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The Guardian view on the EU and Israel: moving beyond mere exhortation | Editorial

Published

2 hours ago

April 20, 2026

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In recent months, European expressions of concern over the actions of Benjamin Netanyahu’s government have regularly hardened into outright condemnation. Last September, the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, expressed horror and outrage at aid restrictions that she said created a “man-made famine” in Gaza. Brussels has inveighed against settler violence and land grabs in the West Bank, which undermine the possibility of a viable Palestinian state. Responding to the bombing of Lebanon following the US-Israeli ceasefire with Iran, the EU’s foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, said: “Israel’s right to self-defence does not justify this destruction.”

The angry words and exhortations have achieved nothing. Mr Netanyahu and his ministers have generally treated European critics with barely concealed contempt, presumably reassured by the fact that their chief allies in the White House tend to behave in exactly the same fashion. The EU is Israel’s biggest trading partner, and the academic benefits it confers through Israeli participation in the Horizon research programme are considerable. But internal disunity, and an overoptimistic faith in the power of persuasion, have led to a reluctance by the bloc to use those relationships as leverage.

Belatedly, there are indications that a change in approach may be coming. The recent election humiliation for Hungary’s outgoing prime minister, Viktor Orbán, was also a bad result for Mr Netanyahu, who lost an invaluable far-right ally. In February, Hungary was the only EU country to vote against the adoption of sanctions against violent settlers in the West Bank, blocking a measure requiring unanimity. Once Mr Orbán’s successor is in office, it is expected that the proposal will come back to the table.

More broadly, Spain is formally calling for the EU to suspend its association agreement with Israel, which gives preferential status to economic and commercial relations, on the grounds of human rights violations. Such a measure would fail to win unanimous support from key countries including Germany. But a partial suspension affecting the trade parts of the agreement – previously advocated by Ms von der Leyen in September – would require only a weighted majority in favour.

That may also prove unachievable, as was the case last autumn. But as the extremism driving the Netanyahu government becomes ever more plain, there is little doubt that the mood is shifting. Last week, following angry exchanges between Tel Aviv and Rome over civilian deaths in Lebanon, Italy’s prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, announced that the renewal of a defence cooperation agreement with Israel would be suspended “in view of the current situation”. Ms Meloni, like Mr Orbán, could once be considered a close political ally.

As the geopolitical consequences of the spectacularly reckless and illegal US-Israel war on Iran destabilise their economies, European governments can no longer afford to sit on the sidelines and talk to Mr Netanyahu’s hand. That a third of Israel’s trade is done with the EU gives the latter significant cards to play. So too the cultural and academic ties forged on a premise of shared values. Yet Brussels has repeatedly seen its views brushed aside as, with the help of Donald Trump, Israel’s prime minister pursues a maximalist regional agenda that manifestly has no place for a two-state solution. If the wind is now changing in European corridors of power, it is not before time.

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.

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Phones to be banned in schools by law in England under government plans

Published

53 minutes ago

April 20, 2026

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Education minister Jacqui Smith said the move would create “a clear legal requirement for schools”.

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UK News

Home Office blocks anti-Islam influencer from entering UK

Published

3 hours ago

April 20, 2026

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Valentina Gomez, a US-based influencer, said she intended to travel to the UK to attend a rally next month.

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Starmer says it ‘beggars belief’ he wasn’t told about Mandelson vetting failure as he faces Commons – UK politics live | Politics

Published

4 hours ago

April 20, 2026

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MPs jeer as Starmer says it is ‘incredible’ he was not told full story about Mandelson’s vetting

Starmer went on:

Many members across the House will find these facts to be incredible.

That generated lots of ironic jeering from opposition MPs.

Starmer went on:

I can only say they [the MPs jeering] right. It beggars belief that throughout the whole timeline of events, officials in the Foreign Office saw fit to withhold this information from the most senior ministers in our system, in government.

That is not how the vast majority of people in this country expect politics, government or accountability to work. And I do not think it’s how most public servants think it should work either.

I work with hundreds of civil servants, thousands all of whom act with the utmost integrity, dedication and pride to serve this country, including officials from the Foreign Office who, as we speak, are doing a phenomenal job representing our national interest in a dangerous world in Ukraine, in the Middle East and all around the world.

This is not about them, but yet it is surely beyond doubt that the recommendation from UKSV that Peter Mandelson should be denied development and clearance was information that could and should have been shared with me on repeated occasions, and therefore should have been available to this House and ultimately to the British people.

Key events

David Davis, the former Tory cabinet minister, asked why Starmer did not follow Simon Case’s recommendation about ensuring security vetting took place before the appointment was confirmed. (See 12.34pm.)

Starmer said he thought Mandelson’s appointment was subject to security vetting being confirmed. He was told that was the standard process.

Reform UK MP Lee Anderson ordered to leave Commons chamber after saying Starmer’s ‘been lying’

Lee Anderson, the Reform UK, told Starmer that no one believed him, not the public, nor opposition MPs, nor Labour MPs. “Does the prime minister agree with me he’s been lying?”

