Donald Trump told reporters on Air Force One that he and Keir Starmer did not discuss Britain’s plan to recognize a Palestinian state in September unless Israel takes a number of steps to improve life for Palestinians, Reuters reports. “We never did discuss it,” Trump said.

The Israeli foreign ministry has criticised the UK decision. In a statement on social media it said:

Israel rejects the statement by the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.

The shift in the British government’s position at this time, following the French move and internal political pressures, constitutes a reward for Hamas and harms efforts to achieve a ceasefire in Gaza and a framework for the release of hostages.

The charity ActionAid UK has also accused Keir Starmer for using Palestinian statehood as a bargaining chip. In a statement Hannah Bond, its co-CEO, said:

The prime minister is right when he says that the British public are horrified by the images of starvation coming out of Gaza, and with today’s confirmation that a man-made and entirely preventable famine is unfolding, there is no excuse for the UK government to refrain from taking action – and no time to waste.

However, we are appalled to see Palestinian statehood dangled like a bargaining chip to get the Israeli government to cease its genocidal assault on Gaza. A Palestinian state is not a threat to frighten the Israeli government into action after 21 months of relentless war and destruction, it is an unconditional and inalienable right to self-determination.

It should be evident by now that words of criticism will not compel the Isreali government to change course. It’s time for the UK government to use every diplomatic lever available to it to bring about an urgently needed ceasefire – that includes halting all arms transfers to the Israeli government and imposing sanctions, immediately.

The UK, under governments led by different parties, has for many years been in principle in favour of recognising Palestinian statehood – but only when the time was right. Ministers argued that it was best to play this card when it would be most beneficial.

In practice, this meant the idea was dangled as an incentive towards the Palestinians – with the UK arguing that they would have to offer security guarantees to Israel to quality for statehood recognition. With Hamas, a terrorist organisation opposed to Israel’s existence, in power in Gaza from 2006, there was never any prospect of “the time being right” from this perspective. This suited British ministers who did not want to upset Israel or Washington, both opposed to Palestinan state recognition.

For most of his time as Labour leader and PM, Keir Starmer has adopted approach – which rested on a presumption that the UK would not recognise the state of Palestinian unless some (unlikely) conditions were met.

But today Starmer has flipped that approach. He is now using recognition not as a carrot, but as a stick – a threat directed at Israel. And he has established the presumption that it will happen – again, unless certain (unlikely) conditions are met.

The most interesting are the ones aimed at Israel. We have now had at least four versions of what these conditions are (in the cabinet readout at 4.48pm, the Starmer statement at 5.37pm, the Downing Street statement, and the David Lammy speech at 5.20pm). In each the wording is slightly different, but there at least four requirements of Israel.

Two of them could conceivably happen before September: Israel taking “substantive steps” to end the appalling situation in Gaza, and agreeing a ceasefire. But it is much harder to imagine the Benjamin Netanyahu government committing to the two-state solution, which it now longer backs, or ruling out annexation of the West Bank, which is the de fact ambition of some of his far-right supporters in the Knesset.

There are also four conditions that apply to Hamas: releasing all hostages, agreeing a ceasefire, withdrawing from the government of Gaza, and disarming. But the UK was calling for these anyway, and there seems little prospect of Hamas agreeing all of them.

This means that the most likely outcome seems to be that, by September, the UK will conclude its conditions have not been met, and it will then recognise the state of Palestine.

Having played the card, the UK will no longer by able to use it as a source of diplomatic leverage. But supporters of recognition argue that, as more countries around the world recognise Palestine, the harder it will become for Israel to ignore the need for it to engage with Palestinians, not just militarily, but politically and diplomatically.

Ed Davey, the Lib Dem leader, has partially welcomed Keir Starmer’s announcement. But he says Palestinian state recognition should happen now, and that it should not be used as a bargaining chip.

In a statement he says:

The prime minister’s announcement marks vital progress towards the UK recognising Palestine as a state - a crucial step towards the two-state solution which would bring dignity and security for Palestinians and Israelis. Liberal Democrats welcome this step but urge Keir Starmer to go further, listen to parliament and recognise Palestine right away.

