An open letter to East Thanet MP Polly Billington has been signed by some (updated figure) 260 isle, cultural organisations, artists and community leaders, calling for decisive political action in response to the ongoing crisis in Gaza.
The signatories express “grave concern and profound despair” at the situation in Gaza, highlighting the devastating impact on civilians, including 50,000 children affected by recent events.
The letter draws attention to Israel’s enforcement of a communication blackout and the targeting of vital infrastructure.
The collective urges MP Billington to:
- Hold the UK government to account for its role and response to the crisis.
- Press the Prime Minister to demand an immediate and permanent ceasefire.
- Call for Israel to withdraw its occupation of Gaza.
- Ensure the unimpeded passage of humanitarian and medical aid to those in desperate need.
- Support a public inquiry into UK arms sales and military cooperation with Israel.
The letter is signed by groups and individuals, including Arts in Ramsgate, People Dem Collective, Arts Education Exchange, Everyday Racism, Margate Pride, artist Tracey Emin, Jordan Stephens, Amber Butchart, Robert Diament and Lindsey Mendick, and more.
Last month Foreign Secretary David Lammy made a statement about the escalation of the conflict since the ceasefire breakdown in March.
He outlined how the Israeli Defence Force had started a new, extensive ground operation throughout Gaza, Operation Gideon’s Chariot, with the aim of taking control of the Strip and letting only minimal amounts of food reach Gazans.
He criticised actions taken by both Israel and Hamas, saying: “The diplomatic deadlock between Israel and Hamas has sadly also hardened. Despite the efforts of the United States, Qatar and Egypt – which we of course support – no ceasefire has emerged.
“We repeat our demand that Hamas release all the hostages immediately and unconditionally and reiterate that they cannot continue to run Gaza.
“Netanyahu’s government is planning to drive Gazans from their homes into a corner of the Strip to the south and permit them a fraction of the aid that they need.”
He added: “Israel suffered a heinous attack on October 7th and the Government has always backed Israel’s right to defend itself. We have condemned Hamas and its abhorrent treatment of the hostages. And we have stood with families and demanded their loved ones be released.
“But the planned displacement of so many Gazans is morally unjustifiable, wholly disproportionate and utterly counter-productive. Whatever Israeli ministers claim, this is not the way to bring the hostages safely home.
“Nearly all the hostages have been freed through negotiations, not military force. And that is why hostage families themselves – and many other Israelis – oppose this plan so strongly.
“Nor will this plan eliminate Hamas or make Israel secure. This war has left a generation orphaned and traumatised, ready for Hamas to recruit. As we learned in Northern Ireland to defeat terrorists and their warped ideology you cannot just rely on military might. You have to offer a viable political alternative. Opposing the expansion of a war that’s killed thousands of children is not rewarding Hamas.”
Mr Lammy said the UK government has restored funding to UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees), supported the independence of international courts, suspended arms export licences, provided food and medical care to hundreds of thousands of Gazans and worked with Arab partners on a plan to ensure a reconstructed Gaza is no longer run by Hamas.
He added that since Israel restarted strikes on Gaza, the Government has demanded it change course.
MP Polly Billington joined 72 Labour MPs and Peers in May to sign a letter calling for the government to join France in recognising a Palestinian state later this year. She also spoke in Parliament to call for greater action from the government to bring an end to the war in Gaza, including by sanctioning Israeli ministers that have called for violence against Palestinian civilians, and by ruling out a trade deal with Israel.
In the current conflict, Israel launched a military campaign in Gaza in response to the Hamas-led cross-border attack on Israel on 7 October 2023.
Israel and Iran are now also trading strikes over Iran’s nuclear programme.
Ms Billington has been asked for a response to the open letter.
All that education and intellect squandered on a letter to a government of a country that is not an active party in either defence or attack and is utterly impotent in this
regard.
“Decisive” is something of which it is incapable. A singular unarguable fact. The people who write such letters are the political equivalent of the fictional character Violet Elizabeth Bott, from the “Just William” stories. Unable to get her own way, stamping her foot and threatening to, “… sqweem and sqweem and sqweem until I’m sick!” … You could have done something useful instead.🙄🤡
Why is it these people jump on the bandwagon and get all high and mighty. Artists,film stars,BONO,Chris Martin,roger waters,billy brag,Vanessa Redgrave ect.