Lindsay Hoyle, the speaker, told Anderson he would have to withdraw that. Parliamentary rules do not allow MPs to call each other liars.

Anderson said he wouldn’t. He went on:

I will not withdraw. That man couldn’t lie straight in bed.

Hoyle told Anderson to leave, which he did.

Jeremy Wright (Con), a member the intelligence and security committee, asked for information relevant to vetting to be handed over it in the first tranche of information it was considering. (The ISC is scrutinising Mandelson material required to be published by the humble address on behalf of parliament, so that material that would pose a national security risk gets held back.) Wright says the ISC did not learn about Mandelson failing to the vetting interview until the story was published by the Guardian on Thursday last week. He asked why Starmer did not tell the committee as soon as he found out on Tuesday.

Starmer says he was going to tell the committee. He wanted to get all the facts first, he said.

Mandelson given ambassador’s job as reward for helping get Starmer elected MP, John McDonnell claims

John McDonnell (Lab) said he welcomed Starmer’s apology. He went on to claim that, when Keir Starmer wanted to become Labour leader, he became dependent on Morgan McSweeney and Peter Mandelson to organise and fund his election. He went on:

When he became prime minister, the reward for McSweeney was control of No 10 and, for Mandelson, the highest diplomatic office.

And the message, that unspoken message to civil servants, was what Mandelson wants. Mandelson gets.

He said Starmer should clear this “toxic culture” out from Labour. And he called for an inquiry into Labour Together, the thinktank that was founded by McSweeney and subsequently criticised for smearing journalists writing critically about it.

Starmer rejects claim No 10 did not check Mandelson’s vetting record after report in Independent in September

Simon Hoare (Con), chair of the public administration and constitutional affairs committee, said he did not understand why nobody asked what had happened in the light of David Maddox’s story in the Independent last September. (See 11.44am.)

Starmer said questions were asked.

The FCDO was repeatedly asked … The same answer came back because a clear decision have been taken that this information was not going to be disclosed and it wasn’t as close to me, let alone to anybody else.

The Labour MPs Diane Abbott said Peter Mandelson had a history of being sacked for scandals going back to the 1990s. She went on:

It’s one thing to say, as [Starmer] insists on saying nobody told me, nobody told me anything, nobody told me. The question is, why didn’t the prime minister ask?

Davey claims Starmer’s statement today shows he has failed to offer change from Johnson era

Ed Davey, the Lib Dem leader, also linked Keir Starmer to Boris Johnson. He said that, when Johnson was PM, Starmer said the public wanted honesty and accountability. Davey went on:

I’m afraid the fact that [Starmer] even had to make the statement today shows how badly he has failed, how badly he’s let down the millions of people across our country who are so desperate for change.

UPDATE: Davey said:

The prime minister knew that appointing Mandelson was an enormous risk, he decided it was a risk worth taking – a catastrophic error of judgment, and now that it’s blown up in his face, the only decent thing to do is to take responsibility.

Back in 2022, the prime minister rightly accused Boris Johnson of expecting others to take the blame while he clung on. That was not acceptable then, and it’s not acceptable now …

After years of chaos under the Conservatives, we needed a government focused on the interests of the people – the cost of living crisis, the health and care crisis, our national security. We needed a government of honesty, integrity and accountability. So will the prime minister finally accept that the only way he can help to deliver that is to resign?

Emily Thornberry suggests Morgan McSweeney so keen to make Mandelson ambassdor he ignored national security concerns

Emily Thornberry, the Labour chair of the foreign affairs committee, suggested that Peter Mandelson leaked the news of his likely appointment, bouncing No 10 into confirming it.

And she goes on:

Doesn’t this look like, for certain members of the prime minister’s team, getting Peter Mandelson, the job was a priority that overrode everything else and that security considerations were very much second order.

This was a reference to Morgan McSweeney, who as the PM’s chief of staff when Mandelson was appointed and who is thought to have been the person who pushed the appointment through. He and Mandelson were friends and allies.

In response, Starmer did not accept that No 10 downgraded national security concerns.

Badenoch ended her speech with a reference to an exchange between Boris Johnson and Keir Starmer.

On 26 January 2022 [Starmer] said to a previous prime minister at this dispatch box, if he misled the house, he must resign. Does he stand by those words, or is there one rule for him and another for everyone else?

(This sounded like a compelling payoff, but it was misleading. Johnson was accused of lying to MPs, and the privileges committee subsquently concluded he had lied to them about Partygate. But even Badenoch has now dropped her claim from last week that Starmer deliberately misled MPs about Mandelson. See 10.330am.)

Badenoch claims Starmer did not ask questions about Mandelson because ‘he didn’t want to know’

Badenoch criticised Starmer for sacrificing his officials.

The prime minister has thrown his staff and his officials under the bus.

Yet this is a man who once said, “I will carry the can for the mistakes of any organisation I lead.”

