Badenoch blasts Starmer over Palestine recognition

Conservative Party Leader, Kemi Badenoch, has torn into Prime Minister Keir Starmer after the UK formally recognised the State of Palestine, slamming the move as “absolutely disastrous.”

Badenoch, MP for North West Essex, said Starmer was “rewarding terrorism with no conditions,” leaving hostages in Gaza to suffer and doing nothing to ease the plight of innocent civilians trapped in the conflict.

In a post on X, she accused the Labour leader of pandering to “the hobby horses of the Labour left” just to cling to power.

“They cannot fix the NHS, so they push assisted suicide. They cannot create jobs for young people, so they give them votes at 16. They cannot sort out immigration, but they will recognise Palestine instead,” she fumed.

Badenoch also tore into Starmer’s foreign policy record, pointing to the £35bn payout to Mauritius and the surrender of the Chagos Islands as proof of his “poor judgement.”

“Everything we are seeing is a consequence of a Prime Minister who has no plan for the country and no judgement,” she added. “He will spend the next four years delivering the hobby horses of the Labour left to stay in power and leave a huge mess for us to clean up.”

Starmer, on his part, defended the recognition, saying it was about reviving hope for peace and keeping the two-state solution alive for both Palestinians and Israelis.