Why don’t they all give up their monies and give it all away to help.no chance of that happening.
You never got all that from Freddie Garrity or Gerry Marsden! thy should stick to “entertaining” (as much as U2 and Coldplay were ever entertaining).
Peter “I’m telling you now ” you’re absolutely right !
I liked their giant gold lemons on the Zooropa Tour-wonder how many starving Ethiopian kids they could have fed by not having them & sending the money there instead though?
Well the UK is a vital party-because it backs Israel no matter what & says they have the right to defend itself-even when they are commiting war crimes, genocide & the ICC have issued an international arrest warrant against Netanyahu on charges of being a war criminal.
The UK produces & sells weapons that Israel uses on civilians in Gaza. It flies planes & drones & sends ships over to help prevent any actual self defence from countries Israel is attacking like Iran. It promotes Instro & other companies like it here in the UK & endorses them.
So no, the UK is not some helpless little entity-even though the government behaves like it is, just as the Tories did for 14 years & for decades before that. The UK government has always made a choice of money, apartheid & war crimes over decency.
🤣🤣🤣
All virtue signalling. Just like the authors of the letter.
There are 200 other nations that Israel could buy weapons from. It has a more technologically advanced weapons manufacturing industry than we do. Stopping exports or manufacturing by Israeli companies in this country would simply serve to increase unemployment here. Historically one of the Labour Party’s prime considerations.
As to the government. Whatever party. Utterly impotent. You obviously have little grasp of global military matters. Today, nukes aside, Israel, the Houthis, Iran and Saudi Arabia could all kick our butts in a conventional war. Probably Argentina too.
I’m in Romania atm. Polly and K.C.C. should all visit to discover how to not have potholes. A subject far closer to the hearts of her constituents than any Near East conflict anywhere.
Bang on Suspended, if Hamas is a terrorist organisation then Israel is a terrorist state, carrying out a war againt innocent children, babies, and civilians who cannot defend themselves. Tens of thousands of innocent Palestinains are being killed or severely injured by the Israeli government, who have turned off the electricity and water in Gaza, meaning even the toilets can’t be flushed.
How can killing babies, children, and innocent people be “Defending Israel’s borders?” No, the Israeli’s are trying to drive the Palestinan people out of Gaza, and the West Bank, which they are occupying illegally! Please donate to Medical Aid for Palesdtians over the phone on: 020 7226 4114.
export licences to Israel were suspended last September by the UK government. The US are still profiting from the sale of arms to Israel.
Other than enable talks which Qatar are doing and stating the bleeding obvious just what can an impotent country like the UK actually do?
Just so you know two RAF planes were damaged last night by so called palestinian activists costing the UK more money
Suspended, woke up over the weekend to see Trump has started World War 3! Apparently his speeches sound a lot better in the original German!
If 180 of us get together, will she look at local issues that she at least has some influence over – such as the closed Margate theatres, the non-working lifts in Cliftonville and Ramsgate, the crumbling Lido pool, the axed bus services and countless other things? After all, she is the MP for East Thanet in Kent, not the West Bank in Gaza.
She showed great concern for the Afghan women’s Cricket teams safety, but like the rest of Labour none for the UK grooming gang victims. The MP in Birmingham who had little interest in the bin strikes casuing rat infestations, but great concern about building an airport in Kashmir.
Does make you wonder why they are so arrogant they think they can treat the people they represent like garbage, while interjecting about what is happening on the other side of the world.
Checksfield once again you are trying to divert, and distract people away from the mass murder being carried out by the Israeli’s against the Palestinians trapped inside a concentration camp, the Gaza strip! Everyone throughout the world is protesting against the Israeli’s killing tens of thousands of children, babies, defenceless women, the elderly, and disabled because Palestinians are Arabs, and for the most Israeli’s are not! Everyone should rise up and protest against this horror the Israili’s are committing, because people have always done this against injustice!
I first started protesting against the Fascist Pinochet and his hidious killing and torturing of his own people in Chile in 1973! People in Britain protested against the American war in Vietnam, against the South African apartheid racists in South Africa. And aginst the British fascists known as the National Front, and before them in Brick Lane against the NAZI Oswald Mosley! It is our duty to protest against vile regimes who murder, imprison, torture, and worse their own defenceless people!
