Labour MP Tahir Ali has apologised “unreservedly” after asking in the Commons whether it was “about time that military action was taken against Israel”, and has been formally warned by the chief whip.
The exchange came on Monday in a debate on Israel and Palestine.
Liberal Democrat Richard Foord said Hamas’s “disarmament and disbandment” had to be part of any settlement.
Ali, who sits for Birmingham Hall Green and Moseley, cut in: should Britain not also demand Israel’s disarmament, “given the atrocities that have been committed”?
Previous governments, he said, had used force in the Middle East over human rights and trade routes.
“Is it not about time that military action was taken against Israel as well?”
Foord refused the comparison. Hamas, he noted, is a proscribed terrorist organisation; Israel is a state.
Ali also wanted the Israeli ambassador barred from the Commons, matching the Speaker’s response when China banned British MPs. He posted the clip, but later deleted it.
🚨 Labour MP calls for UK ‘military action’ against Israel
Tahir Ali, who represents Birmingham Hall Green and Moseley, used a parliamentary debate on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to call for “military action” to be taken against the Jewish state.
He intervened during a… pic.twitter.com/cEOZ9iwxso
— The Jewish Chronicle (@JewishChron) September 15, 2026
On Wednesday he wrote that he had “wrongly given the impression” he supported force against Israel.
“Those are not my views.” He does not, he added, support military action “anywhere in the Middle East” and has long campaigned for peace.
Labour called the original remarks “unacceptable”.
The chief whip issued a formal warning and reminded him of the standards expected of Labour MPs.
Conservatives mocked the climbdown.
Israeli Diaspora Affairs Minister Amichai Chikli, wrote on X that Ali “sounds more like a member of al-Qaeda than a member of the British Parliament,” adding that “remigration is the most appropriate solution.”
This was not Ali’s first such ask. Last July he pressed then foreign secretary David Lammy to “send military personnel to protect Palestinians from the genocide being committed by the IDF.”
He is a member of the Socialist Campaign Group.
In Parliament on Monday, I wrongly gave the impression that I support the use of military force against Israel.
Those are not my views, and I apologise unreservedly. I do not support military action anywhere in the Middle East and have long been a campaigner for peace and…
— Tahir Ali MP (@TahirAliMP) September 16, 2026
