It’s easy to dismiss Keir Starmer’s move towards recognising Palestinian statehood as “virtue signalling” designed to appease angry backbenchers, says The Economist. But even if you take the PM’s intervention at face value – that his sole aim is to stop the fighting in Gaza and preserve the idea of a two-state solution – this looks like a disastrous misstep. The theory is that if Benjamin Netanyahu sees he is losing the support of even long-term allies – France and Canada have also pledged formal recognition in September – he will stop the atrocities in Gaza. But he and his ministers know that yielding to European demands today will only lead to more tomorrow. And if Israel has already paid the (“albeit small”) price of recognition, they may well conclude they have nothing to lose by becoming “more extreme”.

It’s not just its leverage over Israel that Britain is losing. In the short term, the failure to set any condition for Hamas – releasing hostages, ending the war – will incentivise the terror group to block a ceasefire until it has “pocketed” its prize. In the long term, if talks about a two-state solution do ever resume then we’ll no longer have the carrot of recognition to extract concessions from the Palestinians. Then there’s America. The sad truth for Britain is that the most influence it has over Israel is indirect, through Donald Trump – the US president is the only leader who can press Netanyahu into a ceasefire. Yet by moving to recognise a Palestinian state – a shift Trump has openly and repeatedly opposed – Britain has “lost influence with him, too”. This is a “self-defeating policy that fails on its own terms”.

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