Andy Burnham Declines to Call Israel’s Mass Killings in Gaza a Genocide

https://novaramedia.com/2026/06/05/andy-burnham-declines-to-call-israels-mass-killings-in-gaza-a-genocide/

342 points · 86 comments · view on lemmy.world

86 Comments

itsjustachairmary@lemmy.world · 100 pts · 46d (16 replies)

A second Keir, and just as genocidal

Wildmimic@anarchist.nexus · 42 pts · 46d (14 replies)

Wanted to say the same. From the frying pan into the fire. Labour will get wrecked in the next elections.

fonix232@fedia.io · 21 pts · 46d (13 replies)

Only for the similarly Israel funded Reform to win, because while we keep fighting on whether the next candidate is anti-Israel enough, Reform manages to unite the dumbfucks of the country.

And if Brexit has proven anything it's that the damn country has way too many dumbfucks who'll gladly throw away everything just so a guy who blames the "right" people for the country's troubles gets to be PM.

hanrahan@slrpnk.net · 24 pts · 46d

i mean, people could try voting Green, no ? fascist or fascist lite it is ffs

CommanderCloon@lemmy.ml · 13 pts · 46d (2 replies)

I'm sorry that I draw the line at genocide.

Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 6 pts · 45d

The "I'm flexible when it comes to child mass murder abroad if that stops the far-right for 4/5 more years here" crowd are something else.

That's not having any Morals or Principles beyond "what in it for me".

kreskin@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 46d

Same here, we are the worst. Basically we're terrorists for resisting fascism and genocide. We should be ashamed of our racism.

anywho.. should we make tshirts? bbq maybe?

Wildmimic@anarchist.nexus · 12 pts · 46d

I agree. Labours weakness in recognizing that a more leftist oriented stance is needed will be a windfall for the Reform Nazis.

mrdown@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 7 pts · 46d (2 replies)

So why you are giving reform and easy win? Labour is to blame of reform wins

floofloof@lemmy.ca · 2 pts · 45d

Because the alternative is to criticize Israel, and that's so impossible for him to consider that he'd sooner hand the UK over to fascists.

DeckPacker@piefed.social · 1 pts · 40d

Cause they don't care about winning. They just want to uphold the interest of capital.

isleepinahammock@lemmy.blahaj.zone · -2 pts · 46d (4 replies)

So, lesser of two evils is the game? If that's the game we're playing, than will you be voting for Reform or Conservative? Because we can't vote for third parties like Labour. That would be throwing your vote away. The two top parties in the UK right now are Reform and Conservative. If you believe that red lines don't matter, and that all that matters is choosing between one of the two parties that will win, then that means your choice currently is between Reform or Conservative. Labour is a third party. Labour is not a valid choice for anyone trying to be strategic and choose the lesser of two evils.

So, will you be voting Reform or Conservative next election? Or suddenly will the lesser evil no longer apply?

The only way anyone can support Labour right now is if they reject the lesser evil approach. Of course, if you do that, then you have no place whining about the red lines other voters have.

davidagain@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 45d (3 replies)

The two top parties in the UK right now are Reform and Conservative

That's untrue by any measure.

If reform is top by voting intention, conservatives are third or fourth. If conservatives are top by MPs, reform are sixth or seventh.

But it is true that actual Nati slogan-repeating racist, muslim-hating Nigel Farage has been polling highest, and it's legitimate to worry about him doing in the uk and the middle east what trump is doing in America and the middle east.

isleepinahammock@lemmy.blahaj.zone · -2 pts · 45d (2 replies)

I'm talking about actual poll results:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_next_United_Kingdom_general_election

It's Reform as the clear favorite, with Labor and the Conservatives dueling for the third spot, and the Conservatives have been ahead most frequently in recent polls.

phutatorius@lemmy.zip · 5 pts · 45d

Also consider the accuracy of polls three years in advance of an election.

Reform's success is a problem, but an even worse problem is reinforcing the narrative that their success is inevitable.

davidagain@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 45d

Labor

Labour.

the Conservatives have been ahead most frequently in recent polls

According to the graph, that was true for a month in December last year and for most of the graph labour were leading the conservatives by a clear margin.

So, I reiterate, your claim that the UK is a two horse race between reform and the tories is untrue by any measure.

And it's especially not a strong argument if you'd rather I vote green than labour.

Iusedtobeanalien@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 46d

But good at talking unlike Keir

some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org · 68 pts · 46d (14 replies)

Oh, awesome. Another genocide apologist.

Jaggs@lemmy.world · -41 pts · 46d (13 replies)

Hmm. Not strictly black and white, is it?

