UK MP brings bill for probe into UK backing of Israel’s genocide in Gaza

Former leader of the UK Labour Party and independent MP Jeremy Corbyn, who submitted a bill to Parliament yesterday calling for an independent inquiry into the UK’s role in Israel’s war on Gaza, said a potential investigation would focus on the government’s military, economic or political cooperation with the occupation state.

“This bill is demanding an independent public inquiry into British policy. Supply of weapons, use of the Royal Air Force bases in Cyprus, failure to comply with the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court decisions, and the continued supply of components for the F-35 jets that could not fly if they did not have parts, 15% of its components made in Britain. So, we’re demanding that ceases,” Corbyn told Anadolu.

Corbyn noted the bill has received significant public backing, and added: “There is a lot of support, particularly from people on the streets and the emails I’ve received from all over the country, indeed all over the world.”

Addressing fellow MPs, Corbyn said: “I hope MPs will recognise today they’ve got an opportunity to speak up and be counted.”

Corbyn also made a direct appeal to the international community to help end the bloodshed in Gaza.

“My message to the world is this period of the 21st century will be written down in history as the time we watched on live television children starving to death, people dying in hospitals with lack of anesthetic, lack of any means of even cleaning wounds, lack of antiseptics, all the basic things, and then just a few kilometers away there’s all the food and all the water and all the electricity and all the medicines you could possibly want,” he said.

“We’re watching the strangulation of the lives of two million people, 61,000 of whom have already died. It’s disgraceful and disgusting. History will judge. History will judge those that stood by and did nothing when they could have done something,” he added.

Rejecting international calls for a ceasefire, Israel has pursued a devastating offensive in Gaza since October 2023, killing over 54,600 Palestinians, most of them women and children.