UK’s Starmer set to announce Palestine recognition in two hours

UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is expected to release a video statement announcing British recognition of a Palestinian state at 4 p.m. Israel time, 10 Downing Street tells The Times of Israel.

Starmer is planning to announce new sanctions on the Hamas terror group at the same time, the Telegraph newspaper reports.

British media reported on Saturday that Starmer will publish a statement on Sunday confirming the UK’s recognition of an independent Palestinian state, following the France-led push for coordinated recognition at the UN General Assembly.

Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy confirmed that Starmer would announce a decision on whether to go ahead with the move, noting that it was aimed at bolstering support for a two-state solution and would not create a Palestinian state “overnight.”

Lammy later met Husam Zomlot, the Palestinian envoy to the United Kingdom, according to social media posts from both.

H.E. Ambassador @hzomlot with @DavidLammy MP ahead of a historic day. pic.twitter.com/5iEM3YXKk4

— Palestine in the UK (@PalMissionUK) September 21, 2025

Zomlot tells the BBC that the decision will act as a corrective to the 1917 Balfour Declaration, which announced the British support for a “national home for the Jewish people” in Palestine.

“The issue today is ending the denial of our existence that started 108 years ago,” Zomlot says. “And I think today, the British people should celebrate a day when history is being corrected, when wrongs are being righted, when recognition of the wrongs of the past are beginning to be corrected, and when taking responsibility of that colonial era, because that era has led us directly to the genocide in Gaza today, and that era has led to the ethnic cleansing of two-thirds of the Palestinian people during the Nakba and during the British mandate.”