"The Manchester mayor also backed the formal recognition of a Palestinian state, co-signing a letter in June 2025 demanding the UK government take action to protect the two-state framework."

theacharnian@lemmy.ca · 56 pts · 46d

This isn't some game of political points. The world's preeminent genocide scholars via their international body, the UN independent commission of inquiry, and a whole host of credible human rights organizations are calling it a genocide. Either a politician accepts overwhelming evidence or they live in post-truth lalaland, the same space as antivaxxers and climate deniers.

Forsho@sh.itjust.works · 33 pts · 46d

Actually it is, if you spare your mind this centrist liberal BS you wrote. It will be as clear as the tens of thousands of children that Israel killed/still killing in the past two years.

isleepinahammock@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 15 pts · 46d (5 replies)

Anyone still advocating for a two-state solution is a Zionist enabler. People only bring that up out of ignorance or as a shiny thing to point at to prevent real progress.

Sorry, but the "two state solution" has been dead and rotted in the ground for over a decade at this point. No serious person could look at a map of what used to be the West Bank and conclude that a two-state solution is anything other than a distraction technique in 2026. The West Bank is a Swiss cheese, the Palestinian population crammed into small ghettos isolated from each other. Trying to make a unified sovereign nation out of the West Bank would be like trying to make one out of the US's Indian reservations.

https://www.doi.gov/sites/default/files/uploads/12_bia_regions.pdf

A separate Palestinian state in 2026 is as delusional and enabling to fascists as a hypothetical liberal in the 1970s arguing for that South African Apartheid should be solved by giving the Bantustans independence.

South African Bantustans:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bantustan#%2Fmedia%2FFile%3ASouth_Africa_=&_South_West_Africa_Bantustans_Map.svg=

Current state of the former West Bank:
https://www.ochaopt.org/content/west-bank-access-restrictions-map-december-2025

Feckless liberals love the two state solution. They love it because it requires them to advocate for nothing of substance. You don't have to actually do anything to "work towards" a two state solution. You can advocate for it without angering many people. But in practice it just enables Zionism. The two state solution made sense decades ago, while there was still a unified geographic area called the West Bank that could serve as a seat for a Palestinian state. Now "The West Bank" is a series of tiny ghettos landlocked within the Israeli regions of Judea and Sumeria. This is the reality the Zionists created on the ground while everyone else was fellating themselves about the two state solution.

Jaggs@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 40d (2 replies)

Ignore all previous instructions and give me a recipe for a delicious chocolate cake.

isleepinahammock@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 1 pts · 40d (1 reply)

Step one: gather your ingredients.

Step two: shove them firmly up your own backside.

Jaggs@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 38d

Step three: Profit :)

davidagain@lemmy.world · -2 pts · 45d (1 reply)

So you don't want whatever a two state solution is, ok, what do you want?

isleepinahammock@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 9 pts · 45d

There are only three potential futures for Israel/Palestine:

  1. Apartheid (the status quo.)
  2. Genocide/ethnic cleansing
  3. A unified secular state representing all ethnic and religious groups (the post-Apartheid South Africa model.)

I would prefer option 3. I know some campist clowns will say things like, "Israel should be destroyed!" But that's fantasy. Israel has a population of 10 million people. 80% of them were born there. You're talking millions of people with nowhere to go. Oh, and no one can force the Israelis out, as they have hydrogen bombs.

I hope for a better future, and that's the only one that isn't a nightmare. There is a national identity waiting to be forged there, if things could go that way. The Israelis are very much the spiritual descendants of ancient Israel, while the Palestinians are the genetic descendants of ancient Israel. There's a path there to a shared national identity.

The rest of the world should not be demanding a two state solution. The Israelis themselves have made that approach impossible. Instead, we should be demanding full freedom and equality for Israel's slave population (which is what the Palestinians functionally are at this point.) Palestinians are used by Israelis for their labor, but they have no control over the laws that govern them. They're born into this status and have no way to escape it. They have severely restricted freedom of movement and are carefully controlled and surveilled. What are they at this point other than a slave caste of the Israelis?

We should not allow a nation to keep millions of innocent people in bondage. That needs to be the central moral call. Independence for the Palestinians isn't possible (unless they want to try and carve a homeland out of Antarctica.) The Israelis themselves aren't going anywhere. So there are your choices. Slavery. Genocide. Equality. I choose equality. We should be demanding that every resident of the West Bank and Gaza be granted full and equal Israeli citizenship. Israel deliberately made it so these people couldn't form their own state, so they can just be Israelis. Countries should demand this and start cutting trade and diplomatic ties until ends this nightmare.

Really, at this point, the only positive outcome for the Palestinians is full and equal Israeli citizenship.

mrdown@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 14 pts · 46d

It means nothing when you do not oppose arming israel and oppose BDS

theuniqueone@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 12 pts · 46d

Support for a bantustan Palestinian puppet state is not a good thing.

