So the UK is finally “recognising Palestine”. Headlines scream “historic moment,” commentators wax lyrical about “a step towards peace” and politicians pat themselves on the back as if they’ve just solved colonialism with a press release.

But here’s the absurdity: Palestine is already a state. It has been for centuries. Over 75% of the UN’s 193 member countries already recognise it. The only reason we’re even having this ridiculous debate is because of the illegal creation of the Zionist state in 1948. Without that catastrophe, without Britain’s handover of Palestine to armed settler militias, “recognising Palestine” wouldn’t even be on the table.

And worse – this is nothing more than a smokescreen. Because as these words are typed, a genocide is still being carried out in Gaza with Britain’s fingerprints all over it. Recognition means nothing if Palestinian children are still being buried under rubble paid for by UK arms sales.

Recognition means nothing if the US still wields its veto at the UN, ensuring Israel’s impunity. Recognition means nothing when the very politicians who green lit war crimes are now rebranding themselves as peacemakers. How do willing partners in genocide suddenly get to play the role of the “good guys”?

Let’s not kid ourselves. A state is not a state unless it has control of its borders, its airspace, its water, its army. Will Palestine be given that? Or will this “statehood” come with Israeli checkpoints, drones in the skies and zionist occupation forces still dictating the terms of daily life?

A flag in the UN General Assembly is not liberation, it’s theatre. Palestine existed long before Israel, but what Britain is offering now is a paper state stripped of sovereignty – a parody of nationhood.

Predictably, the right-wing media is already spinning this recognition as Labour “capitulating to the Muslim vote.” The tired old Islamophobic smear: that Muslims are puppeteers pulling the strings of politics. Yet when Zionist settlers, lobbies and donors dictate Western policy in Israel’s favour, that’s just “democracy.” Spare us the hypocrisy.

Let’s also call out the ahistorical nonsense. The same voices bleating that “Hamas is being rewarded for terrorism” conveniently forget that Israel itself was born out of terrorism; the Irgun, the Stern Gang, the King David Hotel bombing, British soldiers lynched and hung by the Haganah. Our government knows this – it armed, tolerated and eventually rewarded those terror gangs by handing them a state carved out of someone else’s homeland.

To now stand here, 77 years later, and act as if Britain is “finally recognising” Palestine is not a favour. It’s an admission of guilt, dragged out by the sheer weight of Palestinian resistance and global solidarity.

Recognition alone doesn’t deliver justice. Justice means the right of return for millions of Palestinians in the diaspora. Justice means ending apartheid, ending occupation, dismantling the siege. Justice means acknowledging genocide, not just symbolic statehood.

So yes, we take this long overdue recognition but we don’t let it numb us. We say: thanks for the recognition – now recognise the genocide.

Thanks for the recognition – now stop arming Israel.

Thanks for the recognition – now boycott, divest, sanction the apartheid state.

Because liberation is not granted from Westminster or Washington. Liberation comes from the ground. It comes from the brave souls aboard the latest freedom flotilla, Samud, sailing to break the siege while governments look the other way.

It comes from students occupying campuses and demanding divestment.

It comes from dockworkers refusing to load weapons bound for Israel.

It comes from ordinary people who say “not in our name” and keep the pressure alive.

That is the real recognition of Palestine: not a hollow gesture in parliament, but the living, breathing solidarity of millions who refuse to be complicit.

This is not the end of the struggle. It’s just another reminder that power concedes nothing without pressure. The pressure must keep building until Palestine is not just “recognised” on paper, but free in reality.