ustration by Keera Ratnam / wavesofcolour
After 14 years of Conservative government, the British Labour Party has returned to power. In the days since assuming office, the newly elected Prime Minister Keir Starmer declared that Britain is “back on the international stage”, having held key meetings with NATO allies and European leaders. The prime minister has repeatedly pledged to rapidly enact the “work of change”. When it comes to British policy on Sri Lanka, that change is long overdue.
Leading up to the General Election, the issue of liberating the Tamil people from Sri Lanka’s oppression was hotly discussed. Senior Labour leaders made repeated assurances on the issue, having seemingly accepted several key demands. The current health secretary Wes Streeting told an audience of Tamils in parliament that “ensuring that you get the accountability that you deserve will form part of the key foreign policy priorities” as figures form the party lined up to reiterate pledges made.
Catherine West, the former shadow minister for Asia who has recently been appointed Parliamentary Under-Secretary in the foreign office, was clear what her government would do. It would seek to refer Sri Lanka to the International Criminal Court (ICC) and enact sanctions on Sri Lankan officials accused of war crimes - both issues that she told a hustings event, could be tackled “quickly”. Sanctions in particular seem to be a particularly simple manoeuvre, given how the US and Canada already undertook similar moves years ago. British Tamils will be hoping that the government now follows through on them.
“Unlike the current government, in the most ordered way we can, we will be putting international law at the heart of our foreign policy,” West added. Though her remarks were undoubtedly made in the heat of electioneering, there was an acknowledgement that for years, Britain has failed to take any meaningful action when it came to Sri Lanka’s genocide of Tamils and ongoing human rights abuses. Unlike the US and Canada, the UK has failed to impose sanctions on Sri Lankan officials accused of war crimes. Calls to take Sri Lanka to the ICC were rejected – contrary to the Labour position – even as Tamils resoundingly demanded an international accountability mechanism. Instead, years of ultimately toothless resolutions were passed at the UN Human Rights Council with no progress to show for any of them. To this day, Tamil women still line the streets of the North-East, holding photographs of their disappeared loved ones, demanding to know their fate. British policy failed them.
Furthermore, political faith in the Conservatives was tested by figures such as Liam Fox, who took multiple trips to Sri Lanka funded by the island’s government, as well as more recent visits by David Cameron – a man that once pledged to ensure war criminals would be held to account. Alongside plans to bolster bilateral relations with Sri Lanka, it seemed as if the Conservative Party placed fostering ties with Colombo above standing up for international law - a far cry from the principles its leaders claimed to espouse. With the Conservatives having lost over 250 seats, including in a number of constituencies with large numbers of Tamil constituents, it is worth questioning if this lack of progress drove many British Tamil Conservatives to step back from the ballot.
This is not to say that the same criticism cannot be levied at Labour. Indeed, it was under Gordon Brown’s administration that the final genocidal onslaught in Sri Lanka took place in 2009. British Tamil protests were met with heavy-handed policing and indifference from many senior party leaders. Even as the Sri Lankan military shelled hospitals, aid lines and ‘No Fire Zones’, the British government continued to arm them. Whilst Tony Blair had championed the idea of the Right to Protect (R2P), and demonstrated this by supporting NATO’s intervention in Kosovo, when it came to Tamils, the LTTE was banned, British Tamil activists arrested and weapons sent to Colombo.
The suffering that the Tamil people have and continue to endure has been even more widely recognised since. From the United Nations offices in Geneva to Starmer’s own cabinet, officials around the world are well versed on the history of persecution and the steps needed to alleviate it. There can be no excuse not to take them.
Starmer himself has commemorated the genocide and repeatedly spoken on the need for Sri Lanka to be taken to the ICC. In his first speech as prime minister, Starmer stood outside Downing Street and told the public, “When the gap between the sacrifices made by people and the service they receive from politicians grows this big, it leads to a weariness in the heart of a nation […] this wound, this lack of trust, can only be healed by actions, not words”. Sri Lanka will be a litmus test of the Labour party’s words. A legacy of hypocrisy and inaction has left a deep wound - one that can only be healed by actions, not words. British Tamils will be watching very closely.
