Britain's settlement trade ban is cosmetic. For it to work, it must sanction Israel Submitted by Jonathan Cook on Thu, 09/10/2026 - 19:06 The UK may end up assisting Tel Aviv by reinforcing a preposterous distinction between 'illegal' Jewish settlements and a supposedly 'law-abiding' Israel British Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband is pictured with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio prior to a meeting in Washington, on 5 August 2026 (Win McNamee/Getty Images/AFP) On Ed Miliband, Britain’s foreign secretary, this week announced plans for a ban on trade and services with Israel ’s illegal Jewish settlements, in a move the government has hyped as a “comprehensive reset” of relations with Israel. The UK was joined by 11 other western states unveiling or proposing similar sanctions: Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Iceland, Ireland, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Spain and Sweden. They presumably hope it will look like they are amassing strength through numbers, upping the pressure on Israel to end the occupation and clear the way for Palestinian statehood. More realistically, each is hoping it will prove harder for the Trump administration and Israel to single them out as a target in the inevitable backlash against these all-too-modest measures. In quick retaliation, Israel took the unprecedented step of shuttering the British consulate in East Jerusalem - that is, in territory it occupies in violation of international law . But the idea that these sanctions will amount to a “reset” for UK-Israeli relations looks more like wishful thinking. Shortly before Miliband’s announcement, Bloomberg reported that British diplomats had been privately reassuring Washington that the trade ban on settlements was “largely symbolic”. According to Alex Wickham , the news agency’s UK political editor, the government’s measures would “have no material impact on the UK’s wider relationship with Israel on trade or security”. The UK’s trade with Israel’s Jewish settlements is a tiny fraction of its £6 billion ($8bn) overall trade with Israel.