Thousands of people today owe their lives to the British people taking into their homes Jewish chldren who would have been murdered by the NAZI’s, why? Because they cared, and wanted to do something to try and stop this inhumanity, the same as Palestinian Action is trying to do. You should applaud them Checksfield!
It is a disgrace that our goverment is complicit in what is clearly a genocide.
Good luck with that one-every western government will back Israel no matter what they do-they have since 1948 thanks to Truman-who like the current clown incumbent of the White House went against the wishes of most of his administration.
Starmer is a member of Friends Of Israel-as are many other Labour MP’s & The Tories & Liberals also have their own versions. Half the Labour cabinet have accepted money from Pro Israel Lobby Groups, not to say the Tories are any better-in fact they dwarf Labour in that regard.
Once again with Polly it is likely for show-just as with the phony green virtue signalling while until last summer as a lobbyist working on behalf of massive polluters & her pandering to the Rainbow Flag wavers. When she was confronted by Thanet For Palestine-after leaving an art gallery (what a surprise) meeting about protests-without the group themselves, the Gauche caviar MP tried to avoid them by heading down a side alley, then arrogantly ignored them while holding her phone up filming them.
Are you serious – a group of scruff bags accosting the MP in public and shouting at her and she’s supposed to what… have a civilised discussion.
These people are utter pr1cks and should be treated with the disdain they deserve.
Israel are bang out of order.
Hamas were bang out of order.
There’s absolutely nothing the UK can do about it apart from call for restraint.
As for Polly – I’ve seen videos of her in Parliament calling for a ceasefire and for the IK to recognise the state of Palestine.
What more would these people like her to be doing?!
What about the opinions of the TOTAL POPULATION OF THANET (less the 180 signatories) who think the action is Gaza is a totally justified response to the surprise invasion of a sovereign country by barbaric, brutal religious terrorists who cut the throats of women and children, killing 1,200 civilians and took and killed nearly 300 hostages? Who is speaking fore the REAL victims of the 7th October invasion? Why aren’t we banning the Palestian flags used to incite yet more violence (some of it on the streets of the UK?
Alex Peters, are you trying to insult the intelligence of all the people of Thanet?
Do you seriously think that they have any respect for Israel’s barbaric government?
I strongly suspect that the vast majority have no strong opinion either way, and care far more about local and national issues. I for one am more concerned with the lack of public toilets between Margate and Broadstairs during winter months, and some overgrown footpaths in the Minster and Monkton area.
Peter, one day you will find all the toilets and libraries permanently closed because all public funds will have been diverted to the war machine. And nobody will be available to help or serve us because everyone of working age will be redeployed to the Middle East to support Trump’s missions. And when that time comes, these so-called overseas issues will become local issues after all.
We shouldn’t be involved at all.
Peter – well said. 200 or so of usual suspects getting excited hardly representative of majority. As for this MP, the less said the better.
Loved you in Emmerdale farm .you are my favourite actor!
Alex Peters -I cannot believe that most Thanet residents would , if asked,approve of the Israeli government’s genocidal attacks on Palestinians.
I cannot believe that most Thanet residents would , if asked,approve of her focussing on local issues instead.
Martha, I see you have your tin hat on, yet again.
Strange one Alex-it is all we have heard about since it happened, used as total justification for Netanyahu spending nearly 2 years now murdering over 50 thousand people, destroying hospitals, cutting off all power, denying food aid, then delaying it as long as possible, telling people to move to different areas & then attacking them as they do, more Jewish settlements, now shooting at people at aid centres-lying about it all, as they did about their attack on medics-until the phone of one of the murder victims proved them liars & then it was one of their phony investigations etc. None of this is about self defence, it never has been.
Strange also that the Israeli’s are hostages, but those being exchanged by Israel aren’t according to Israel & the west-seeing as many of them are children who were abductedby the Israeli government/forces & locked up without any charges, let alone a trial, along with adults-many for years & they were under strict orders not to be seen celebrating their release or else-as if most biased networks will even bother to show their release anyway.