And we need far greater action to stop the humanitarian disaster in Gaza. That must go much further than Starmer’s plan. Rather than use recognition, which should have taken place many months ago, as a bargaining chip, the prime minister should be applying pressure on Israel by fully ceasing arms sales, and implementing sanctions against the Israeli cabinet. So too must the UK government urge Hamas to unconditionally release the hostages.

Asked how the government would assess whether its conditions for not recognising the state of Palestine were being met, Lammy did not go into details. He replied:

I sincerely hope that we see a dramatic improvement in the suffering, that we see a commitment to a ceasefire, and we see a commitment to a diplomatic process, such that we do not get a pause, in relation to that ceasefire, but we get an enduring peace, and it’s for us to assess those conditions as we get to next month.

But the undertaking I made in the general assembly just a few minutes ago is a solemn undertaking in front of the whole global community.

Downing Street has now published a further statement about Gaza and recognition of the Palestinian state, confirming what No 10 said in its cabinet readout and what Keir Starmer said in his statement.

And here is the full text of Starmer’s TV statement earlier.

On the 7th of October 2023 Hamas perpetrated the worst massacre in Israel’s history.

Every day since then, the horror has continued.

The hostages are still being held today.

The Palestinian people have endured terrible suffering.

Now, in Gaza because of a catastrophic failure of aid, we see starving babies, children too weak to stand: Images that will stay with us for a lifetime.

The suffering must end.

Yesterday I discussed this with President Trump.

And we are mounting a major effort to get humanitarian supplies back in.

By air, and UK aid has been air dropped into Gaza today.

And – crucially – by land.

We need to see at least 500 trucks entering Gaza every day.

But ultimately – the only way to bring this humanitarian crisis to an end is through a long-term settlement.

So we are supporting the US, Egyptian and Qatari efforts to secure a vital ceasefire.

That ceasefire must be sustainable and it must lead to a wider peace plan, which we are developing with our international partners.

This plan will deliver security and proper governance in Gaza and pave the way for negotiations on a two-state Solution.

Our goal remains a safe and secure Israel, alongside a viable and sovereign Palestinian state. But right now – that goal is under pressure like never before.

I’ve always said we will recognise a Palestinian state as a contribution to a proper peace process, at the moment of maximum impact for the two-state solution.

With that solution now under threat, this is the moment to act.

So today – as part of this process towards peace I can confirm the UK will recognise the state of Palestine by the United Nations general assembly in September unless the Israeli government takes substantive steps to end the appalling situation in Gaza, agree to a ceasefire and commit to a long-term, sustainable peace, reviving the prospect of a Two State Solution.

And this includes allowing the UN to restart the supply of aid, and making clear there will be no annexations in the West Bank.

Meanwhile, our message to the terrorists of Hamas is unchanged and unequivocal.

They must immediately release all the hostages, sign up to a ceasefire, disarm and accept that they will play no part in the government of Gaza.

We will make an assessment in September on how far the parties have met these steps.

But no one should have a veto on our decision.

So this is the way forward. We will keep working with all our international partners to end the suffering, get aid flooding into Gaza and deliver a more stable future for the Middle East.

Because I know that is what the British people desperately want to see.

David Lammy, the foreign secretary, is speaking now at the UN conference on a two-state solution for the Middle East.

He says “the two-state solution is in peril”.

He says Arthur Balfour, a previous British foreign secretary, signed the declaration that paved the way for the foundation of Israel. The UK is proud of that.

But the declaration also said nothing would be done that would prejudice the rights of Palestinians, he says.

That has not been upheld, he says.

He says the UN has passed many resolutions calling for a two-state solution.

He recites the numbers of those resolutions, and says they cannot just be numbers on a page.

Hamas cannot be rewarded for the 7 October attack, he says.

But Hamas are not the Palestinian people and there is no contradiction between support for Israel’s security and support for Palestinian statehood.

Indeed, the opposite is true.

Lammy goes on:

The Netanyahu government’s rejection of a two-state solution is wrong. It’s wrong morally and it’s wrong strategically. It harms the interests of the Israeli people, closing off the only path to a just and lasting peace, and that is why we are determined to protect the viability of a two-state solution.

And so it is with the hand of history on our shoulders that His Majesty’s government therefore intends to recognise the state of Palestine when the UN general assembly gathers in September here.

