April 5 (Reuters) - Israel has detained two British members of parliament and refused entry to the officials who were visiting as part of a parliamentary delegation, British Foreign Minister David Lammy said in a statement late on Saturday.
Sky News, citing a statement from the Israeli immigration ministry, says that the detained parliamentarians are Labour MPs Yuan Yang and Abtisam Mohamed, who were rejected because they were suspected of plans to “document the activities of security forces and spread anti-Israel hatred.”
“I have made clear to my counterparts in the Israeli government that this is no way to treat British Parliamentarians, and we have been in contact with both MPs tonight to offer our support,” Lammy said.
Uh… what? They’re literally Members of Parliament.
You fell for another redirect, this is a known tactic from the IDF on socials. They derail arguments by focusing on minutia and semantics to keep people from noticing that the neo nazis just arrested two members of government of one of their biggest allies because they considered they were going to document the ongoing genocide.
I don’t think this person is a Zionist. They’re too… human, for lack of a better word. Or maybe I’m biased because their aside was interesting and not effective if it was intended as a derailment tactic.
Follow to the end of the thread, you walked out thinking someone just understood what you meant and probably with a sense of closed matter rather than boiling because some neo nazi government just arrested two UK MPs.
It was highly effective.
They don’t need to win an argument, they just need to make you think about something else.
Oh I wasn’t boiling either way; I’m happy. To quote myself: Good job Israel, looking forward to more self-owns in the future.
Starmer won’t do much if anything about it. They’ve already sent the sternly-worded email. If anything he’s relieved that there’s a distraction from one of his MPs being arrested for child rape yesterday.
I’m not expecting strong backlash from the government don’t get me wrong, but it’s another Bad Thing when the British government is likely to be reevaluating its relationship with America and therefore Israel.
From the Canadian prospective: Starmer is one of the worst PM’s I’ve ever seen in my life. They are labour in name only. So many excuses for genocide, so much ass kissing to Trump. That guy fuckin sucks man.
Cameron? May? Johnson? Fucking Truss?
He is disappointing on the Middle East, but it’s literally his job to get the best deal for the UK regarding US trade. If that means tickling a fragile ego, sure why not, an easy win. If it’s proper labour you want, he’d have to denounce every US president since FDR as a fascist abomination.
Tony Blair is certainly the worst, I forgot him.
It’s funny in Europe you still have people thinking he will respect agreements with you when they don’t respect you at all. If they destroyed NAFTA on a whim they’ll rip up whatever agreement they make with Europe as they gear up their rhetoric against greenland.
Great to know we got another Chamberlain across the pond though.
Jackbooted stormtrooper of a neo-fascist apartheid ethnostate, or person fed up with yanks mislabelling British politicians because they think everyone runs things like they do. Who can tell? It’s a fine line.
Or maybe you just don’t know what the words “government official” mean
Not the same thing. MPs are classed as frontbench and backbench. The Prime Minister can employ up to 140 MPs and Lords as ministers. This is the government, and forms the frontbench of the governing party. Non-government MPs of the governing party are backbenchers.
Both these MPs are backbenchers. They hold no office in the government, have little more influence on policy than any other member of the Labour Party.
There are strict separations between government and Parliament, a principle known as dual sovereignty. In some areas Parliament is sovereign, and in others (such as treaties, wars, most foreign policy) the King is sovereign, delegating his power to the Cabinet. So parliamentary powers are not government powers.
I don’t understand the point you are trying to make. They are government officials. Members of parliament. Your distinction between front and back benchers is accurate but off topic.
MPs are either government officials or backbenchers. These were the latter. It was the difference between the Foreign Secretary sending a stern message and the RAF fuelling the jets.
You seem to be confused. The phrase ‘government official’ refers to anyone acting on behalf of the government, including backbenchers. This could even include unelected aides, spokespeople or some civil servants.
You’re thinking of the cabinet. You do not have to be in the cabinet to be a ‘government official’.
As a fellow brit, these Americans correcting you are right.
Parliament has a handy guide to the difference.
That is a very specific usage: ‘The Government’ as a proposer of law, Parliament as approvers. Outside of a PPE course it isn’t how the term is used and I think you know this.
In day to day use the government (small g) can be talked about as comprising anyone involved in governance, from the PM down to local councillors, depending on context
Calling people out on this based on a technicality is like correcting people when they say ‘speed’ instead of ‘velocity’, and it’s super irrelevant in a thread about MPs acting in a political capacity
That’s where I’m confused. Maybe it’s a language/cultural difference, but I consider all elected members of parliament government officials regardless of the importance of their role compared to cabinet ministers.
Under the Westminster system, Parliament is a separate entity to the Government, even though members of the government are nearly always members of the parliament. It goes back to the English Civil War and what’s run by Kings and what’s run by the electorate.
I was using government in the broad sense (under which a Congressman would be a US government official) but fair enough.
Yeah, the US system doesn’t really have the government as Westminster does, it has appointed cabinet and agency officials instead.
If these were government ministers instead of backbenchers on a private trip it would be taken a lot further than a “please don’t” message from the foreign secretary.
It’s still a hell of a telling statement though.
Small correction (???): According to the article they were visiting as part of a parliamentarian delegation. Now I have no idea what that is, but it doesn’t sound like a private trip. Is it a private trip?
Not sure actually. One of the MPs is on the Foreign Affairs Committee, but the other is on no committees so it would be odd. But yeah, MPs can gang together on “fact-finding trips” without it being official business.
So a “parliamentarian delegation” isn’t official government business?
We don’t need Israel’s acknowledgement or approval to label the WGs of the UK government. If there should have been coordination with their government on the constraints of their visit, that’s another matter. It doesn’t make the delegation any less a part of government business by their own definition.
In the Westminster System, Parliament and Government are not the same thing.
The UK government has already released a statement saying that they expect Israel to host delegations like this. Ergo, they have indicated that it is their business. Actions are more indicative of the situation than wordplay.
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