{"id":239896,"date":"2026-08-07T13:39:09","date_gmt":"2026-08-07T13:39:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/239896\/"},"modified":"2026-08-07T13:39:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-07T13:39:09","slug":"exclusive-burnham-gave-government-job-to-mp-who-accused-israel-of-deliberately-exterminating-gazans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/239896\/","title":{"rendered":"Exclusive: Burnham gave government job to MP who accused Israel of \u2018deliberately exterminating\u2019 Gazans"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

On July 27, Burnham\u00a0appointed three SCG MPs, Olivia Blake, Mary Kelly Foy and Witherden, with all being given the role of PPS to different ministers.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The role of a PPS, which is often considered a stepping stone to more senior government jobs, is to act as an assistant to a minister and to be their \u201ceyes and ears\u201d in the House of Commons, according to the House of Commons Library.<\/p>\n

Before being elected, Witherden became a teacher in 2005 and spent almost two decades in the profession. He joined the NASUWT<\/a> teachers\u2019 union in the same year and began serving as a trade union representative for his school in 2009. He later became the negotiating secretary for NASUWT Wrexham Association.<\/p>\n

However, he has long\u00a0been a vocal critic of Israel, writing several articles on the topic accusing the Jewish State of genocide.<\/p>\n

In one,\u00a0he argued\u00a0that the Gaza War amounted to\u00a0\u201cthe deliberate extermination of the people of Gaza: missile by missile, bullet by bullet, calorie by calorie\u201d.<\/p>\n

He pointed\u00a0to a UN commission of inquiry<\/a> which, he said, declared that \u201cthere are reasonable grounds to term Israel\u2019s war against the Palestinian people a genocide\u201d.<\/p>\n

Pro-Israel group UN Watch said of the same report that it is \u201cfatally deficient: its reasoning is deeply flawed, its evidentiary base unreliable, and its methodology unsound\u201d.<\/p>\n

A second piece from Witherden, titled UK complicit in mass murder\u00a0claimed that \u201cat least 50,000 Gazans lay dead (a conservative estimate), most of them women and children\u201d and\u00a0that \u201cthe entire population is being forcibly starved to death.\u201d He further asserted that this constituted a \u201cgenocidal campaign\u201d.<\/p>\n

Another\u00a0piece, originally a speech delivered in the House of Commons in June 2025, was republished under the title Gaza has become a slaughterhouse.<\/p>\n

In it, he argued that \u201cwe cannot condemn atrocity while simultaneously fuelling the machinery that enables it”.<\/p>\n

Alex Hearn, Co-Director of Labour Against Antisemitism, told the JC:\u00a0\u201cAcross three public statements, Witherden repeatedly stated as a verified fact things that were not [including]\u00a0an unproven \u201cgenocide\u201d as established truth…\u00a0and a famine claim later reclassified and disputed.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a sitting PPS bound by collective responsibility, he cannot credibly serve as a minister\u2019s \u2018eyes and ears\u2019 in the Commons while having built a public record explicitly calling his own government \u2018complicit in mass murder\u2019\u00a0and demanding it reverse a live arms-export policy.<\/p>\n

“Given his pattern of overstatement, which appears to be based on his own political opinion rather than fact, and his open defiance of government policy, his appointment looks untenable.\u201d<\/p>\n

A Labour Party spokesperson said:\u00a0\u201cLabour has been clear that we want to see a lasting peace in Gaza and the wider region, with Israelis and Palestinians able to live in peace and security.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe government is working with international partners to support a viable two-state solution, including through recognising the State of Palestine, providing humanitarian assistance to Gaza, and taking action to reduce suffering.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe progress being made towards peace recently has been positive, but that progress is also fragile. The whole Labour government is united in wanting to bring about that lasting peace Israelis and Palestinians deserve.\u201d<\/p>\n

The JC contacted Witherden for comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On July 27, Burnham\u00a0appointed three SCG MPs, Olivia Blake, Mary Kelly Foy and Witherden, with all being given…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":239897,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[33],"tags":[46517,37,3994],"class_list":["post-239896","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-andy-burnham","tag-israel","tag-labour-party"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/117054509608845805","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239896","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=239896"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239896\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/239897"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=239896"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=239896"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=239896"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}