Britain is not an outlier. In the median of 24 countries surveyed by the Pew Research Centre in March 2025, 62% had an unfavourable opinion of Israel, while 29% had a favourable view. In Britain the figures were 61% and 30%. Likewise YouGov found in May 2025 that 32% of Britons sympathised more with Palestine than Israel, compared with 18% in Germany, 24% in France, 31% in Italy and 33% in Spain. Even so, there are reasons why the issue is especially fraught in Britain. Although the country supplies less than 1% of Israel’s arms imports, activists have latched onto the idea that the British government has supported Israel’s war. Britain’s history in the region has not helped. Labour has been repeatedly wrong-footed. In the weeks after October 7th 2023—when Hamas breached Israel’s border fences before killing and kidnapping Israelis—Sir Keir Starmer, then leader of the opposition, clumsily defended Israel’s response. Anxious to avoid accusations of antisemitism, Sir Keir repeatedly refused to call for a ceasefire, prompting a rebellion by his own MPs. In government, the party has shifted towards a pro-Palestine position, suspending some arms exports to Israel and formally recognising the Palestinian state, while taking a hard line against some protesters. Britain’s Muslims, 6% of the population, are particularly exercised. In May 2024 a poll by Savanta found that 21% of them said the Israel-Palestine conflict was the most important issue when deciding how to vote in the general election that year (compared with 3% in Britain overall, including 9% of 18- to 24-year-olds). As Britain elected Labour by a landslide, pro- Gaza independent MPs managed to seize four formerly safe Labour seats with large Muslim populations. In May’s local elections Gaza independents failed to win four councils they had targeted (although the Muslim-led Aspire party was re-elected in Tower Hamlets). Instead, many Muslims are turning towards the Greens. A recent poll by Think Labour, a Labour-affiliated think-tank, found the Greens had 30% support among Muslims, compared with 44% for Labour and 10% for independents.
Only a tiny fraction of non-Muslim voters say the war in Gaza is their top issue. The British Election Study (BES) gives respondents an open-ended text box to write about their most important concern. Less than 0.5% of respondents wrote the words “Gaza”, “Palestine”, “Israel”, “genocide” or “war crimes” in their responses in May-June 2024. By May 2025, the figure had fallen by half. In May 2026 Google searches in Britain about the war dropped to their lowest level since 2023. Although Gaza is the main matter for only a shrinking fringe it continues to shape British politics. A close look at those who responded to the BES in May 2023 and May 2025 reveals the lingering effects of pro-Palestine advocacy on a wide range of topics. Altogether, 19% of respondents said they had “much more” sympathy with Palestine than Israel. By May 2025, that group had become 0.6 points more favourable towards redistributing incomes, on average, on a ten-point scale, relative to other respondents (see chart). Over the two years they also became relatively more supportive of environmental protection, immigration—and the Green Party. For the Greens’ leader, Zack Polanski, like lefties elsewhere, Gaza has been a recruitment opportunity. Advocacy for Palestine is abundant on social media, where gut-wrenching images are shared far and wide. Once users go down the Gaza hole, Mr Polanski is only a few taps away.■
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Britain’s government prefers visa bans to free speech Even though they are impractical, immoral and annoying June 4th 2026 Sir Keir Starmer is not known for his decisiveness. But there is one issue that his Labour government has approached with uncharacteristic proactivity: free speech. In the most recent example his home secretary, Shabana Mahmood, banned Cenk Uygur and Hasan Piker, two left-wing American commentators, from entering Britain, days before they were to speak at a festival in London. Both men claim to have been banned because of their criticism of Israel. It could also be due to their history of making statements that could be construed as support for a terror organisation (Mr Piker has said that if given the choice between voting for Israel or Hamas he would vote for Hamas).
