Why is the UK Recognising a Palestinian State Now?
Newscast
BBC
4.4 • 6.4K Ratings
🗓️ 21 September 2025
⏱️ 34 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Today, we look at what Sir Keir Starmer’s promise to recognise a Palestinian state means. Laura and Paddy are joined by political correspondent Joe Pike to discuss the arguments for and against the move.
And we discuss the Liberal Democrat’s party conference, and whether Ed Davey’s stunts are playing well with voters and members.
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New episodes released every day. If you're in the UK, for more News and Current Affairs podcasts from the BBC, listen on BBC Sounds: https://bbc.in/4guXgXd Newscast brings you daily analysis of the latest political news stories from the BBC. It was presented by Laura Kuenssberg and Paddy O’Connell. It was made by Chris Flynn and Grace Reeve. The social producer was Joe Wilkinson. The technical producer was Jack Graysmark. The weekend series producer is Chris Flynn. The assistant editor is Chris Gray. The senior news editor is Sam Bonham.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, music, radio podcasts. |
| 0:07.5 | American politics can sometimes feel like a different language. |
| 0:11.1 | But our podcast can help you translate. |
| 0:13.3 | Make sense of what's happening in the US, |
| 0:15.3 | with new podcast episodes arriving throughout the week. |
| 0:18.1 | AmeriCast, listen on BBC Sounds. |
| 0:21.2 | Sundays talk shows, radio shows and newspaper journalism are summarised in one word today, I think. |
| 0:29.8 | Recognition. |
| 0:30.9 | Yes. |
| 0:31.4 | We are recording at course 2-11 and we think at some point this afternoon the Prime Minister will formalise what everybody knows is coming, |
| 0:37.9 | that the UK will, for the first time, formally recognise Palestine as a state. |
| 0:45.6 | And indeed, we think, therefore, the government will call it Palestine, |
| 0:49.1 | rather than talking about the Palestinian authorities and all sorts of other things. |
| 0:52.1 | But this is a controversial move in many, many ways. And we'll get into that on this Sunday's edition of Newscast. Newscast from |
| 1:00.7 | the BBC. Fat boy sliver me in the classroom doing our violin lessons. I was the tattle tail |
| 1:05.3 | in the class. Can I have an apology, please? I trust almost nobody. That daddy has to sometimes |
| 1:10.1 | do strong language. Next time in Moscow. I feel delulu with no salulu. Take me down to Downey Street. Let's go have a tour. Blimey. Hello, it's Paddy in the studio. And Laura in the studio. And Joe Pike, also in the studio. Hello, Joe. We like having you here on Sundays. It's very nice to see you. |
| 1:27.5 | Nice to be here. |
| 1:28.7 | So. |
| 1:29.4 | The flagging up of this was done a couple of months ago when the Prime Minister said we will recognise the state of Palestine unless Israel does the following. |
| 1:41.0 | And it was widely said at the time, Israel was never going to do the following. |
| 1:43.6 | So we were going to get here anyway. And we've got here today. The UK will, later today, recognise the data pastime. And this is interesting and significant for all sorts of reasons. First off, because this has been a decades-old hope of many people in the Labour Party. So there's a domestic political element to this. Second of all, there's a big question about what impact, if any, and could it be a negative impact to that it might have on the ground in Gaza with that terrible conflict raging? |
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