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The UK government says only international courts can decide if a genocide is taking place. But its own legal advisers have quietly told ministers otherwise. In Gaza, the result has been silence, inaction—and complicity.

The law is only as good as the will to follow it

What use is a new law against genocide if the political establishment is determined to look the other way?

That’s the question at the heart of a new initiative led by Labour peer Helena Kennedy: the Standing Group on Atrocity Crimes, which proposes clearer legal duties for UK ministers to act when a genocide or mass atrocity is occurring.

On paper, it could be a major breakthrough.

In reality, it risks becoming a smokescreen for inaction unless it forces governments to act—even when doing so is politically inconvenient.

You see, the UK already has laws about genocide.

It has international obligations under the Genocide Convention.

It has lawyers.

It even has internal government memos warning of potential atrocities.

What it doesn’t have—at least not yet—is a political class willing to act on any of it.

What the UK government has done about Gaza (and what it hasn’t)

Since October 2023, Israel’s assault on Gaza has killed more than 50,000 Palestinians, the majority of them women and children.

Entire neighbourhoods have been flattened.

Hospitals, UN shelters and refugee camps have been bombed.

Yet both the former Conservative government and the current Labour administration have clung to the same formulaic response: “Israel has the right to defend itself,” and “genocide is a matter for the international courts.”

That last line is the one ministers use to evade moral responsibility.

It is also misleading.

Documents from the arms export licensing case revealed that UK civil servants did make internal assessments about whether genocide was occurring—and found that it wasn’t.

Ministers used these secret conclusions to justify continuing arms sales, while publicly claiming they had no position.

Foreign Secretary David Lammy has said the UK government is “deeply concerned” by Israel’s conduct.

But concern is not the same as condemnation.

And condemnation is not the same as action.

In truth, the UK continues to sell weapons components—especially for the F-35 fighter jets used in Gaza—while publicly wringing its hands and privately insisting that genocide isn’t happening.

This is more than a contradiction.

It’s a betrayal of both law and morality.

The Genocide Determination Bill: a mechanism for accountability?

Enter the Genocide Determination Bill—a proposed law that would take the decision out of ministers’ hands.

Instead, an independent parliamentary committee could recommend a finding of genocide, which a domestic UK court would then be asked to affirm.

If the court agrees, the Foreign Secretary would be legally required to outline concrete steps, including sanctions, legal referrals, or suspension of military exports.

It is, in theory, a powerful idea.

It breaks the deadlock created by cowardly ministers hiding behind international courts that often take years to make a ruling – long after the killing is done.

And it answers the Genocide Convention’s clearest obligation: that countries must act the instant they are aware of a serious risk—not when a tribunal finally says it out loud.

Will it work? Only if it’s strong enough

Here’s the catch: none of this will work unless the law has teeth.

If the government can ignore the committee’s recommendation, delay the court process, or shrug off the court’s ruling, then we’re no further forward.

There must be binding obligations.

The legal threshold for “serious risk” must be clarified.

And ministers must be held accountable—through courts, yes, but also through parliamentary scrutiny and public pressure.

The reality is that a UK government motivated by profit or geopolitical alignment—especially one that sees Israel as a key ally—will find every excuse not to act.

That’s already happening now.

The proposed law must not give them new excuses.

A country that watched a massacre—and supplied the weapons

It’s time to say it plainly: the UK stood by while Israel massacred more than 50,000 people in Gaza.

It has not only refused to condemn the genocide—it has actively facilitated it, providing weapons, components, and diplomatic cover.

This has happened despite international rulings, despite growing condemnation from the UN and human rights organisations, and despite the clear will of the British public, the majority of whom oppose the UK’s role in the war.

Starmer’s Labour government inherited this policy.

It has so far chosen to maintain it.

A test of honour—or corruption

The new initiative led by Lady Kennedy is, at best, an attempt to force our politicians—of all parties—to do the right thing: to end an era of evasion, to restore legal accountability, and to prevent atrocities before they become history.

Whether the Genocide Determination Bill succeeds or not will be the clearest moral test yet of Keir Starmer’s government.

If Labour embraces it, refines it, and enacts it with binding obligations, that party may yet show honour.

If ministers block it, water it down, or bury it in committees, we will know exactly what kind of government we have.

Not one committed to international law—but one complicit in atrocity.

One that aids and abets genocide, then hides behind procedure while the bodies pile up.

We will be watching.

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