I didn’t realise that the Palestinian flag was the Hamas flag Alex, or that the UK is able to just randomly ban flags-surely you wouldn’t want the UK to be become some dictatorship that starts banning books & other things like the US is under Trump? Would you like to go back to when Israel as a true apartheid state occupier in 1980 decreed that Palestinians couldnt paint anything using the four colours of the Palestinian flag-not lifted until 1993?
You’re not speaking for me, Mr Peters.
He speaks mostly for the government of Israel it seems. When he talks about an invasion he also seems to forget the Nakba.
Thank you for reminding us of the real issue here; the attempts by extremists to destroy the only democracy in the ME.
Here we go again,Polly bashing.From the start she has had nothing but complaints from you lot.You want to know why someone like her was trucked in? Because the local party are full of ex militant, Corbynites and good knows what other looney tune splinter groups, the areas full of them ,because it is nice to be beside the seaside.Deal might be Hackney on Sea or more like Notting Hill on sea, but Thanet is Camden on sea,and full of self righteous humbugs as here.
Peter you are right up to a point, but instead of fixing lifts, we need an end to food banks and HMO’s by tackling poverty.The lifts were last fixed up by money from the EU, but as many here banjaxed that arrangement, why not ask the Govt to take it out of the £650m weekly saving, which allegedly was promised by the leave side.
Starmer’s wife is Jewish, so you would expect that he has more sympathy for Israel, than many of us.
Let’s remember how this all started, Hamas and other affil;iates attacked Israel and did unspeakable things, but you would have to have a heart of stone not to be sympathetic towards the plight of people living in Gaza,Lebanon, and Iran.
Just what is the UK meant to do. When the Govt put sanctions on two of Israeli cabinet, back came Mencer and Netanyahu with allegations of antisemitism.
Why haven’t the yanks done anything, after all the US is supplying the munitions that Israel uses.We sell very few arms to Israel, but we buy kit from them, and that should stop.
Israel boasts that is a democracy, well if it is, it is making an excellent case for autocracies because I see very little difference At the moment their Govt is a coalition between the Israeli version of Reform, and a party led by the Israeli version of Tommy Robinson.So you can see where that might lead.
Much of Thanet is more Deptford-on-Sea!
Nope-she like most Labour candidates last year dropped in because she is or was a lobbyist, won’t rock the boat, is happy to lie to her constituents & then go back on her word just a week later in parliament, likes the ‘freebies’ from giant corporations who never expect anything in return for their ‘gifts’ of money, expensive clothing, free booze & lunches, freesports tickets in vip boxes, free concert tickets in her & many others including Starmer & Reeves cases etc.
Say what you want for Corbyn & I thought he would be a disaster as PM-though nothing like Bozo, Liz The Lettuce & Starmer have been, but he took one freebie-a Glastonbury ticket which he used to encourage people to vote. Because unlike Starmer & the other all sizzle, not steak, freeloading, showpony ponces in Labour he is substance & not all about image. Just like the orange faced, garish gold obsessed megalomaniac that Starmer keeps sucking up to in the US.
Israel also sell themselves as ‘the most moral army’
Labour bot in full action again. George the snowflake.
Its worth remembering George, Donald J (for Judas) Trump has a daughter who converted to Judaesim, and is married to a praticing Jew, and their children, Trumps grandchildren, are Jewish! Just read Trump stopped unanounced inspections of nuclear faclities in Iran, that were producing re-processed uranium for civil reactors, because it was introduced by Barak Obama when he was President!
Consequently, as these re-processing plants were no longer being inspected, by international inspectors, the Iranians turned up the re-processing from civil use to re-processing weapons grade uranium! This means the present war by Israel against Iran was the fault of Trump the Moron, you coudn’t make it up!
Margate Pride! They’d have their heads chopped off if they went to Gaza. Although they would wait until the war is over so they could squeeze as much out of their bleeding hearts first. Prime example of lunacy.
Is that the Margate Pride event that in 2023 had a male stripping down to his female underwear to a sexual song called Pony & then simulating fellating a stick in front of a bunch of small children-with adults cheering on, one assumes their parents as well? Is that normal, rational or acceptable behaviour? Apparently it is in the clown world we now reside in.
That sounds hilarious.
Most certainly inappropriate but given the event neither am i outraged.
Did you actually witness this yourself?
When I was 13 or 14, my dad used to take me to a pub to see strippers. Real ones, not the gender benders of today.
