Sadiq Khan has become the most senior Labour figure yet to call for an immediate end of UK arms sales to Israel after a drone attack killed seven aid workers in Gaza, with the London mayor saying: “It’s got to stop.”
Khan’s comments came as a tally of public statements by the leftwing Labour group Momentum showed that more than 50 Labour MPs had also demanded an end to arms sales, a quarter of the party’s total in the Commons.
The position is distinct from the official Labour stance: David Lammy, the shadow foreign secretary, has said UK arms sales should be halted only if government lawyers conclude there is a risk the weapons could be used to commit serious breaches of international law.
Speaking to the Politics Joe website, Khan said Hamas should release all Israeli hostages seized during the massacre on 7 October, but that – as well as the growing death toll among Palestinian civilians – he was dismayed at the way Israeli forces appeared to have “targeted” a marked aid convoy run by the food charity World Central Kitchen, killing three Britons, a Palestinian, a US-Canadian dual citizen, a Pole and an Australian.
“In my view, the fact the government is not publishing the legal advice, one can only draw one conclusion,” Khan said. “I think the government should be pausing all sales of weapons to Israel. I think we should be holding to account the Israeli government.”
Khan said Rishi Sunak claimed to have a “special relationship” with Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister: “Where is the evidence that we’re using that influence to put pressure on the Israeli government? I worry, every hour this war goes on, more innocent people are dying.”
He added: “It’s got to stop.”
Asked if UK arms sales should be stopped immediately, Khan said: “I can see no reason not to. The government has now had weeks to publish the legal advice – they’ve not published it.”
In a letter sent to Sunak on Wednesday evening, 600 lawyers, academics and retired senior judges – among them three former supreme court justices, including the court’s former president Brenda Hale – warned that the UK government was breaching international law by continuing to arm Israel.
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The signatories, who included more than 60 KCs, said the situation in Gaza was “catastrophic” and that, given the international court of justice finding that there is a plausible risk of genocide being committed, the UK was legally obliged to act to prevent it.
Downing Street has given no indication it plans to halt sales, or of when any legal opinion might be released.
In a video interview with the Sun’s Harry Cole on Wednesday evening, Sunak said arms licences were kept under “careful” review according to “regulations and procedures that we’ll always follow”.
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