The Miliband Package: Resetting the UK-Israel relationship?

Posted: 5th September 2026

Many of you follow this closely and will already know what is coming. Others won’t, so let me set out the background before I ask anything of you.

Where we are

Britain recognised the State of Palestine last year. Recognition was a significant step, but on its own it changes nothing on the ground: it is a statement about the world as it should be, not a set of decisions about how Britain actually behaves. The question ever since has been whether recognition would be followed by policy. The Government is now expected to answer that question. With a new packages of measures aimed at increasing the pressure on Israel to change policy. It has been widely trailed as a reset of the UK–Israel relationship. For years Britain has had a privileged relationship with the Israeli Government — and that privilege has not stopped settlement expansion, annexation or the destruction of Gaza. Friendship without results is not influence.

We have argued for a relationship based on law rather than privilege: measures that target conduct rather than identity, that are proportionate and reversible when published conditions are met. This is not about isolating Israelis or abandoning the relationship. It is about ending impunity and upholding one standard of international law, for the sake of both peoples.

There are five tests that should be applied to this policy change:

1. Does it end UK involvement in the occupation?
2. Does it end UK involvement in settlement trade and services?
3. Does it build international support for real consequences?
4. Does it strengthen Palestinian statehood?
5. Does it pressure to change Israeli Government policy?

The attached graphic sets these out alongside ten short messages you are welcome to use.

What you can do

– Share the graphic using #TheMilibandPackage and #ResetUKIsrael
– Write to your MP asking them to hold the Government to these five tests
– Forward this to anyone who follows British foreign policy and might not otherwise see it

We will respond as soon as the measures are published, and we will judge them honestly — welcoming what is good and saying plainly where they fall short. An announcement is not an outcome. What follows it is.

With thanks, as always, for your support.

Best wishes,

Brian Brivati
Executive Director, Britain Palestine Project