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Britain will recognise Palestinian statehood in September, Sir Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister, announced, ‘unless the Israeli government takes substantive steps to end the appalling situation in Gaza, reaches a ceasefire, makes clear there will be no annexation in the West Bank, and commits to a long-term peace process that delivers a two-state solution’. He had convened a cabinet meeting to discuss Gaza, although parliament was in recess, a few days after a meeting by telephone with Germany and France. President Emmanuel Macron had said that France would recognise a Palestinian state in September. Some 255 MPs, 147 of them Labour, had signed a letter to Sir Keir calling for the recognition. Jeremy Corbyn launched a party without a name; the name of the sign-up website was Your Party, but Zarah Sultana, also an independent MP, said on X: ‘It’s not called Your Party!’
Sir Keir had presented President Donald Trump of America with a peace plan for Gaza when he came to visit his golf courses in Scotland. ‘You’ve got to stop this horrible invasion that is happening to Europe,’ he said. At his Turnberry course he met Ursula von der Leyen, the President of the European Commission, who agreed to 15 per cent tariffs on EU goods entering America; the euro fell. Mr Trump mentioned that wind power ‘is a con job’ and ‘ruins the landscape’. During a meeting at Chequers with Narendra Modi, the Indian Prime Minister, Sir Keir signed a trade agreement announced in May, making it easier for India to export gems and frozen prawns to Britain and for Britain to export whisky and biscuits.
Resident doctors – the new name for junior doctors – belonging to the British Medical Association union went on strike for five days. A man in Tamworth with kidney cancer said: ‘Resident doctors do not care that delaying operations like mine is very likely a death sentence.’ British vehicle manufacturing declined by 11.9 per cent for the first six months of the year compared with the first six months of last year. After Nigel Farage said that the Online Safety Act was a threat to free speech, Peter Kyle, the Science Secretary, accused him of being on the same side as ‘people like Jimmy Savile’. Two former City traders, Tom Hayes and Carlo Palombo, had their convictions for manipulating Libor and Euribor interest rates quashed by the Supreme Court. The number of migrants arriving in England in small boats in the seven days to 28 July was 855. Tommy Robinson left the country after an incident at St Pancras station. Charles Brett, the countertenor, died aged 83. Amelia Freedman, who founded the Nash Ensemble in 1964, died aged 84. Dame Cleo Laine, the jazz singer, died aged 97. England won the women’s European Championships, beating Spain on penalties.
Abroad
Israel announced daily ten-hour tactical pauses in military activity to allow food distribution, with designated secure routes in place from 6 a.m. to 11 p.m. for UN and charity deliveries to avert mass starvation. Israeli and US negotiators left Gaza ceasefire talks in Doha, Qatar; America accused Hamas of not ‘acting in good faith’. Mr Macron and his wife Brigitte filed a defamation lawsuit in Delaware against an American commentator, Candace Owens, for ‘outlandish, defamatory and far-fetched fictions’; she claims that Mrs Macron was born male. After drug violence, Nîmes joined Béziers and Limoges in imposing curfews on children. Tom Lehrer, the US satirical singer-songwriter, died aged 97.
Russia continued to attack Ukraine with hundreds of drones and missiles. Donald Trump said he would reduce an earlier 50-day deadline to end the war to ‘about ten or 12 days’, saying of President Vladimir Putin: ‘I thought he’d want to end this thing quickly, but every time I think it’s going to end, he kills people.’ Thailand attacked Cambodia with F-16 fighter jets and 40,000 people were evacuated from border villages; after five days, the two countries began a ceasefire.
Two million people were evacuated in Japan after an earthquake in Pacific Russia set off a tsunami. Four people, one a policeman, were shot dead in Park Avenue, New York, by a gunman who also shot himself dead. At least 35 worshippers at the Blessed Anuarite Nengapeta Catholic church in the town of Komanda in the Democratic Republic of Congo were killed by men of the Allied Democratic Forces, which is affiliated to Isis. The President of Nigeria promised the women’s national football team, victorious in the Women’s Africa Cup of Nations, a bounty worth £75,000 each. CSH
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