Palestine Statehood (Recognition) Bill [HL]

Lord Frost Excerpts

Friday 14th March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Frost (Con)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, who is always so courteous and so clear in what he says. I am afraid I disagree with him and with the noble Baroness, Lady Northover, and the Bill that she has introduced, and briefly I will explain why.

I think we have to look at the situation on the ground. Israel has been fighting for 18 months now. It is much the longest war it is ever been involved in. It involves not just Gaza, but Lebanon, Syria and even Yemen and Iran. It is imposed huge strains on Israeli society, and there is no end in sight to it. So it is not surprising that Israelis are sceptical about the land for peace concept, and it has failed as a concept, most obviously in Gaza. Indeed, only about a quarter of Israelis now support a two-state solution. Equally importantly, as a PSR poll last autumn showed, only 39% of Palestinians support a two-state solution. This means that a two-state solution seems very unlikely to happen.

That is the context in which we must consider this proposal to require HMG to recognise Palestine as

“a sovereign and independent state on the basis of the pre-1967 borders”.

The only problem is that no such state exists on the ground. There are no agreed borders or territory, as the noble Baroness, Lady Northover, pointed out. That is not the only relevant criterion. Palestinians have very limited control of the territory, for good security reasons. There is no real ability to engage in interaction with other states. They have institutions that are riddled with anti-Semitism and corruption and simply cannot govern. There simply is nothing approximating to a state, which is important because that is the basis for UK recognition of states.

In these circumstances, what is the point of the recognition of Palestine? At best, it is acknowledgement of the concept of a state for a state that does not exist; at worst, it is just a form of international virtue signalling, or even a statement to Israel that we will reward in some way the Palestinians for the chaos and violence of 7 October.

I think the Government are being sensible in saying that recognition can come only as part of a process that is working and in which they can help. I am tempted to think that that is just another way of saying that it is never going to happen, but the problem is that for as long as recognition is a theoretical possibility, it encourages the international community to keep engaging with the phantasm rather than dealing with the real situation. This country should deal with reality as it is, rather than wishing for things that are not going to happen, and that is in our interest. That means backing Israel to do what is necessary for its security to support a realistic and achievable solution to the grievous problems that beset Israelis and Palestinians, which I strongly suspect is not going to involve a two-state solution in the near future, and stopping pretending that gesture politics by those with no skin in the game can help in any way in this. That is why I oppose the Bill.