Instead, he has sacked his cabinet secretary. He has sacked his director of communications, he has sacked his chief of staff and he has now sacked the permanent secretary of the Foreign Office.

All of these people fired for a decision he made.

Badenoch also criticised Starmer for not asking enough questions

[Starmer’s] defence is that he, a former director of public prosecutions, is so lacking in curiosity that he chose to ask no questions about the vetting process.

He asked no questions about Mandelson’s relationship with Epstein. He asked no questions about the security risk Mandelson posed. Apparently, he didn’t even speak to Peter Mandelson before his appointment. It doesn’t appear that he asked any questions at all. Why? Because he didn’t want to know.

Badenoch said that Starmer’s account of events was getting murkier all the time.

At every turn, with every explanation, the government story has become murkier and more contradictory. It is time for the truth.

Badenoch said she had too many questions to cover in her time. So she was going to focus on six, she said. She said she had given Starmer notice of them.

She has posted them on social media.

Badenoch’s six questions Photograph: Kemi Badenoch

There are too many questions to ask in the allotted time,

Badenoch said the Mandelson appointment was a matter of national security.

We still do not know exactly why Peter Mandelson failed that vetting. We do not know what risks our country was exposed to, and we do not know how it is possible that the prime minister said repeatedly that this was a failure of vetting, went on television and said things that were blatantly incorrect, and not a single adviser or a single official told him that what he was saying wasn’t true.

Badenoch says Starmer breached ministerial code by not telling MPs on Wednesday last week about Mandelson error

Kemi Badenoch started her response to Keir Starmer by claiming that No 10 said earlier that Starmer would admit that he inadvertently misled the Commons. But Starmer did not say that in his statement, she said.

I will remind him that, under the ministerial code, he has a duty to correct the record at the earliest opportunity. The prime minister says he only found out on Tuesday that Peter Mandelson failed the security vetting. The earliest opportunity to correct the record was prime minister’s questions on Wednesday almost a week ago. This is a breach of the ministerial code.

MPs jeer as Starmer says it is ‘incredible’ he was not told full story about Mandelson’s vetting

Starmer went on:

Many members across the House will find these facts to be incredible.

That generated lots of ironic jeering from opposition MPs.

Starmer went on:

I can only say they [the MPs jeering] right. It beggars belief that throughout the whole timeline of events, officials in the Foreign Office saw fit to withhold this information from the most senior ministers in our system, in government.

That is not how the vast majority of people in this country expect politics, government or accountability to work. And I do not think it’s how most public servants think it should work either.

I work with hundreds of civil servants, thousands all of whom act with the utmost integrity, dedication and pride to serve this country, including officials from the Foreign Office who, as we speak, are doing a phenomenal job representing our national interest in a dangerous world in Ukraine, in the Middle East and all around the world.

This is not about them, but yet it is surely beyond doubt that the recommendation from UKSV that Peter Mandelson should be denied development and clearance was information that could and should have been shared with me on repeated occasions, and therefore should have been available to this House and ultimately to the British people.

Starmer says it is ‘frankly staggering’ that he was not told about Mandelson’s security vetting failure

Starmer again says it is staggering that ministers were not told what happened.

As I set out, I do not accept that I could not have been told about UKSV’s denial of security vetting before Peter Mandelson took up his post in January 25th.

I do not accept that the then cabinet secretary could not have been told in September 2025, when he carried out his review into the process.

I do not accept that the foreign secretary could not have been told when making statements to the select committee again in 2025.

On top of that, the fact that I was not told even when I ordered a review of the UKSV process is frankly staggering.

Starmer says it is ‘unforgivable’ officials let foreign secretary say usual vetting procedure was followed

Starmer says he sacked Mandelson in September last year after Bloomberg revelations showed that Mandelson had given answers that were “not truthful” to the Cabinet Office’s vetting process (which took place before the UKSV vetting process, and was different).

In September he asked for a review of the process, he says.

It was carried out by Chris Wormald, the cabinet secretary, who told Starmer in a letter that the “appropriate processes were followed in both the appointment and the withdrawal of [Mandelson].”

Starmer says Wormald was not told that Mandelson had failed the UKSV interview.

He goes on:

I do not accept that I could not have been told about the recommendation before Peter Mandelson took up his post.

I absolutely do not accept that the then cabinet secretary – an official, not a politician – when carrying out his review could not have been told that UKSV recommended that Peter Mandelson should be denied develop vetting clearance.

It was a vital part of the process that I had asked him to review. Clearly he could have been told, and he should have been told.

Starmer says Olly Robbins also told the foreign affairs committe that “Peter Mandelson’s security vetting was conducted to the usual standard set for developed vetting in line with established Cabinet Office policy”.

Starmer says the foreign secretary also signed off on this statement, without being told Mandelson failed the vetting interview.

That the foreign secretary was advised on and allowed to sign this statement by Foreign Office officials without being told that UKSV had recommended Peter Mandelson be denied vetting clearance is absolutely unforgivable.