Jeremy Corbyn, the former Labour Party leader who now sits in the UK parliament as an independent, has called for an independent public inquiry into the UK’s “military, economic, or political cooperation with Israel since October 2023.”
The bill, co-sponsored by 40 MPs from Labour, the Greens, the SNP, Plaid Cymru, and independents, demands an investigation into the UK’s complicity in “crimes against humanity.” Human rights organizations could hardly be more unanimous in their assessment that Israel is carrying out war crimes of a genocidal nature.
“Israel has not been committing war crimes against the Palestinian people by itself,” Corbyn said. “Britain has played a highly influential role in Israel’s military operations.”
To be sure, Corbyn is right: The UK, along with other European countries and the United States, are complicit in Israel’s genocide against Gaza and escalating violence and annexation of the West Bank. But the fact that he was addressing a woefully empty House of Commons tells you everything you need to know about the importance of public inquiries for the establishment. If such investigations had the power to change anything, they’d be banned under anti-terrorism laws.
A Damp Squib Dressed as Justice
In the UK, public inquiries are independent investigations established by government ministers to scrutinize matters of “public concern” surrounding specific events or policies. They rarely lead to criminal prosecutions or direct political consequences. In fact, only between 20–50 percent of recommendations are typically implemented in full, according to a 2021 study by the Institute for Government.
The Bloody Sunday Inquiry, also known as the Saville Inquiry, investigated the events of January 30, 1972, when British soldiers shot 26 unarmed civilians during a peaceful civil rights march in Derry in the North of Ireland. Despite marking a historic acknowledgment of the crimes by British forces, the consequences for those responsible were sparse. Then-Prime Minister David Cameron offered a formal apology in 2010 and a single soldier, known as “Soldier F,” was charged with two murders and five attempted murders in 2019. The case was then dropped in 2021.
More recently, the Grenfell Tower Inquiry found that the deaths of the 72 people during the Grenfell fire were “wholly avoidable.” It revealed systematic dishonesty by manufacturers and exposed decades of regulatory failure that allowed dangerous materials to be used in high‑rise buildings. While all of the report’s 58 recommendations were accepted by the government, there have been no arrests and survivors of the fire say they’re still waiting for justice.
During his speech to the Commons, Cobryn drew a parallel to the Chilcot Inquiry which focused on decisions made by Prime Minister Tony Blair in the lead-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq. “In the aftermath of the Iraq War,” he said, “several attempts were made to establish an inquiry surrounding the conduct of British military operations. The government of the day spent many years resisting those attempts. However, they could not prevent the inevitable.” The report found serious failings in intelligence and questioned the legal basis for the war. No legal proceedings, however, were initiated against Blair.
One thing public inquiries can achieve, however, is to keep an issue in the spotlight and to shred political reputations permanently. Tony Blair may well not have spent a night in prison for his role in the Iraq War and the deaths of 150,000 people, but that’s all he’ll be remembered for.
Yet public enquiries are expensive, can take years to report, require ministerial approval, and reflect state structures.
Where to Go After Peaceful Protest?
Law-abiding protest has so far failed to stop Israel. In the face of a state-sanctioned genocide, how should we resist? It’s simple: Dismantle the war machine. This might sound like abstract revolutionary rhetoric, but it’s actually extremely pragmatic.
In 2003, anti-war activists broke into RAF Fairford to stop U.S. bombers heading to Iraq. A human rights barrister at the time, Keir Starmer defended the Fairford Five’s actions and said they were justified to prevent war crimes. Now his government has banned the group Palestine Action under anti-terrorism laws for doing the exact same thing. Starmer did this using legislation that Blair’s government — the creme de la creme of war crime enablers — pushed through.
The ban on Palestine Action is because they’re effective. One of their primary targets is Elbit Systems, a multinational arms company that manufactures Israeli weaponry in Britain. Through sustained direct action, Palestine Action has forced Elbit to shut down weapons factories, pushed the company to abandon its London headquarters and cost it a lucrative contract with the UK Ministry of Defence.
The Freedom Flotilla with Greta Thunberg and 11 other activists on board may have been intercepted, but it started something bigger. The Global March to Gaza saw people from over 50 countries attempt to march to Gaza to open the crossing at Rafah and break through the blockade. On June 20, a coalition of Malaysian civil society organisations announced their intention to launch a “Thousand Ship Flotilla” to the Gaza Strip.
Dockworkers across Europe are refusing to load weapons for Israel, building on a decades-long tradition of working-class anti-militarism and anti-imperialism, including coordinated actions to block weapons to Saudi Arabia being used against the Yemeni people in 2019. In France, they refused to load arms components bound for Israel at the country’s largest port in Marseille, forcing the ship to leave without its cargo. Similar actions have taken place in Barcelona, Athens and Genoa. It’s not just dockworkers either; around 1,000 people in Belgium blockaded two companies linked to Israel’s arms trade on Monday.
Workers keep the world running — and also have the power to stop the war machine that is slaughtering Palestinians. To use that power, we need organization. And a public inquiry won’t get us there.