Can remember the Daily/Sunday Sport Roadshow being here-at the Winter Gardens I think in the 1990’s.
No fear-it made some news at the time. Of course the organisers just ignored it, as did the police-Stonewall write their policy, they paint rainbows on their cars & their chief constables force them to attend these events & dance etc-not that a lot of them take any convincing. The individual concerned & the organisers had in fact breached terms of holding the event by allowing it-but the police did nothing.
I’m from Thanet and I can tell you I am against this utterly inhumane slaughter in Gaza and beyond. Nothing in my mind will ever justify the murder and death inflicted on Israel either.
It is always the innocent folk that carry the brunt and blame.
The one thing that I am absolutely certain of is that my words and feelings are worthless, they mean nothing carry no power.
Human race eh!
The Israel argument is you cannot think both are horrific-you have to accept the October 7th attacks as such, but everything they have done to inflict over 25 times the human death toll & the total destruction & ethnic cleansing of Gaza since then is just self defence.
You have to buy into that if there is a possibility that one Hamas fighter is somewhere, then it is justifiable to kill 150 civilians with drone strikes etc just to get him.
As we have seen recently when the UK sanctioned the two lunatic members of Netanyahu’s Genocide cabinet that as soon as anything doesn’t go 100% their way the countries doing it go from great allies to antisemtics, just how Trump behaves to people in his own party who don’t agree with him 100%.
No wonder he & Netanyah get on so well-a pair of spoiled brats throwing their toys out of the pram in childish tantrums as soon as somebody says no, needing constant affirmation of how wonderful they think they are & two people with zero respect for human life, or any law or constitution-unless it suits their purposes of course.
Well said Suspended.
Deal with the local issues, international events are for others.
I notice that there is nothing in these demands for Hamas terrorists to release the hostages that they still hold. Typical, one-sided anti-Israel bigotry.
There is in the quote from the Foreign Secretary
I’m not disputing that – Lammy has tried to be even handed, and I give him credit for that. However, in the 5 bullet points under the heading “The collective urges MP Billington to:” there is no mention of the wickedness of Hamas, or the atrocity of 7/10.
And why do the Israeli government, the media & people like you keep using it to justify the genocide & other war crimes Israel has done since then? Yes, we all agree the events of October 7th were a horrendous war crime.
But how is Israel murdering over 50,000 civilians, cutting off aid & power to them, delaying aid to kill as many as possible, now shooting at them at aid centres, shooting dead medics & a UN employee on purpose-as proved by the phone of one of the victims & then lying about it, destroying hospitals while pretending Hamas are hiding there & putting weapons behind magnetic scanning machines-yeah that would work well doing a scan to justify it, the increasing ethnic cleansing etc?
Why do you cheer on & hero worship somebody with an ICC arrest warrant out on him for war crimes & genocide? Nobody making the Palestinian case is cheerleading for Hamas, or what happened in October 2023, so why are you cheering Netanyahu on after nearly 2 years of this?
Israel did not “murder” 50,000 civilians – they were being used as human shields by Hamas terrorists. As far as aid is concerned, the aid has been hijacked by Hamas and so Israel has had to look at other ways of getting aid in without the biased UNRWA getting involved. The ICC is biased against Israel and is a cesspool of anti-semitic bigotry (as is the UN). Israel has to win every war it fights, or it is finished; no doubt, people of your ilk would be pleased to see the end of the Jewish state.
David Lammy deserves no credit whatsoever. It has taken him over a year to even recognise the bloodshed that his mates have caused. Millions of decent citizens have been marching through our cities to raise awareness and yet Lammy doesn’t even have the sense to quit Labour Friends of Israel
You claim that millions of “decent citizens” have been marching. My answer is simple – decent citizens don’t chant that awful statement about “river to the sea”. This is a clear case of incitement, yet plod looks the other way while nicking people who denounce Hamas. I’ve witnessed these low lifes in Canterbury, typical rent a mob yobboes who go from one protest to another.
No mention of the Palestinian hostages being held in Israel either Bob. You are correct though, the national media bias is stageering-the pro Israel bias.
As of April 2025 there are 9,900 Palestinians in Israeli jails, 400 of them are children, 3,498 of them are held without any charge.