Prime Minister Andy Burnham appointed a left-wing Labour MP who previously accused Israel of enacting the “deliberate extermination of the people of Gaza” to a government job, the JC can reveal.
Steve Witherden, who has served as the MP for Montgomeryshire and Glyndŵr since the last general election, was appointed as parliamentary private secretary (PPS) to the new energy secretary, Miatta Fahnbulleh.
He was one of a number of appointments to similar roles drawn from the party’s far-left Socialist Campaign Group (SCG) faction, whose members include Diane Abbott, John McDonnell and Richard Burgon.
Past SCG members have also included former party leader Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana.
On July 27, Burnham appointed three SCG MPs, Olivia Blake, Mary Kelly Foy and Witherden, with all being given the role of PPS to different ministers.
The role of a PPS, which is often considered a stepping stone to more senior government jobs, is to act as an assistant to a minister and to be their “eyes and ears” in the House of Commons, according to the House of Commons Library.
Before being elected, Witherden became a teacher in 2005 and spent almost two decades in the profession. He joined the NASUWT teachers’ union in the same year and began serving as a trade union representative for his school in 2009. He later became the negotiating secretary for NASUWT Wrexham Association.
However, he has long been a vocal critic of Israel, writing several articles on the topic accusing the Jewish State of genocide.
In one, he argued that the Gaza War amounted to “the deliberate extermination of the people of Gaza: missile by missile, bullet by bullet, calorie by calorie”.
He pointed to a UN commission of inquiry which, he said, declared that “there are reasonable grounds to term Israel’s war against the Palestinian people a genocide”.
Pro-Israel group UN Watch said of the same report that it is “fatally deficient: its reasoning is deeply flawed, its evidentiary base unreliable, and its methodology unsound”.
A second piece from Witherden, titled UK complicit in mass murder claimed that “at least 50,000 Gazans lay dead (a conservative estimate), most of them women and children” and that “the entire population is being forcibly starved to death.” He further asserted that this constituted a “genocidal campaign”.
Another piece, originally a speech delivered in the House of Commons in June 2025, was republished under the title Gaza has become a slaughterhouse.
In it, he argued that “we cannot condemn atrocity while simultaneously fuelling the machinery that enables it".
Alex Hearn, Co-Director of Labour Against Antisemitism, told the JC: “Across three public statements, Witherden repeatedly stated as a verified fact things that were not [including] an unproven “genocide” as established truth... and a famine claim later reclassified and disputed.
“As a sitting PPS bound by collective responsibility, he cannot credibly serve as a minister’s ‘eyes and ears’ in the Commons while having built a public record explicitly calling his own government ‘complicit in mass murder’ and demanding it reverse a live arms-export policy.
"Given his pattern of overstatement, which appears to be based on his own political opinion rather than fact, and his open defiance of government policy, his appointment looks untenable.”
A Labour Party spokesperson said: “Labour has been clear that we want to see a lasting peace in Gaza and the wider region, with Israelis and Palestinians able to live in peace and security.
“The government is working with international partners to support a viable two-state solution, including through recognising the State of Palestine, providing humanitarian assistance to Gaza, and taking action to reduce suffering.
“The progress being made towards peace recently has been positive, but that progress is also fragile. The whole Labour government is united in wanting to bring about that lasting peace Israelis and Palestinians deserve.”
The JC contacted Witherden for comment.
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