanisms governing arms exports and other areas of public policy.
Those with the resources to challenge violations in court have often succeeded without this resulting in a change of policy. For example, the UK government is still characterising the peace marches as hateful , refusing visas to high-profile critics of Israel, and equating antisemitism with criticism of Israel despite two courts ruling that such criticism is protected speech.
The government has appealed and won the judicial review that found its proscription of Palestine Action unlawful despite warnings from UN bodies and establishment figures about abuse of power and unfairness. When the courts become a last resort for re-establishing democratic rights, the erosion of democracy is already advanced. If court judgements are ignored or legislation is changed to undermine the fundamental rights they protect, the decline becomes entrenched.
Undermining democracy
At a time when civil liberties are fragile, the government is aggravating the risks to democracy by helping develop the infrastructure of state and corporate surveillance without first putting in place adequate protections for human rights and digital sovereignty. This is while partnering with an industry that has made abuses of data protection and intellectual property rights part of its business model.
Alongside harvesting and trading in personal data without meaningful consent, this infrastructure includes biometric policing and centralised national data systems . Democracy alone is no guarantee against such systems being abused or repurposed. The use by Israel of data collected from everyday technologies in its war on Gaza and as part of its occupation apparatus demonstrates the risks. Yet rather than facing exclusion from public bids, many of the same companies are being awarded roles across defence , policing and public services , including the NHS . Compounding this are poor governance rules that can fuel corruption, and that the Prime Minister should address. Private interests should not be able to subvert democracy by exerting undue influence over government through economic concentration, overreliance by public services on them, lax political party funding rules, unaddressed conflicts of interest, or the revolving door between public office and private industry.
For all these reasons, Gaza is no longer a foreign policy issue. It has become a test of democracy and a measure of political integrity.
The Prime Minister should confront the foreign and domestic failures that are driving voters away, rather than ask them not to “split the vote” or urge their support for the “lesser evil”. Voters cannot reasonably be expected to abandon red lines around complicity in atrocities, unlawful occupation or democratic decline.
The responsibility lies with political leaders to realign policy with the rule of law at home and abroad. The remedies require the government to abide by international and national laws, uphold rights fairly and consistently, insist on accountability, and ensure good governance in public life. Failure to do so will deepen a post-law environment that is incompatible with democracy. Mona Deeley is a lawyer, producer and CEO of Reform Initiative for Transparent Economies (RITE), authoring their latest report “The War on Palestine and the Decline of Democracy and the Rule of Law." Follow her on Instagram Have questions or comments? Email us at: editorial-english@newarab.com Opinions expressed here are the author's own, and do not necessarily reflect those of their employer, or of The New Arab and its editorial board or staff.