On September 21st, 2025, Sir Keir Starmer announced that his Labour government recognises Palestinian statehood.
The applause came quickly from the usual quarters — Guardian editorialists, the Labour Left, and Islamist lobby groups. But the question is not whether Palestine merits recognition, it is whether Starmer, in his infinite wisdom, is prepared to follow his logic through to its natural conclusion.
If grievances, religious solidarity, and sheer volume of protest are now sufficient to conjure a state into being, then why stop at the West Bank and Gaza? Why not recognise Birmingham, London, or Leicester as independent Islamic republics? After all, many living in these cities already operate in ways that blur the line between municipality and mini-state. Palestine has no more claim to sovereignty than Britain’s Muslim enclaves — indeed, arguably less.
Let us not pretend this is a foreign policy masterstroke. It is naked electoral calculation. Labour’s dominance in dozens of urban constituencies depends on Muslim votes. The Gaza war spooks Starmer: Labour councillors defect, angry demonstrations fill the streets, and “independent” candidates suddenly look viable in heartland seats. Recognition of Palestine becomes a tool not of diplomacy but of vote-bait.
But the danger with client politics is that it does not stop at the first concession. Once the principle that communal identity can command recognition is accepted, why limit it to overseas grievances?
Sharia Courts Today, Statehood Tomorrow?
In Britain today, parallel legal systems already exist. So-called “Sharia councils” operate in cities across the country, adjudicating marriage, divorce, and inheritance according to Islamic law. Successive governments look the other way, content to let a two-tier justice system develop in plain sight.
Add to this the flourishing madrassa sector, often subsidised at public expense, where children are educated in a curriculum distinct from the national one. We are told this is cultural diversity; in practice, it is the steady construction of institutions that echo statehood in miniature.
Recognition of Palestine sends precisely the wrong message: parallel institutions, cemented by religious identity, are not to be integrated into the British whole but rewarded as semi-sovereign entities.
Muslim Mayors as Heads of State?
London already has a Muslim mayor, Sadiq Khan, endlessly touted as the embodiment of a “modern, multicultural Britain.” Birmingham and other cities also elect Muslim mayors. Why stop there? If Palestine can be declared a state with barely functioning institutions, then why not confer full diplomatic honours upon Mayor Khan? Should we expect ambassadors in Whitechapel, border posts at Edgware Road, and a new “Islamic Republic of London” passport?
The absurdity writes itself. Yet once recognition becomes an electoral bargaining chip, absurdity is only a matter of degree.
The far-left has long dreamed of dismantling Britain’s nationhood, parceling it into oppressed “communities” entitled to their own destiny. Recognition of Palestine becomes the international version of this fantasy. Why not domestic application?
If Birmingham’s Muslim population feels culturally distinct, if Tower Hamlets insists on recognition, if Leicester declares it no longer feels represented by Westminster, on what grounds does Starmer refuse? The precedent is set: grievance plus identity equals sovereignty.
Picture This:
The Republic of Birmingham issues its own passports, stamped with crescent moons, recognised immediately by a grateful Labour government.
The Islamic Republic of Tower Hamlets introduces halal-only food in schools, funded, of course, by British taxpayers, but now with the dignity of international recognition.
The Federal Republic of Leicester hosts embassies from Palestine, Kashmir, and every other grievance-based proto-state.
The Prime Minister, ever eager to placate, dutifully sends congratulations, promising development aid and “respectful partnership.”
The joke is that Britain is already halfway there. With Sharia courts, madrassas (possibly funded by the EU), and separate cultural infrastructure entrenched, these cities operate with one foot outside the British mainstream. Recognition simply formalises the reality.
Recognition as a Weapon Against the Nation-State
What is at stake is not Palestine, but Britain’s integrity. By recognising a state that cannot govern itself, Starmer legitimises the principle that identity politics trumps sovereignty, that grievance outweighs functionality.
Applied domestically, that principle is explosive. Why should Scots not demand immediate independence on the same grounds? Why should London not style itself an autonomous city-state? Why should Muslim-dominated areas not demand recognition of their own “states within a state”?
It is all the same logic. If Palestine today, why not Birmingham tomorrow?
A state must have borders it can defend, institutions that function, laws that apply equally, and loyalty from its citizens. Palestine has none of these. Birmingham, Tower Hamlets, and Leicester, left to their own devices, would have none either.
But to Starmer, none of this matters. Recognition is a gesture, a gift, a token of appeasement. Once that becomes the currency of politics, Britain’s sovereignty itself becomes negotiable.
Starmer’s recognition of Palestine is not diplomacy but desperation. It signals that Labour is prepared to barter the meaning of statehood itself in exchange for votes in inner-city constituencies, and if statehood can be conferred on Palestine, it can be conferred on Birmingham. The difference is only geographical. The absurd becomes logical once the premise is accepted.
Britain is not yet the United States of Balkanisation, a patchwork of grievance-states stitched together by taxpayers money. But under a Labour government willing to play with recognition as though it were an electoral trinket, do not be surprised if one day the joke turns sour.
Main Image: By Oosoom – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3628265