Lammy says it is the government’s intention to recognise the state of Palestine when the UN general assembly meets in September.

He gets a round of applause – before he has mentioned the conditions.

Once the applause has died down, Lammy cites the conditions mentioned by Starmer.

We will do this unless the Israeli government acts to end the appalling situation in Gaza, ends its military campaign and commits to a long sustainable peace based on a two-state solution.

Our demands on Hamas also remain absolute and unwavering.

Q: Your decision on recognition of Palestine is conditional. Why is that?

Starmer says “the primary aim here is to change the situation on the ground for people who desperately need change”.

And he wants to get aid in “at volume and at speed”.

He says this decision is intended to help that process.

And he is concerned that the two-state solution is slipping further and further away. He says he wants to stop that.

I am particularly concerned that the very idea of a two-state solution is reducing and feels further away today than it has for many, many years.

Keir Starmer has recorded a TV statement about today’s cabinet meeting, which is being broadcast by the BBC and Sky News now.

Here is the key quote, where he says the point about Palestinian state recognition in his own words.

So today, as part of this process towards peace, I can confirm the UK will recognise the state of Palestine by the United Nations General Assembly in September, unless the Israeli government takes substantive steps to end the appalling situation in Gaza, agree to a ceasefire and commit to a long-term sustainable peace, reviving the prospect of a two-state solution, and this includes allowing the UN to restart the supply of aid and making clear that there will be no annexations in the West Bank.

Meanwhile, our message to the terrorists of Hamas is unchanged but unequivocal. They must immediately release all of the hostages, sign up to a ceasefire, disarm and accept that they will play no part in the government of Gaza.

We’ll make an assessment in September on how far the parties have met these steps, but no one should have a veto over our decision. So this is the way forward.

And here is the full text of the Downing Street readout from today’s cabinet on Gaza,

The prime minister opened by saying that he had called the meeting to address the situation in Gaza which was getting more desperate by the day. He said the recent images of starvation had deeply affected the British public and underscored the increasingly intolerable situation. He said the government had always been clear that the terrorist attacks of October 7th were an outrage and that Hamas is a terrorist organisation who continue to hold hostages in terrible conditions.

He set out the ways in which the government is providing aid into Gaza, with the first airdrops of British aid landing today containing around half a million pounds worth of lifesaving supplies and the acceleration of medical evacuations of sick and injured children from Gaza. He updated cabinet on his call with the King of Jordan and the ongoing military assistance we were providing to help get aid in, but he said that airdrops were no replacement for the trucks of aid that must get to those who so badly need it. He updated on his conversation with President Trump yesterday where he underlined this position and agreed to work together to address the appalling situation on the ground.

The prime minister was clear that an immediate ceasefire in Gaza remains the overwhelming priority and if the ceasefire is to last, we need a credible and realistic peace plan for Gaza. He said that he had discussed this with E3 leaders [the French president and German chancellor – with the UK the other member of the E3] over the weekend and will continue to work with international partners to develop a credible pathway to peace in Gaza. He said we were working with allies on a plan to follow after ceasefire, including the necessary governance and security arrangements needed, and reiterated there would be no role for Hamas in future governance.

Turning to recognition, the prime minister said it had been this government’s longstanding position that recognition of a Palestinian state was an inalienable right of the Palestinian people and that we would recognise a Palestinian state as part of a process to peace and a two-state solution.

He said that because of the increasingly intolerable situation in Gaza and the diminishing prospect of a peace process towards a two-state solution, now was the right time to move this position forward. He said that the UK will recognise the state of Palestine in September, before UNGA [United Nations general assembly], unless the Israeli government takes substantive steps to end the appalling situation in Gaza, reaches a ceasefire, makes clear there will be no annexation in the West Bank, and commits to a long-term peace process that delivers a two-state solution. He reiterated that there is no equivalence between Israel and Hamas and that our demands on Hamas remain, that they must release all the hostages, sign up to a ceasefire, accept that they will play no role in the government of Gaza, and disarm.

