UK Ministers Ignored MI6 Warnings Over Israel Sanctions, Report Reveals

British Prime Minister Andy Burnham and Foreign Secretary David Miliband ignored warnings from security and intelligence agencies, including MI6, when they decided to impose sanctions on Israel, according to a report by the conservative magazine The Spectator. The report reveals that British Ambassador to Israel Simon Walters and National Security Advisor Jonathan Powell recommended against taking action ahead of Israel's October 27 elections, fearing the Israeli right would exploit the move to rally support for the government.

Miliband received similar warnings from Israel. When he called Foreign Minister Gideon Sa'ar on August 11 to update him on the impending sanctions, Sa'ar urged him to wait. "He said to postpone it until after the elections," a diplomatic source said. The Israeli Embassy in London, headed by the new Chargé d'Affaires Chris Cantor, also pressed the Foreign Office not to rush. "Their message was sharp: Why now? Wait until after the elections, maybe something will change," a senior Labour source recounted.

According to the report, Ambassador Walters—who previously served as the Foreign Office's Middle East security chief—issued a "very explicit" warning against haste. Powell shared this view, described by The Spectator as the most influential foreign policy figure in Keir Starmer's government, though his recommendation was bypassed in the Burnham administration's first major foreign policy move.

Any Intervention Helps Netanyahu

Walters and Powell assessed that Netanyahu was struggling in the polls and vulnerable, and that any British intervention before election day would be used by the Israeli right to mobilize support. Three separate sources confirmed this assessment. "Ed wants to get rid of Netanyahu, Smotrich, and Ben Gvir," a senior security source said. "He was explicitly told that if he does this, the chances of that happening will decrease."

Miliband announced a series of sanctions in the House of Commons last week, including a ban on trade in goods and certain services originating from settlements in the West Bank. Israel responded that same evening: Sa'ar branded Miliband's statements "scandalous lies," announced the closure of the British Consulate in Jerusalem, and barred 12 Britons from entering Israel, mostly parliamentarians, including former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn.

According to The Spectator, the decision did indeed aid Netanyahu, as the sanctions competed for headlines with reports that UAE President Mohamed bin Zayed had warned Netanyahu about the October 7 attack—a claim Netanyahu denies. "Netanyahu took some heavy blows," a senior security source remarked. "And then Miliband makes his move, and the next day all the headlines say: The villainous Britons, I'm with Netanyahu, stand with Israel, give him a break."

London officials explained that waiting for the Israeli elections was impossible because tenders for building 1,200 housing units in E1 were closing on October 19.

However, The Spectator notes that many in Westminster view this as a pretext, arguing that the decisive factor was the desire to appease Labour backbenchers and win back voters from the Greens ahead of a parliamentary by-election in London. "From my conversations with officials, it is clear that most in the Foreign Office see this as political theater that benefits no one," said Shadow Foreign Secretary Tom Tugendhat.

Strain on MI6 Intelligence Sharing

Intelligence agency MI6 also cautioned against the move. While it did not explicitly tell Burnham "do not do this," it made clear that the sanctions risked jeopardizing intelligence cooperation with Israel.

"MI6 personnel are tearing their hair out," said an influential Labour figure close to the security services. "They presented warnings regarding the consequences." According to the source, Sa'ar only agreed to take Miliband's call after the request was relayed from MI6 through the Mossad. The magazine noted that Netanyahu typically refuses to speak with British politicians.

Sources told The Spectator that while the Mossad will continue to pass immediate warnings about terror plots to Britain, those familiar with the intelligence relationship believe vital flows of information will be lost. "If there is a real and immediate threat, they update us," an intelligence source said. "But they won't feed us information on an ongoing basis," as seen within the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing framework between the UK, US, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. "Everything is conditional, and everything is a transaction."

Israeli intelligence cannot be easily replaced through Britain's Gulf allies. "The Israelis are light-years ahead of all Arab intelligence services," the intelligence source stated. Furthermore, the decision reportedly harmed relations with Gulf states that rely on Israeli intelligence funneled through MI6. "They come to us because they know we have good relations with Israel and that they are essentially getting Israeli output," a security source said. "They cannot get it directly, but they want it, they need it."

Gulf nations have been baffled by the British move. "They look at us and ask: What the hell are you doing fighting with them?" the security source added. A Labour source recently in talks with senior officials in Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE noted: "None of them think we gained influence. They simply think we are becoming irrelevant. The Saudis and Qatarists are scaling back their investments in Britain."

The marginalization of Powell has alarmed insiders in London, as he is considered a sought-after advisor by Middle Eastern leaders. "They value Jonathan, and now he has become a marginal figure in the government," the senior Labour source said. "He understands what is good for Britain in the long term, and this decision was made entirely for domestic politics."

The White House Doesn't Care

Some within Labour have taken comfort in the White House's muted reaction to the sanctions, viewing it as a positive sign ahead of Burnham's meeting with Donald Trump. Yet those who recently visited Washington paint a different picture: not agreement, but further proof that Britain is no longer considered relevant. "I spoke with administration officials, and they have no appreciation for the British government," a source returning from Washington said. "They simply do not care."

Miliband himself addressed the warnings in a UK podcast interview. "There were those who told us ahead of the announcement: Don't do it now, it will only help Netanyahu, wait. We thought about it a lot, and I'm not buying it," he stated. He argued that critics exaggerated Britain's influence on Israeli elections, claiming the announcement "wasn't the main news item that day, it was somewhere in the middle of the news."

Miliband denied that the timing was intended to sway the elections, and when asked if he wanted the Netanyahu government to fall, replied: "Who the Israeli public elects is up to them." He added: "We cannot transfer our political and moral responsibility to the opposition in Israel."

What drove Miliband's persistence? Miliband, who identifies as an "atheist Jew," was the first Jewish leader of the Labour Party. His father fled to London in 1940, and his mother survived the Holocaust in Poland while hidden by a Catholic family. He has relatives in Israel. During a 2014 visit, he expressed "profound gratitude to Israel for what it did for my grandmother," who found refuge there after the Holocaust, though he already criticized settlement expansion at the time.

In Parliament, Miliband framed the decision against his family history, invoking his mother, who passed away in late May. "She lost her father and 60 relatives in concentration camps, and dedicated 20 years of her life to the plight of the Palestinians," he said. "When I pondered what to say in my statement and how far to go, I thought a lot about what she would say. And she would say: Look at what is happening to the Palestinians, to these poor people. This is wrong, and you must say so."

According to security officials cited by the magazine, Miliband is also less inclined to listen to intelligence professionals. "He was never a huge fan of the intelligence services," said a source who served in the secret service during the government of Gordon Brown, where Ed Miliband and his brother David served. "He was the exact opposite of his brother. He was known to be suspicious of intelligence agencies."

According to The Spectator, senior Foreign Office officials also agreed with the ambassador that the time was not right to act. The magazine reports a generational rift within both the Foreign Office and MI6 between veterans who think in terms of national interest and a younger generation of officials and officers driven by ideology.

"There is a generational war inside the Foreign Office between those who care about Britain's national interest and the activists," the senior Labour source said. According to another intelligence source, MI6 culture is also shifting to accommodate zealous young officers.

The Spectator concludes that even if the policy is popular domestically, Burnham and Miliband should have prioritized national security, which the magazine argues must come above all else—especially when the move may have inadvertently boosted Netanyahu's reelection prospects. "This is not a profession for those who want to emerge completely unstained," a former minister remarked. "It is a profession for those who want to defend Britain."