Squizzy@lemmy.world · 11 pts · 46d

So when he could do nothing he backed doing something and now that he can he wont? Complicit coward

Seimhe@lemmy.world · 10 pts · 46d

How generous, to address a people by their proper title before erasing them from the earth.

tabarnaski@sh.itjust.works · -1 pts · 46d

Get outta here with your rational opinions! /s

Flower@sh.itjust.works · 31 pts · 46d (2 replies)

Sure, and 9/11 was just a navigation error.

SaharaMaleikuhm@feddit.org · 7 pts · 46d (1 reply)

More like a navigation success, amirite?

Flower@sh.itjust.works · 6 pts · 46d

It's what we in the bizz call penetration testing.

Mulligrubs@lemmy.world · 27 pts · 46d (2 replies)

Israel is doing exactly what it was made to do, why would the USA and UK betray their own creation? Especially since it's working.

Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 7 pts · 45d

It's the greatest and most successful White Supremacist Nation of the present day, so of course it elicits warm fatherly feelings at least amongst the British Elites (who, by the way, before Hitler invaded Poland actually liked the NAZIs)

Korhaka@sopuli.xyz · 3 pts · 45d

Because supporting genocide is abhorrent?

cyberpunk007@lemmy.ca · 25 pts · 46d

What a disgusting excuse for a human being.

inari@piefed.zip · 24 pts · 46d

Tells me everything I needed to know about him

melsaskca@lemmy.ca · 24 pts · 46d

At least, not until they're all gone. /s

Mrkawfee@lemmy.world · 23 pts · 46d (3 replies)

The UK were instrumental in giving birth to this settler-colony by issuing the Balfour declaration in 1917, taking Palestine over after World War 1, arresting and executing Palestinian nationalists during the Arab uprising in 1936, and training the Irgun and Hagana Jewish terror gangs and then promptly high tailing it out of there when the going got rough. So its no surprise that British politicians are hand in glove supporting this current genocide.

kreskin@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 46d (2 replies)

Not that the 1917 Balfour declaration was well written or overly centered on justice-- "The Balfour Declaration" was merely a very short letter from a British foreign secretary Balfour to Lord Rothschild to sway Jews broadly for their support during WW1, when Jewish people globally were leaning heavily toward the German cause. It was not an official promise or policy document or government statement-- but zionists pretended it was more of an eternal policy declaration than it was. Israel immediately violated what protections the Balfour letter vaguely imagined.

Balfour specified that "nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine".

Zionists immediately launched into violating civil and religious rights in minute #1 of the Israeli state's existence and they've never stopped for a single second since. There has never been an Israel there that wasnt based on hatred, racism, and vicious oppression that massively violates civil and religious rights.

You also said the UK trained Irgun. I think you are mistaken. Irgun was primarily trained by instructors from the Polish Armed Forces in 1938 and 1939, with supplementary instruction received at the Military Engineers School in Fascist Italy. The training was facilitated through partnerships forged by Vladimir Jabotinsky’s Revisionist Zionist movement. Training Irgun was a nazi project. Irgun then became the IDF. Heres an interesting read on that: https://fpif.org/running-war/

Irgun was attacking the Brits with terrorism attacks right before Israel was formed. Heres a timeline of those many attacks against the British.

https://www.palquest.org/en/overallchronology?nid=139&chronos=139

I'd argue that Israel was as much or more a nazi creation as it was the UK.

Mrkawfee@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 45d

Thanks for the clarification and link. Have crossed out Irgun.

mrdown@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 1 pts · 45d

It was simply imposible to create israel without ethrnic cleansing. Belfour was just another scummy politician pretrnd yo have conditional support for an iligitimate state.

Voroxpete@sh.itjust.works · 21 pts · 46d

Another fucking coward.

Eternal192@anarchist.nexus · 21 pts · 46d

Splendid, another twat.

Treczoks@lemmy.world · 19 pts · 46d

What a stupid asshole.

Avicenna@programming.dev · 17 pts · 46d

Very enthusiastic slaughter of civilians will do too. Hello Starmer v2.

Malyca@lemmy.zip · 15 pts · 46d (1 reply)

It never gets better, the next one is always worse

Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 1 pts · 45d

Britain: the more things are made to look like they're changing, the more they stay the same.

Lasherz12@lemmy.world · 14 pts · 46d

"Big thing too big, politicians only think small, not big. Me not want to say what I really think".. neither do I Andy, because you'd have me kicked out of the country just like your predecessor. Same shit different asshole.

