Burnham apologised. Britain’s arms licences tell a different story

Andy Burnham said sorry. He didn’t stop the weapons.

Britain’s new prime minister built his early image on contrition. In July, before he even reached Downing Street, he called Gaza’s suffering “a scar on our collective conscience.” He admitted Labor “didn’t get it right.” He promised more pressure on Israel. Palestinian advocates in Britain welcomed the words, cautiously. Adnan Hmidan, Chair of the Palestinian Forum in Britain, called Burnham’s recognition important. Then he added the caveat that mattered. “The scale of devastation, killing, starvation and forced displacement inflicted upon Gaza demands far more than acknowledgment,” he said. “It requires courageous political action.”

Nine weeks into Burnham’s premiership, the arms keep moving.

A loophole built to last

In September 2024, Britain suspended roughly 30 of its 350 arms export licences to Israel. The government cited a “clear risk” that British weapons could facilitate violations of international humanitarian law in Gaza. It sounded decisive. It wasn’t.

The suspension carved out one exception: components for the F-35 fighter jet. Britain manufactures around 15 percent of every F-35 produced worldwide. Rather than block that pipeline, the government let British-made parts keep flowing through the global F-35 supply chain, even as some of those parts reached Israeli jets flying over Gaza.

Researchers found no drop in aircraft-component shipments after the suspension took effect. Shipments rose instead.

Then-Foreign Secretary David Lammy told Parliament the F-35 program was “vital for the security of the UK, our allies and NATO.” He insisted the restriction was “not a blanket ban” and stressed Israel’s right to defend itself. Rights groups read the exemption differently. The Global Legal Action Network took the government to court, arguing that any UK role in Gaza’s bombing campaign breaks the law. Judges postponed their ruling. The parts kept shipping regardless.

Burnham now reportedly weighs tightening restrictions further and reopening the F-35 question. Middle East Eye reports the discussion remains just that, a discussion. No decision has been taken.

Meanwhile, British imports of Israeli-classified arms, ammunition, and parts jumped from under $75,000 in 2023 to nearly $8 million in 2025. The trade still runs in both directions.

Words have a ceiling

Burnham’s language has limits too, and those limits matter. He refuses to call Gaza’s devastation genocide, insisting the determination belongs to international courts. One Al Jazeera opinion piece called the distinction telling. It argued that Burnham frames Britain’s failure as merely being “too slow,” never “complicit,” and likened the apology to admitting an underbaked cheesecake rather than reckoning with an ongoing catastrophe that has killed more than 73,000 Palestinians.

Green Party Deputy Leader Mothin Ali delivered a blunter verdict outside Downing Street on Burnham’s first day in office. “We’re watching,” he told the crowd. “Mealy-mouthed words aren’t good enough.”

The gap between rhetoric and law matters because international law offers real mechanisms, and Britain keeps declining to use them fully.

The International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Benjamin Netanyahu and former defense minister Yoav Gallant in November 2024. Britain has never confirmed it would enforce those warrants if either man set foot on British soil. Washington took the opposite path entirely.

It sanctioned six ICC officials this year, including the court’s sitting president, for supporting the warrants against Netanyahu. Secretary of State Marco Rubio called the ICC “corrupt and fatally politicized.” That stance puts Britain’s most important ally directly against the one court whose authority Britain claims to respect.

A test, not a verdict

The parliamentary pressure is real, and it keeps growing. More than 140 Labor MPs, nearly a third of the parliamentary party, signed a letter in June demanding a full ban on settlement goods. Their letter warned that Israel’s plan to displace the Bedouin community of Khan al-Ahmar could amount to a “war crime of forcible transfer.” Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband has since condemned Israel’s E1 settlement expansion as “a flagrant breach of international law.” Israel answered by threatening to expel British officials from the Gaza Coordination Center in Kiryat Gat.

That threat should sharpen Britain’s resolve, not soften it. A government that retreats the moment accountability carries a real cost was never serious about accountability in the first place.

Burnham has the apology on record. He has the parliamentary pressure behind him. He has, in theory, every legal tool he needs: sanctions, a full settlement trade ban, ICC cooperation, and an arms embargo that finally closes the F-35 loophole. What he hasn’t shown yet is the will to use them all together, rather than one at a time, whenever public pressure forces his hand.

Gaza’s survivors don’t experience British foreign policy as a debate between Labor factions. They experience it as bombs that either keep falling or stop falling. The apology is on record. The weapons are still moving. Until that changes, Britain’s new tone remains exactly that: a tone.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.