Labour MP apologises after suggesting military action against Israel

Tahir Ali, MP for Birmingham Hall Green & Moseley, claimed that "those are not my views, and I apologise unreservedly"

A Labour MP who asked suggested in the House of Commons this week that the UK might want to consider taking military action against Israel has “apologised unreservedly”, stating that he “does not support military action anywhere in the Middle East”.

Tahir Ali, the MP for Birmingham Hall Green & Moseley, spoke in a Parliamentary debate on the subject of “Israel and Palestine” on Monday. As one of a number of statements during that debate, Ali asked, in direct response to another MP talking about the importance of disarming Hamas, whether “on the issue of disarmament, should we not also be calling for Israel’s disarmament, given the atrocities that have been committed? Previous Governments have intervened in the middle east to take action on human rights abuses and protect international trade routes. Is it not about time that military action was taken against Israel as well?”

Ali later posted the video of him making that point on Twitter before subsequently deleting it. On Wednesday, he published a statement saying: “In Parliament on Monday, I wrongly gave the impression that I support the use of military force against Israel. Those are not my views, and I apologise unreservedly. I do not support military action anywhere in the Middle East and have long been a campaigner for peace and conflict resolution.”

The Jewish Chronicle reported that Ali had received a “formal warning” from the Chief Whip, with a Labour spokesperson describing the MPs remarks as “unacceptable”.

In the debate, Ali also mentioned Israel’s recent announcement, in response to West Bank settlement sanctions from the UK, that a dozen MPs would be banned from the country, stating that “when China banned our elected Members, the Speaker banned the Chinese ambassador from coming to this place. I would like that to be repeated in equal measure to the Israeli ambassador”. Israel has not had a serving ambassador in the UK for more than a year.

This is not Ali’s first brush with controversy. In January 2024 he provoked anger after claiming that the then-Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, had “the blood of thousands of innocent people on his hands” over his response to Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza. In February 2022, days before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, he was among a number of Labour MPs who signed a letter from “Stop the War”, calling for NATO to “call a halt to its eastwards expansion”, and stating that it “refutes the idea NATO is a defensive alliance.” All the Labour MPs who signed the letter subsequently withdrew their signatures when they were contacted by the party’s whips.

In response to Ali’s apology, the Shadow Attorney General, Lord Wolfson, responded by saying: “You asked whether it was ‘about time to take military action against Israel’. That wasn’t an inference or an implication. Nor was it an impression. It was your express position.”