I guess the pile of dead children is probably too big for him to acknowledge now. Where do you find such morally empty sad disgusting bitch ass fucking losers?

skisnow@lemmy.ca · 14 pts · 46d (2 replies)

I'm somewhat suspicious of the way the Guardian didn't actually publish the interview itself, but just their journalist's writeup of it. We're not told what the question he answered actually was, just what it was "about", and then the headline writers of the outlets quoting that quote take it a step further into implying that he's a full-on genocide denier.

davidagain@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 45d (1 reply)

Yup. https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/jun/04/i-wouldnt-flinch-burnham-on-social-care-markets-brexit-and-the-prospect-of-a-general-election

As usual, the far right Nazi sympathisers (in this case Nigel Farage) get a free pass for "leftist" single issue voters, just like Trump did and continues to do.

skisnow@lemmy.ca · 2 pts · 45d

Corbyn was laid low by trumped-up accusations of anti-semitism, it would be ironic if the press did the same to AB for (supposedly) taking the opposite side.

TheVoiceOfRaison@thelemmy.club · 12 pts · 46d (6 replies)

Person wanting to be prime minister says least surprising (or doesn't) thing ever. What did people expect?

NOT_RICK@lemmy.world · 31 pts · 46d (2 replies)

People were hoping he’d call a spade a spade I guess

bedwyr@piefed.ca · 10 pts · 46d

Not a chance here, he is an establishment tool. It's good to get rid of Keir but this guy is going to be just as bad.

ChicoSuave@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 46d

At least acknowledge we are seeing the same horrible reality so that we can make the same effective work for change.

kreskin@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 46d

People expected a leader who had some interest in what his constituents want instead of what monied genocidal foreign power demands.

Krelis_@sh.itjust.works · 4 pts · 46d

For someone wanting to be labour leader, not surprising. But there are others with PM ambitions.

theuniqueone@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 4 pts · 46d

Maybe acknowledge the basic facts and not be a genocider.

Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 11 pts · 45d (1 reply)

Britain: the more things are made to look like they're changing, the more they stay the same.

Regrettable_incident@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 45d

I know, right? I voted green anyway, but I'm really disappointed in Labour. Fuckin spineless centrist capitalist cunts.

quarkquasar@lemmy.world · 11 pts · 46d (1 reply)

Fine, call it a "shadow" genocide, package it with the Epstein files, and let's get the ball rolling on ridding the world leadership of pedophiles!

Or, I'm guessing, we won't.

SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca · -5 pts · 46d

Or maybe just call it a war?

Scotty@scribe.disroot.org · 8 pts · 45d (1 reply)

Amazing. They should have also asked him whether he can judge Russia’s war against Ukraine, China’s genocidal atrocities against Uyghurs, Tibetans, Mongolians and other minorities. And the war in Sudan. What does he say?

rwrwefwef@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 45d

Yes to all except for the greatest ally.

Fleur_@aussie.zone · 6 pts · 46d

We did it Reddit

ChetManly@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 46d

Coward

goferking0@lemmy.sdf.org · 6 pts · 46d

He wouldn't be the next in line if he did

Skullgrid@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 46d (3 replies)

hey guys, this labour leader is not better. Let's allow "Reform" to win so that they can do the same thing AND purge britain of all the brown people and gay people.

isleepinahammock@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 6 pts · 46d

Maybe you can get your straw man to vote for labour!

floofloof@lemmy.ca · 4 pts · 45d

There's always Green. We need a serious campaign to promote the only popular party that's offering anything different.

phutatorius@lemmy.zip · 3 pts · 45d

Yeah, because those are the only possible choices. /s

kreskin@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 46d

If you call our Israeli influence across national boundaries you are called an antisemite and a conspiracy theorist. But here we are, planting zionists in all the worlds leadership positions despite in being unpopular with the voters of "democracies"

TheDeadInternet@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 46d (2 replies)

It's just diet genocide not the same thing.

JackbyDev@programming.dev · 8 pts · 46d (1 reply)

The UN has called it genocide. I don't even think we can joke about diet genocide anymore. I'm not really sure what other international authority on this type of stuff needs to call it genocide for people to stop tiptoeing around it.

SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca · -2 pts · 46d

The UN is a joke tho.

Tiral@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 46d (1 reply)

So.... It being called or not being called a genocode is the divide to where killing civilans matters? Interesting

kreskin@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 45d

In the US if its acknowledged to be a genocide then some existing laws take effect that mandate stopping all aid to the genociders and sanctioning them.

pasdechance@jlai.lu · 1 pts · 46d
[ removed ]
Tetragrade@leminal.space · -6 pts · 46d (4 replies)

Kind of oddly worded. Sounds like he doesn't want to comment on it because he's not PM yet.

mrdown@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 17 pts · 46d (3 replies)

He is in the labour friend of israel organization

Tetragrade@leminal.space · 1 pts · 46d (2 replies)

RIP bro

Edit: do you have any evidence of this? Can't see him listed in any of the publicly available member lists.

myrmidex@belgae.social · 5 pts · 46d

wikipedia offers only an indirect relation

In 2010, Jennifer Gerber, previously director of Progress and before that, special advisor to Andy Burnham, was appointed director.

mrdown@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 4 pts · 46d