This government prefers to arm a state that jails opponents, crushes unions and shelters Hamas rather than stand with a democratic ally fighting genocidal terrorists
October 28, 2025 11:24
Barely a month after he stood before the House of Commons announcing the suspension of free trade talks with Israel in May, the then foreign secretary, David Lammy, flew to Ankara.
His messaging in Turkey couldn’t have been more different. After breathing fire and brimstone about Israel’s allegedly “egregious”, “morally unjustifiable” and “intolerable” actions, he soothingly proclaimed that the UK and Turkey “remain the closest of friends and partners”. Turkey, Lammy declared as he warmly shook President Erdoğan’s hand, was “a key NATO ally and strategic partner”.
Yesterday, it was Sir Keir Starmer himself who shook hands with Erdoğan in Ankara, signing an £8 billion deal to sell 20 Eurofighter Typhoon jets to Ankara, coming only a few months after the Prime Minister had imposed a partial arms embargo against Israel.
When Labour came to power last July, the Jewish state was named a priority for a trade deal alongside Turkey, Switzerland, South Korea, India and the Gulf Cooperation Council. But, even before they were suspended just under a year later, talks with Jerusalem were put in the deep freeze.
By contrast, progress with Ankara has been rapid: a first round of talks commenced in June, a second was held in September and further talks are planned for late autumn. When compared to its brow-beating of Israel, Labour’s approach towards Turkey smacks of rank hypocrisy and double-standards.
Erdoğan’s record on democracy and the rule of law is, to coin a phrase, truly “egregious”. In its 2025 report, Freedom House rates Turkey as “not free”, giving it a score of 33/100. Israel, by contrast, receives a “free” rating, with a score of 73.
Turkey’s democracy, at which Erdoğan has steadily but relentlessly chipped away during his 22-year-role, is now in a parlous state. Earlier this year, Istanbul mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu, who is the opposition CHP party’s candidate for the 2028 presidential election, was locked up and suspended from office facing trumped-up charges of corruption and aiding a terrorist group. His detention was part of waves of arrests of opposition members and politicians.
Imagine the government’s confected fury had Benjamin Netanyahu decided to jail Yair Lapid or Yair Golan. But, despite Labour being a social democratic sister party of the CHP, the UK response to the arrest was one of deafening silence – a point which didn’t go unnoticed by the Turkish opposition. As Denis MacShane, a former Labour Minister for Europe under Blair, suggested, the party’s silence “is not just disappointing. It is bewildering.”
Equally astounding, particularly for a Labour government, is how Turkey’s atrocious employment conditions don’t seem to bother Downing Street. The International Trade Union Confederation listed Turkey among the “10 worst countries for workers” in 2025, alongside Belarus, Myanmar and Egypt, noting that Turkish authorities and employers “continue to suppress union rights and persecute activists”. A joint statement between the TUC and two Turkish trade union confederations, DISK and KESK, in 2021 attacked the “repressive policies and practices” implemented against trade unions. On environmental protection too Turkey’s record – it places last among 19 Eastern European nations – lags far behind that of Israel.
All the while, of course, Labour continued lauding its “close working relationship” with Turkey, praising the two countries’ joint commitment to a two-state solution, and commending Turkey’s cooperation on regional security.
No mention here of Erdoğan’s – how shall we put it? – “morally unjustifiable” support for Hamas. Unlike the jailed İmamoğlu, the Turkish president has steadfastly refused to condemn Hamas, instead declaring just two weeks after the October 7 pogrom: “Hamas is not a terrorist organisation … [but rather] a liberation group … waging a battle to protect its lands and people”.
On his watch, Turkey has provided steadfast support to Hamas, as well as a base from which its leaders and operatives have plotted terror attacks and its sympathisers raised cash. None of this should be a surprise: Hamas and Erdoğan are both a chip off the same Muslim Brotherhood block.
As its approach to China demonstrates, the government is willing to swallow its moral scruples and overlook quite a lot in its pursuit of trade deals and economic growth. And, with a population of 85.5 million and a trading relationship already worth around £28bn, Turkey looks a better bet than Israel – but only on paper.
These raw numbers ignore the fact that Israel’s economy is, by far, freer and more dynamic. Turkey’s GDP per capita is less than one-third that of Israel. In the Index of Economic Freedom, Israel ranks at 30 out of 184 countries, while Turkey languishes at 111. And the Global Innovation Index places Israel 14th in the world, just behind Germany, Japan and France, while Turkey is ranked at 43, in between Greece and Vietnam. Israel ranks sixth in the world for knowledge and technology outputs (Turkey ranks 48th) and first for R&D expenditure as a proportion of national income at 6.02% (Turkey’s spend is 1.32%).
The government’s decision to sanction, castigate and berate a supposed ally while it fought genocidal terrorists – even refusing to sell Israel arms as Hamas’ paymasters in Tehran launched unprecedented direct attacks – was bad enough.
But to do so at the very time it cow-tows to Erdoğan is, to lift another phrase from Labour’s cannon of denunciations of Israel, “an affront to the values of the British people”.
Robert Philpot is a writer and journalist and served as a special adviser in the last Labour government
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