How Britain Recognises Graves and Rubble As A State

In September, the United Kingdom plans to formally recognise the state of Palestine—an act being framed as a moral intervention in response to the “catastrophic” conditions in Gaza. Prime Minister Keir Starmer, under pressure from both domestic critics and international allies, has recalled his cabinet from summer recess to approve a so-called roadmap for peace. The announcement is being celebrated by many as a long-overdue stand for Palestinian rights.

But Britain’s move is not about justice. It is about power. It is not about supporting the self-determination of a people, but rather reaffirming the imperial right to decide who gets to be a people in the first place. What is being offered is not solidarity—it is salvage. And Britain is not coming to rebuild. It is coming to name the ruins.

This is not a break from British history; it is a continuation of it.

Partition as a Pattern

The story of British recognition is never simply about recognising what exists—it is about imposing names on what Britain has helped to destroy. Palestine in 2025 joins a long line of nations “born” under British supervision, often after death, displacement, and division.

Take Pakistan. In 1947, Britain exited India not with justice but with haste, carving borders through blood. The result: the largest mass migration in human history, over a million dead, and two states—India and Pakistan—violently formed in Britain’s wake. The name “Pakistan” was not a mark of indigenous unity but of imperial rupture. It was a border Britain drew, a wound it named, and a conflict it left to fester.

This is the colonial blueprint: displace people, dismantle indigenous structures, divide territories into manageable units—and then give the fragments new names, as if that act alone constitutes statehood or peace. Recognition, in such cases, becomes a headline crafted not to heal wounds but to clean the conscience of the empire that caused them.

Palestine: Made Stateless by Empire

Nowhere has this logic been more sustained or more devastating than in Palestine. The British Empire’s betrayal of the Palestinian people is not ancient history—it is the foundation of the modern crisis. Under the British Mandate, Palestinians were governed not toward freedom but toward fragmentation. Britain promised the same land to two peoples, nurtured Zionist settler-colonialism, and crushed Palestinian resistance with brute force.

The Nakba—where over 750,000 Palestinians were expelled in 1948—was not an unfortunate consequence of war. It was the logical outcome of British policy. It was Britain that facilitated the conditions for ethnic cleansing and then walked away, hands washed, as Israel declared itself a state on the wreckage.

For nearly a century, Palestinians have been paying the price of British imperial design. And now, after Gaza has been reduced to rubble, after tens of thousands have been killed, after nearly the entire population has been displaced—now Britain offers “recognition.”

But what, exactly, is being recognised? The people, or their erasure? Their sovereignty, or Britain’s strategic remorse? Again, we are presented with a headline designed to clean Britain’s conscience, not restore Palestinian sovereignty.

Recognition After Annihilation

There is no meaningful liberation in being “recognised” by the very power that helped render you unrecognisable. A Palestinian state declared under British terms, after British-enabled devastation, is not self-determination. It is branding. It is the colonial habit of naming the ashes.

We have seen this move before. South Sudan was born after decades of war—largely fought with arms supplied or sanctioned by the West. Bangladesh emerged from the ruins of Pakistani oppression, itself a post-colonial construct. Even the artificial state of Jordan, a British-invented monarchy, was created to absorb the fallout of imperial bargains made in Palestine and beyond.

In each case, Britain recognises not the will of a people, but the usefulness of a border. These are not acts of moral courage. They are strategic calculations—when to draw lines, when to hand over keys, when to tidy up the mess just enough to retain influence. And each time, a statement of “recognition” offers a neat headline for the world’s front pages—one designed to absolve, not to answer.

What Self-Determination Really Means

True recognition must come from the people themselves—from their history, their resistance, their aspirations—not from the architects of their suffering. A Palestinian state declared in London or Washington, subject to the vetoes of Tel Aviv or conditioned by ceasefires that reward occupation, is not liberation. It is containment.

Recognition is only meaningful if it is preceded by repair. It must come with the return of land, the right of return for refugees, the dismantling of the occupation, and the full acknowledgement of past and ongoing crimes. Without these, “recognising Palestine” is little more than a rhetorical act—a headline designed to clean Britain’s conscience, not restore Palestinian sovereignty.

The Empire Never Left

Keir Starmer’s announcement should not be mistaken for progress. It is a carefully timed gesture from a nation that never stopped thinking it could decide the fate of others. Britain is not recognising a state—it is renaming a graveyard.

True recognition will never come from the same forces that imposed dispossession. Palestine will not be liberated through diplomatic performances in London or symbolic votes in parliament. It will be recognised only when the occupation ends, when colonialism is ejected from the region, and when the Palestinian people can breathe, build, and return—unfettered by foreign rule or settler violence.

Until then, what Britain offers is not recognition—it is recolonisation by other means. And until the world understands that the colonial knife is still in the wound, we will keep mistaking symbolic bandages for healing. Britain’s conscience may be temporarily comforted, but Palestine will remain under rubble—its sovereignty still unrecognised, its suffering still unresolved.