He committed to make an assessment ahead of UNGA on how far the parties have met these steps before making a final decision, ensuring that no one side will have a veto. He reiterated that he had taken this action to protect the viability of the two-state solution, and that the immediate focus must be to get more aid urgently into Gaza, and that work would continue to bring allies on board with the plan that delivers a long-term settlement to the conflict.

The foreign secretary said that he was at the two-state solution conference in New York and would be speaking to allies about our peace plan and would make a statement to the General Assembly. He reiterated that our support for the security of Israel remained unchanged, but that the situation in Gaza required urgent action. He updated on work with Jordan and UAE to get urgent aid into Gaza in the past 24 hours but that we now need to see this move in at scale.

The cabinet also marked a minute silence for the horrific attacks in Southport one year ago today.

Downing Street has just issued its readout of today’s cabinet meeting on Gaza.

Here is the key extract.

Turning to recognition, the prime minister said it had been this government’s longstanding position that recognition of a Palestinian state was an inalienable right of the Palestinian people and that we would recognise a Palestinian state as part of a process to peace and a two-state solution.

He said that because of the increasingly intolerable situation in Gaza and the diminishing prospect of a peace process towards a two-state solution, now was the right time to move this position forward. He said that the UK will recognise the state of Palestine in September, before UNGA, unless the Israeli government takes substantive steps to end the appalling situation in Gaza, reaches a ceasefire, makes clear there will be no annexation in the West Bank, and commits to a long-term peace process that delivers a two state solution. He reiterated that there is no equivalence between Israel and Hamas and that our demands on Hamas remain, that they must release all the hostages, sign up to a ceasefire, accept that they will play no role in the government of Gaza, and disarm.

The Scottish government has published its readout of John Swinney’s meeting with Donald Trump today. The first minister said:

During our discussions, I was able to represent the interests and values of Scotland directly with the president, specifically, urging him to make the case for tariff exemptions for our world class whisky and salmon sector. I believe there is now a window of opportunity to make the case for whisky and at the invitation of the president, I intend to make further representation to him on this matter.

I implored President Trump to use his immense influence on the Israeli government to end the unbearable, unjust, and inhumane situation unfolding in Gaza, and to bring an end to the humanitarian crisis we are witnessing.

As a proud country that stands firm on the principles of equality and freedom for all, I urged President Trump to help make those ideals – American ideals – a reality for the people of Ukraine. Scotland has consistently stood with the people of Ukraine in defence of freedom, peace and a just society, and we want to see a world where those principles apply to all.

The Scottish government also said Swinney put to Trump a plan to provide Edinburgh Airport with US Customs pre-clearance facilities which Swinney said would help “demonstrate the strength of America’s enduring relationship with its friend and partner, Scotland”.

Emily Thornberry, the Labour chair of the Commons foreign affairs committee, has posted this on social media.

In their emergency Cabinet meeting on Gaza today, I very much hope the government will heed my committee’s recommendations published last Friday.

Engage Trump to get Israel to agree a ceasefire & aid. Recognise Palestine. Kickstart the political process.

Here is the committee’s report.

And here are three of the recommendations that Thornberry has highlighted.

On the need for a ceasefire and a “massively increased” supply of aid into Gaza

The UK Government must redouble its efforts to bring about a ceasefire in Gaza—with the release of all hostages—and an end to military activity in the West Bank. It should use its influence with the US administration to encourage the US to put effective pressure on Israel and Hamas. At the same time, the Government must insist that Israel opens all crossing points without restriction to food, medical, shelter materials and other aid inflows to Gaza, and immediately dismantles the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, its aid sites and its activities in Gaza, and reinstate a massively increased supply of aid through humanitarian channels established and led by a UN system. The Government should support a medical evacuation of critically injured children to the UK, including the provision of safe transport and the efficient handling of travel permits and entry visas.

On recognising Palestinian statehood

The Committee agrees with the position taken by successive UK Governments, that the two-state solution is the only possible positive outcome in this conflict. The UK, along with France—the co-signatory of the 1916 Sykes-Picot Agreement—should now recognise the state of Palestine while there is still a state to recognise. An inalienable right should not be made conditional. The Government cannot continue to wait for the perfect time because experience shows that there will never be a perfect time, and in hindsight it is possible to see times when it should have occurred.

