Declassified UK

Posted: 16th June 2025

What makes governments change their mind and divert them from the path they are on? What turns the tide on public opinion? The answer to this is complex and agonising as we so desperately need systemic change.

Part of any shift is the pressure people can exert on the system. Politicians care very much about losing their seats come the election. They individually get affected by the issues their constituents bring to them. What we are up against is a political system which is ruthlessly indifferent to people’s pleas, and discipline in parliament is kept through the whipping system, but over time, pressure has an effect. Instead of appeals to parliament and the ‘mainstream’ media based on morality and justice, shifts take place because of pressure.

There have been demonstrations almost every week in London and regionally in opposition to the genocide in Gaza. A new wave of direct action through Palestine Action targeting the arms industry linked to Israel has awoken. And thousands of emails to MPs, meetings, organising, blockading, boycotting, marches, rallies, occupations, letters, petitions, encampments have taken place, involving tens of thousands of people young and old who are proudly and actively pro-Palestine, some of whom just two years ago might not have said that.

At Declassified, we’ve spent thousands of hours in journalistic work investigating the government’s complicity in the genocide. From a UK perspective, whilst we should be deeply cynical about politicians changing their tune, this pressure eventually adds up.

When we think about the severity of the situation in Gaza, not much could be worse, it is truly catastrophic. Some 602 days of bombs, besiegement, repeated displacement, the destruction of almost all life-supporting infrastructure and now the starvation of its population.  

The government’s recent political posturing on Gaza will not absolve Keir Starmer and David Lammy from the decisions they have made, and rightly, my colleague John McEvoy asserts that they should be in the Hague, at the International Criminal Court. Read why here.

The mainstream media’s role in shaping the narrative on the atrocities in Gaza has been utterly damming too. Professor of Media & Communications, Des Freedman describes how Britain’s national press have finally realised that Israel might be a problem but still fail to recognise their own role in legitimising atrocities in Gaza. Read the story here.

Dissenting voices are few and far between in parliament, especially when it comes to Palestine. We talked to Zarah Sultana MP about the hostility she faces from within her own party (she currently does not have the whip and is sitting as an independent MP) and from the Conservatives, and the way in which the government is complicit in the genocide.

“This genocide is bigger than my political career, it’s the litmus test for so many and therefore you have to do everything possible to stop genocide.” - Zarah Sultana MP

The Government was in court over its decision to keep exporting fighter jet parts that can be used by Israel’s fleet of F-35 warplanes. Declassified has discovered that one of the key witnesses for the government has accepted hospitality from arms firms directly involved in the F-35 supply chain. You can read about that here.

Watch the speakers outside the court here & listen to John McEvoy and Global Legal Action Network lawyer Charlotte Andrews-Briscoe here.

Away from political rhetoric we investigate what is happening in practice, and this exclusive by John McEvoy and Irish investigative news site The Ditch shows through analysing shipping documents how one company, Instro Precision, has been sending military items to Israel amid the Gaza genocide.

Read the article here and watch the video here.

Want to know more about the British Empire? This month we launched Declassified Empire, a new series on both the ongoing and historical impact of the British Empire. Declassified’s Co-Director Mark Curtis started off this series with a comprehensive assessment of the ways in which the Empire still exists, with some astonishing facts. Read here.

Watch this fascinating interview by Mark Curtis with Yanis Varoufakis who spoke to Declassified UK about how Britain’s colonial history on Cyprus is also part of its colonial present. Watch here.

You can see the other articles in our Empire series here.

Empire’s echo: Why Britain cannot ignore Kashmir

As the former imperial power, Britain should not escape its historic responsibility for tensions between India and Pakistan.

Brunei: Britain’s neo-colonial oil hub near China

With its super-rich Sultan guarded by Gurkhas, Brunei is a relic of empire where Britain and Shell still wield enormous influence.

We want our work to have real world impact and for it to mean more than words on a page or knowledge for knowledge’s sake, and we want our journalism to challenge the system. To do that, we rely on your support, to share our work, to talk to people about what we have found and we are truly grateful for that support.

Laura Pidcock

Co-Director, Declassified.

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