Whatever the reason, Ms Mahmood deemed that their entry “may not be conducive to the public good”. That language has its roots in the 1971 Immigration Act, which gave the home secretary power to veto visa applications from such individuals (and deport them without trial). At first it was used to exclude suspected Russian spies, which in practice often meant activists with communist leanings. During the 1991 Gulf war it was used to deport Iraqi nationals on national- security grounds. The legal background changed after the terror bombings in London on July 7th 2005. In their wake Sir Tony Blair’s government published an official list of “unacceptable behaviours” that could result in exclusion. Among them: expressing views which “justify or glorify terrorist violence” as well as those that might “foster hatred” or “lead to intercommunity violence”. In the years since, the power has mainly served to prevent extreme Islamist preachers from operating in Britain. The number of such bans had in fact been falling. In 2019 Britain blocked entry to 37 people. In 2024 (the most recent year for which data are available) it excluded just 15. But since then the government appears to have found a button it enjoys pressing. In April Kanye West, a rapper with a history of antisemitism, had his visa cancelled ahead of performing at a music festival. A month later Tommy Robinson, a far-right campaigner, saw several allies barred from attending his Unite the Kingdom rally in London. Britain is hardly the only country to exclude people based on vague judgments. Australia often refuses or cancels visas on “character grounds”. The Trump administration has directed immigration officials to search for “anti-American” attitudes on would-be immigrants’ social-media feeds. In 2025 it cancelled the visas of at least six people accused of celebrating the murder of Charlie Kirk, a conservative activist. The difference is that Britain appears to disproportionately target the most well-known political activists and celebrities. Mr West (known as Ye) is one of the world’s most influential musicians; Mr Piker one of the most watched streamers.
This is no coincidence. Unusually for Britain, the process of denying a visa can be decidedly unbureaucratic. In most other countries it is left entirely to civil servants, who carry out predetermined checks and reach quiet conclusions. In Britain it is also a power the home secretary wields at his or her personal discretion. This turns a counter-terror tool into a virtue-signalling one. It was public outrage that led John Reid, the Labour home secretary at the time, to ban Snoop Dogg, an American rapper, from Britain in 2007, after a brawl at Heathrow airport. In 2015, when a Conservative home secretary, Theresa May, banned Tyler the Creator, another rapper, for homophobic lyrics, she did so in an attempt to signal her wokeness. Now a Labour government accused of enabling both Islamophobia and antisemitism hopes to signal its intolerance of racism by banning anyone whose words might offend Britain’s minorities. If censorship were indeed the goal, it appears to have backfired. Days after being uploaded to YouTube, Mr Piker’s video decrying his ban is already one of his most watched of 2026. Both men are well-known in America. Neither is terribly well-liked. Politically, the bans reveal a conflict between two opposing definitions of free speech. America, at least in theory, is a land of free-speech absolutism. Europe, where governments routinely place limits on free expression, is not. Britain, forever somewhere between the two, is a battleground in this culture war. Foreigners are generally held to a higher standard than citizens when it comes to free expression. This has long allowed the exclusion of Islamist preachers and neo-Nazi activists. But as definitions of extremism expand, and as fringe politics becomes mainstream, previously black-and-white cases become an increasingly controversial shade of grey. Then there is the uncomfortable fact that, when it comes to free speech, almost everyone is a hypocrite. Few of the left-wingers outraged at Mr Piker’s ban (such as the Green Party leader, Zack Polanski) cared about the far-right agitators unable to march with Mr Robinson. Nor would the conservatives incensed at their exclusion (like Rupert Lowe, leader of a far-
right party, Restore Britain) argue for admitting extremist Islamist preachers. Britain’s government, like many others, is on a political rack, stretched by competing ideologues who care little about free speech. In an attempt to please all, the government has taken to justifying previous bans with new ones. More likely is that it will annoy all—not least those who, unlike Mr Piker, believe in the liberal tradition. ■ For more expert analysis of the biggest stories in Britain, sign up to Blighty, our weekly subscriber-only newsletter. This article was downloaded by zlibrary from https://www.economist.com//britain/2026/06/04/britains-government-prefers-visa- bans-to-free-speech
The impact of taxing British private-school fees starts to show But the policy will probably raise money, nonetheless June 4th 2026 MORE THAN 500 children attend St Joseph’s College, a private school in Reading that prides itself on providing the “best value” education in its area. In mid-May it announced that, unless it can find a big cash injection, it will close in July. The school has blamed years of rising costs—worsened by the Labour government’s decision to make private schools start paying full business rates and to levy value-added tax on their fees. Martyn Cook is among hundreds of parents now racing to find new schools for their children; having spent 20 years as an army officer, he has experience getting out of scrapes. “But when you have a problem and your kids are upset, emotionally it’s very hard.”