Britain’s New Axis of Exclusion
Borders sanctified, Solidarity Criminalised, Politics of Exclusion
The Union Jack, the Star of David, and a placard screaming “Stop the Boats.” Three symbols that should have nothing in common. Yet on 21 September 2025, they were synchronised. Britain formally recognised the State of Palestine alongside Canada and Australia, just ahead of the UN General Assembly’s 80th session. By 2025, over 140 UN member states had already recognised Palestine, though most Western powers had held back, insisting recognition should follow negotiations. Britain’s decision marked a rupture with its own orthodoxy, aligning London with the global majority rather than the veto doctrine. Starmer framed it as an effort to keep a two-state outcome alive, not as a reward for Hamas, with recognition anchored in the 1967 borders and an upgrade of Palestine’s London mission to embassy status. The Israeli government erupted. So did Britain’s right. Their synchronised outrage revealed the contours of what has become a new Axis of Exclusion.
This Axis did not appear overnight. It is the product of years of political conditioning where slogans morphed into identities. “Get Brexit Done” was never only about Brussels; it became the shorthand for sovereignty as exclusion, borders as sanctity, and control as walls. Reform UK thrives on this afterlife, turning Brexit grievance into permanent siege politics. From Dover to Gaza, the script is consistent: sovereignty for us, veto for them. Israel’s far right operates with the same principle; Netanyahu, Smotrich, and Ben-Gvir insist on absolute sovereignty for Israel and a permanent veto for Palestinians. The fury that greeted Britain’s recognition was not debate but a defensive reflex, the scream of an ecosystem built on veto.
The gatekeepers of this system are well known. Friends of Israel networks, Conservative, Labour, and Lib Dem, anchor Parliament to donor circuits that enforce silence. Around four in five Tory MPs are linked to CFI, and ministers have been regularly flown to Tel Aviv on sponsored trips. Any deviation, even a whisper about settlements, has been punished. These networks ensure debate remains tightly policed, even as the global consensus moved elsewhere: Sweden, Ireland, Spain, and France had already recognised Palestine in one form, while the Global South settled the matter decades ago. Britain’s decision threatened the order these lobbies guard, explaining the instant backlash. In parallel, evangelical outfits like Christians United for Israel UK sanctify this politics, invoking biblical title deeds and casting state sovereignty as a divine mandate. In their worldview, recognition of Palestine is not policy but heresy, and Westminster MPs echo this in debate, framing unconditional support for Israel as a Christian duty.
The messaging machinery is relentless. The slogans are recycled and context-irrelevant. “Stop the Boats.” “Rewarding Terror.” “Appeasement.” Reform UK figures like Tice, Farage, and Rupert Lowe collapse Dover and Gaza into one battlefield, insisting that refugees are invaders and that recognition rewards terrorism. GB News, TalkTV, and the tabloids feed this script daily, framing solidarity as extremism. On social media, it spreads at scale: hashtags trend within hours, Telegram channels share memes equating migrants with militants, TikTok clips of Farage or Badenoch garner hundreds of thousands of views, and GB News reels circulate on Instagram. By 2025, studies showed that far-right posts across Europe routinely outperformed mainstream coverage, with leaders such as Orbán, Wilders, and Meloni receiving millions of impressions within hours. Algorithms are designed to reward outrage, and outrage has become the metronome of politics.
This is not confined to Britain. Trump fused the Muslim ban with the move of the US embassy to Jerusalem, setting the template for linking domestic exclusion with foreign policy. Orbán in Hungary speaks of “Judeo-Christian civilisation” while blocking EU criticism of Israel, his speeches translated and shared across conservative networks. Wilders praises Israel as the model of ethno-border sovereignty, his lines trending across Telegram and Twitter, crossing into mainstream Dutch debate. Meloni folds Gaza and migrant boats into one “civilisational siege,” amplified daily on Italian talk shows and coordinated Facebook campaigns. These are not isolated cases; they are part of a larger network. Recognition in London exposed how synchronised the system already was, primed across media and social platforms long before the announcement.
The defensive reflexes are predictable. Annexation threats are floated from Jerusalem to make recognition appear naïve. Westminster prepares new lawfare: anti-BDS bills, restrictions on protest, pressure on departments not to treat Palestine as a normal state. Narrative flooding links every asylum claim to Hamas, every expression of solidarity to extremism, every criticism of Israeli policy to antisemitism. This last shield is critical. Let’s be clear: this is not about Jews, Judaism, or Jewish safety. It is about Zionism as a political state project and its fusion with Brexit nationalism, Reform populism, and Christian fascism. The conflation of critique with antisemitism is deliberate, designed to blur categories and intimidate dissent. Genuine antisemitism is real and must always be opposed, but weaponising the charge to silence scrutiny of state power serves neither justice nor Jewish safety.
What makes this Axis so dangerous is not only the institutions or the lobbies but the way ordinary people have been galvanised into accepting ethically and morally repugnant views. Polling shows that majorities in Britain support tougher border measures, with 57% backing deportations in a 2024 YouGov survey, even when asylum claims are valid. Among Conservative voters, the figure was over 80%. In parallel, around 50% of Britons told Ipsos in 2025 that they opposed recognition of Palestine, even though their government had acted in line with international law and consensus. The fusion of Brexit grievance, refugee panic, religious nationalism, and donor discipline has built an environment where exclusion is normalised and solidarity criminalised. This is not politics as usual; it is a moral corrosion creeping into the mainstream.
Britain’s recognition did not redraw the map. Washington still holds the UN veto. But recognition shifted the tempo. It placed new diplomatic weight on Israel’s most hardline cabinet at the moment it least wanted scrutiny, and it normalised recognition among nervous allies. France has already followed; Spain and Ireland had taken the step earlier. More than 140 UN member states had long since recognised Palestine. Britain was not leading but catching up, and in doing so, it cracked the Axis’s monopoly. That is why the reaction was so feral: because the veto doctrine lost its monopoly.
Strip away the slogans, and the wiring diagram is clear. Brexit’s fortress instinct. Reform’s siege politics. Israel’s veto doctrine. Friends of Israel donor discipline. Evangelical prophecy. Tabloid panic. Algorithmic amplification. One axis, many faces. And this is just the unfortunate beginning. It will not be my last word on it.