On working for a two-state solution

The UK needs to kickstart urgently the process of preparing the ground for negotiation of a long-term two-state resolution to the conflict, without waiting for a ceasefire. In doing this, it must act more boldly and bravely to leverage the UK’s long history of involvement with and understanding of the region—along with its specialist expertise in science, technology and diplomacy—to bring Israel, the Palestinians and the other countries together. The UK should take the initiative in organising meetings, and also insist on having a seat at the table in processes, like the France-Saudi Arabia conference on the two-state solution, that have been initiated by others.

The French foreign minister, Jean-Noël Barrot, has implictly urged the UK to stop prevaricating over recognising Palestinian statehood, Patrick Wintour, the Guardian’s diplomatic editor, reports. In a post on social media he says:

In a closely argued speech to UN on Monday the French foreign minister Jean Noel Barrot subtly aimed some of his fire at those countries still setting preconditions for Palestine’s recognition, or which still insist on “roadmaps to recognition”.

He said France was making “an appeal to those countries that have not yet recognized the State of Palestine. It is today that your decision will have the maximum impact on the course of events. Waiting for Hamas to disarm before recognizing a State of Palestine means placing yourself in the hands of Hamas. Yitzhak Rabin {former Israel PM} understood this very well, he fought terrorism as if there were no peace process, and he pursued the peace process as though there were no terrorism. It is by recognizing Palestine today, you will create the conditions for the elimination of Hamas”.

He also pointed out the Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in his letter to the French President Emmanuel Macron had met all the preconditions for recognition set out by Benjamin Netanyahu in his 2009 speech at Bar-Ilan University.

Barrot said in the letter Abbas “for the first time condemns the terrorist attacks of October 7, calls for the immediate release of hostages detained by Hamas, demands its disarmament and exclusion from the governance of Gaza; he confirms the end of the allowances received by the families of prisoners convicted of terrorism, announces a reform of school textbooks to remove all hate speech, commits to holding presidential and legislative elections in 2026, and accepts that the Palestinian state will be demilitarized – there we have all the conditions stipulated by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in for the preconditions for a Palestinian state”.

France was repeatedly praised by delegates at the UN conference for taking the initiative on recognition. Quite why Starmer has handled this with the caution he has - other than Trump - will doubtless be explained by No 10 later. But as it stands, it looks as if he is buffeted by conflicting pressures, as opposed to following any logic.

Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, has defended his opposition to the Online Safety Act. Speaking to Sky News, he said:

This is legislation that we’re told is designed to protect children, but it doesn’t because they’re tech savvy and they go on to VPNs, and some of these [VPN] sites have had increases of thousands of percent in the last three days alone …

This legislation is driving people towards going towards VPNs and accessing not online pornography, but actually material that’s on the dark web. This may well do more harm than good.

Farage also repeated his claim that it was a disgrace for Peter Kyle to say being opposed to the act meant Farage was on the side of people like Jimmy Savile. (See 8.30am.) He went on:

People in glass houses – perhaps you should remember that his own leader, Keir Starmer, had to apologise for not prosecuting Jimmy Savile.

That was a reference to Keir Starmer issuing an apology on behalf of the Crown Prosecution Service, when he was director of public prosecutions, for the fact that accusations against Savile never led to his being charged. Starmer was apologising as head of the institution, not because he had been involved personally in any of its decisions relating to Savile.

Jonathan Hall KC, the government’s independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, has said that he thinks the Online Safety Act will do “precious little” to protect children from harmful content on the internet.

In an interview with LBC, he said that he thought the only effective measure to address this problem would be an Australian-style ban on under-16s accessing social media.

Asked what the Online Safety Act would achieve, he replied:

Precious little. And the reason is that it’s not actually about removing particular content. It’s about creating systems, and those systems have got to be, in the jargon, proportionate, and that depends upon what the tech companies are willing to do, frankly.

And then Ofcom, who are the government’s regulator, who’ve got to enforce this, my word, they have got a massive pallet of threats to deal with. They’ve got to deal with child sex abuse, suicide videos, self-harm. By the time they get to just straightforward gory violence and terrorism material or knives, it’s going to be some way down the line. So I think you have to be realistic about this.

