2024-07-08 15:51:10
David Lammy, Britain’s new foreign secretary, has promised to “reset” relations with the European Union, push for a ceasefire in Gaza and build ties with Donald Trump’s Republican Party.
“The challenge now is to sustain diplomacy to support an immediate ceasefire and move towards the release of the hostages,” Lammy told British broadcasters in his first comments since becoming the country’s top diplomat hours ago.
The UK’s Labour Party won a landslide victory in the July 4 election. However, in several constituencies, Labour lost to independent candidates, including former party leader Jeremy Corbyn.
Time reported that the war in Gaza was to blame. Although the ongoing war barely featured in the overall Labour election campaign, it became a key issue in a number of traditionally Labour-friendly constituencies, where independent candidates made support for the Palestinians a central feature of their campaigns. In the end, five succeeded in unseating their Labour rivals, some of whom were tipped to become ministers in the next government.
In a speech early on Friday, Corbyn attributed his victory in part to his stance on Gaza, saying his voters were “looking for a government that will pursue peace, not war, on the world stage and will not allow the appalling conditions that are happening in Gaza.”
Jeremy Corbyn, the former Labour leader who was expelled from the party after appearing to have shied away from responsibility for handling allegations of anti-Semitism within the party, stood and was re-elected as an independent in his Islington North seat, which he has held since 1983.
Earlier, Cursor wrote that Corbyn spoke in favor of recognizing a Palestinian state.