If you want my honest answer, and I’ve looked at this topic for a long time now, I think that children have got to stop using social media, full stop.

And I think we need to go down the line that Australia has pioneered. In my dreams, we would just have kids with dumb phones and a few apps, and that would be distributed on the NHS. And if the government was really bold, they would grasp this bull by the horns.

But I’m afraid the Online Safety Act is not going to be the solution.

Scottish government funding for a golf tournament at Donald Trump’s Aberdeenshire course was not an attempt to “butter up” the US president, John Swinney has said.

As PA Media reports, the Scottish government announced on Saturday that £180,000 of public money would be spent to bring the Nexo Championship to Scotland next month – just days before the first minister met Trump.

Swinney said he had “courteous” talks with Trump this morning, ahead of the official opening of a second course in Aberdeenshire.

Asked if the funding for the tournament was an effort to “butter up” Trump, Swinney said:

No, I think what I was trying to do is to make sure that a tournament that was coming to Scotland could be properly promoted.

It’s coming here, we’ve essentially intervened to secure a tournament quite late in the day.

Swinney said the Scottish government provides cash to the Royal and Ancient Golf Club (R&A) in St Andrews. “If the principle is good enough for the R&A, it’s good enough for Trump International,” he said.

In her Talk interview Kemi Badenoch also accused Keir Starmer of looking like a “hostage” during his meeting with Donald Trump yesterday.

Referring to Starmer’s meetings with Trump, she said:

I think that he struggles to assert himself in those meetings. It looks like he’s a hostage. He’s sitting there terrified about what lines he can take, whereas President Trump is quite freewheeling. I think Keir Starmer doesn’t really know how to how to deal with that.

What we need is to see the British prime minister standing up for our interests showing that he’s winning, and every time we see him with President Trump, it looks like it’s the US that’s winning.

In her Talk interview Kemi Badenoch also criticised Keir Starmer’s decision to hold a rare, summer recess cabinet meeting to discuss Gaza this afternoon. She claimed that recognising Palestinian statehoood would not help and that Starmer was only holding the meeting to resolve an internal Labour problem (pressure from ministers and MPs for statehood recognition).

Asked if she supported recognising Palestine as a state, she replied:

No. I think it would be the wrong thing to do at this point …

Statehood gives Hamas power. And it’s yet another gimmick.

Why is he convening cabinet to talk about Gaza? He’s not convening cabinet to talk the migrant crisis. He’s now convening cabinet to talk all those farmers who are closing down their businesses, what they’re going to do about the economy, the debt crisis [that] seems to be looming.

He’s convening cabinet to talk about Gaza. He is not in a position to sort out that problem.

But, OK, let’s say we give statehood and then what? Does the problem disappear? No, it doesn’t. It doesn’t fix anything at all.

He is doing this to solve a political problem because a lot of people in his cabinet want statehood for Palestine. They are student campaigners, lifelong campaigners. This is the sort of stuff that they like. And he’s dealing with an internal party problem rather than dealing with the problems of this country.

Kemi Badenoch has said she does not think the Online Safety Act, which was passed by the last Conservative government but which is now being implemented by Labour, will work.

In an interview with Talk, she said she would not go as far as Reform UK, who want to repeal it. But there was “a lot wrong with it”, she said.

Even when she was in government, Badenoch was critical of the bill.

Asked today if she sided with Nigel Farage or Peter Kyle in their row about the bill (see 8.30am), she said she did not want to back either of them.

She went on:

I said at the time, this bill is not going to work. I actually managed to get it watered down. The version we’re seeing is the watered-down version.

We do need to do things to protect children from a lot of the harm that’s online. But I could just see the way it was written that as usual it would go after people doing perfectly legitimate things and the bad guys will still find a way to circumvent the rules.

This is the story of our times. More and more and more rules. Good people having to deal with more and more burdens, whether it’s on migration, whether its on business taxes. And then the bad guys find ways to circumvent.

And that’s what we’re seeing. VPN usage has shot through the roof. People are finding ways to bypass these laws …

I don’t think that the whole act should be scrapped but there is a lot wrong with it. We need to make sure that we protect children from harm but this is not the way to go about it.

Peter Kyle, the science secretary, has suggested that Palestinians need to be “rewarded” for what they have been through with the recognition of a Palestinian state.

He was speaking ahead of this afternoon’s cabinet meeting, where Keir Starmer is expected to set out details of a plan for peace in the Middle East.

This will reportedly set out a pathway for the UK to formally recognise a Palestinian state. But, according to a report in the Telegraph, “recognition of statehood will still be conditional on the delivery of a ceasefire and potentially the release by Hamas of the remaining Israeli hostages”.

In an interview on Times Radio this morning, Kyle rejected Israeli government claims that recognition of Palestinian statehood would amount to rewarding Hamas for the 7 October attack on Israel. He said:

Palestine has representation by Hamas in Gaza. It has the Palestinian Authority on the West Bank. It is a complicated, difficult set of circumstances.

But no longer can we sit back and see what is happening in that region and think that the Palestinian people should not be rewarded for what they’ve been through and have the tools at their disposal to move them towards the kind of peace, stability and dignity that every citizen in every country is owed.

When it was put to him at least some of the people being rewarded would be Hamas supporters, Kyle said he did not accept this argument. He went on:

Citizens need to be rewarded for what they have been through and they need to be supported into the future to deliver the kind of peace and security and at the end to the horrors.

The US has not recognised Palestine as a state and, when Emmanuel Macron said France would do so in September, the Trump administration criticised his decision.

But yesterday, in his Q&A with Keir Starmer in Scotland, Trump indicated that he would not object to the UK recognising Palestine. Asked about UK recognition of a Palestinian state, he replied:

I’m not going to take a position, I don’t mind him [Starmer] taking a position. I’m looking for getting people fed right now.

About 50,000 people who become disabled or chronically ill will be pushed into poverty by the end of the decade because of cuts to incapacity benefit, despite ministers dropping the bulk of its welfare reform plans, the Commons work and pensions committee has said. Patrick Butler has the story here.

The committee’s report is here.

Yesterday, when Donald Trump and Keir Starmer held their joint Q&A, they set out their alternative approaches to energy policy without either of them personalising it, or implying the alternative approach was bonkers.

This morning the US president has gone a bit further. He is in Aberdeenshire, and he has posted this on his Truth Social website.

North Sea Oil is a TREASURE CHEST for the United Kingdom. The taxes are so high, however, that it makes no sense. They have essentially told drillers and oil companies that, “we don’t want you.” Incentivize the drillers, FAST. A VAST FORTUNE TO BE MADE for the UK, and far lower energy costs for the people!

Trump does not mention Starmer and his government, but he is referring to their policies. The UK has always levied high taxes on North Sea oil, but Labour called for an windfall tax on energy companies when it was in opposition and, after Rishi Sunak’s government introduced one, Labour put it up.

Labour has also ruled out granting new licences for oil and gas exploration in the North Sea.

One of the main arguments used by Reform UK yesterday to criticise the Online Safety Act highlighted the surge in people signing up with VPN providers. People are using VPNs to bypass age verification restrictions on websites.

In his Sky News interview this morning, Peter Kyle accepted that VPN use was increasing and that people were using VPNs to get round the new rules in the Online Safety Act.

He said he did not know how many people have been downloading VPN apps. Age verification software has been downloaded 6.5m times in recent days, he said.

But he claimed “the vast majority of adults in this country” were playing by the rules. He said that he was not going to ban VPNs, but that he would be looking “very closely” at how they are being used.

And he argued that “very few children” were actively seeking harmful content online. The problem was that “harmful content comes and find them”, he said.

Some people are finding their way round [the legislation]. Very few children will be going actively out there searching for harmful content.

Now, if we can take a step forward, which is 60, 70, 80, maybe even 90% forward when it comes to actually stopping harmful content getting into kids feeds, I’ll bank it. That’s a good day at work.

And that 10% that’s remaining, or whatever that percentage is? We’ll go figuring it out as we move forward.

But don’t make any mistake about it. We’ve taken a big step forward when it comes to the experience children have online.

Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, has described Peter Kyle claim that he has in effect sided with the likes of Jimmy Savile as “disgusting” and he’s demanded an apology. He posted this on social media.

Peter Kyle’s comments on @SkyNews are disgusting. He should do the right thing and apologise.