Wikipedia

Hamish Falconer

Hamish Nicholas Falconer (born 20 December 1985[1]) is a British Labour Party politician and former diplomat, who has served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Lincoln since 2024.[2] He has served as Minister for Intergovernmental Relations and European Relations since July 2026.

The Honourable
Hamish Falconer
MP
Official portrait, 2026
Minister for Intergovernmental Relations and European Relations
Incumbent
Assumed office
20 July 2026
Prime MinisterAndy Burnham
Preceded byDarren Jones
Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Middle East, North Africa, Afghanistan and Pakistan
In office
18 July 2024 – 20 July 2026
Prime MinisterKeir Starmer
Preceded byThe Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
Member of Parliament
for Lincoln
Incumbent
Assumed office
4 July 2024
Preceded byKarl McCartney
Majority8,793 (20.8%)
Personal details
BornHamish Nicholas Falconer
(1985-12-20) 20 December 1985 (age 40)
PartyLabour
Parents
Education
Websitehamishfalconer.co.uk

Early life

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The son of Charlie Falconer, Baron Falconer of Thoroton, who served as Lord Chancellor under Tony Blair, Falconer attended Westminster School and then St John's College, Cambridge, graduating in 2008 in Human, Social and Political Science,[3] before joining the diplomatic service.

Early career

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Falconer worked in the UK government's Department for International Development from 2009 to 2013, and then the Foreign and Commonwealth Office until 2022.[4] His diplomatic career centred on national security and humanitarian relief, including hostage recovery.[5][6] Whilst in the Foreign Office, he spent a year at Yale University as a "World Fellow".[7]

Since leaving the Foreign, Commonwealth, and Development Office, Falconer worked as an associate fellow at the IPPR,[5] and was a policy fellow at the think tank Labour Together alongside standing as a candidate for Parliament.[8][9]

Political career

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Shortly after being elected as MP for Lincoln in July 2024, Falconer was appointed as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Middle East, Afghanistan and Pakistan by Prime Minister Keir Starmer.[10]

Falconer voted in favour of means-testing the Winter Fuel Payment for pensioners, a policy which critics, including Human Rights Watch, argued at the time, would hurt vulnerable pensioners[11]. Falconer also voted for the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill, opponents including the Archbishop of Canterbury warned that legalised assisted dying in an underfunded health system could pressure patients into choosing death due to inadequate pain relief or social care[12].

Falconer at the United Nations Two-State Solution Conference, 2025

As Minister for the Middle East and North Africa, he was responsible for meeting with high-profile Egyptian-British political activist Alaa Abd El-Fattah. Falconer described the task of securing his release from prison as “at the top of my priority list, as well as that of the Foreign Secretary and the Prime Minister.”[13] He stated that he was “very glad” when El-Fattah subsequently arrived in the United Kingdom at the end of December 2025.[14] This proved to be controversial[15] after historical posts on X (formerly Twitter) by El-Fattah emerged including describing British people as “dogs and monkeys”[16] as well as apparently endorsing killing Zionists[17] and the police.[18]

He was accused by Shadow Foreign Secretary Dame Priti Patel, of deliberately misleading the House of Commons by claiming he was in the Middle East "pushing for peace" in March 2025, while being seen at Ronnie Scott's, a famous jazz club in London[19]. He was attending an event held by group SME4Labour, who confirmed, “The MP for Lincoln and Minister for the Middle East and North Africa, Hamish Falconer, joined the SME4Labour annual lunch, contributing to valuable discussions and fostering connections in support of SMEs.”

Falconer has been under investigation, in April 2025, for a breach of the Ministerial Code of Conduct for failing to register his share holdings in consultancy firm Upon a Hill Limited[20].

In July 2026, Falconer suggested Jeremy Corbyn's line of questioning was antisemitic, a comment Corbyn demanded be formally retracted in the House of Commons[21].

Falconer has faced intense parliamentary scrutiny for defending[22] the Starmer government's stance on Israel, including facing a record number of urgent questions and criticism for not labeling actions in Gaza as genocide[23]. Falconer argues the UK has not concluded that Israel acted with the specific intent required for genocide under the 1948 Convention[24]. Labour MP John McDonnell and organisations like the Palestine Solidarity Campaign accuse Falconcer of misleading the public and party members by citing a "risk" of genocide rather than the UN's unequivocal declartion of ongoing genocide[25].

In February 2026, his comment regarding a pause in the Chagos Islands handover[26] deal caused diplomatic confusion with the Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office having to state he had "misspoken" and that no pause had actually occurred.

In July 2026, Falconer refused to answer questions from a Declassified UK journalist[27] about the UK government's failure to stop British nationals fighting for the Israeli army in Gaza. This came after mounting pressure on the Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office to investigate thousands of British nationals who may have committed war crimes during what the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory has concluded in September 2025 is a genocide in Gaza[28][29][30][31].

References

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  1. ↑ "Hamish Nicholas FALCONER". GOV.UK.
  2. ↑ "Lincoln - General election results 2024". BBC News. Retrieved 5 July 2024.
  3. ↑ "SPS - Hamish Falconer | St John's College, University of Cambridge". www.joh.cam.ac.uk. Retrieved 4 July 2024.
  4. ↑ Rea, Ailbhe (29 June 2024). "Hamish Falconer: "We will be forming a government under much harder conditions than 1997"". New Statesman. Retrieved 4 July 2024.
  5. 1 2 "Hamish Falconer". IPPR. Retrieved 4 July 2024.
  6. ↑ "Former Cabinet Office, Treasury and DWP civil servants among today's election candidates". Civil Service World. 4 July 2024. Retrieved 4 July 2024.
  7. ↑ "Hamish Falconer – Maurice R. Greenberg World Fellows Program". Retrieved 4 July 2024.
  8. ↑ ""Greatest privilege of my life": Lincoln's Labour candidate named". The Lincolnite. 12 December 2022. Archived from the original on 12 December 2022. Retrieved 20 December 2022.
  9. ↑ ""National Securonomics": National Securonomics". LabourTogether. 18 December 2023. Retrieved 11 July 2024.
  10. ↑ "Ministerial Appointments: July 2024". GOV.UK. Retrieved 19 July 2024.
  11. ↑ Watch, Human Rights (16 January 2025). "World Report 2025 - United Kingdom". https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2025/country-chapters/united-kingdom. Retrieved 20 July 2026. {{cite web}}: External link in |website= (help)
  12. ↑ Ahmed, Hassan (2025-07). "When Choice Isn't a Choice: The Practical and Ethical Risks of the Terminally Ill Adults Bill of England and Wales". Cureus. 17 (7): e88413. doi:10.7759/cureus.88413. ISSN 2168-8184. PMC 12365854. PMID 40842791. {{cite journal}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)CS1 maint: article number as page number (link) CS1 maint: unflagged free DOI (link)
  13. ↑ "Alaa Abd el-Fattah - Hansard - UK Parliament". hansard.parliament.uk. Retrieved 27 December 2025.
  14. ↑ Hamish Falconer [@HFalconerMP] (26 December 2025). "I'm very glad to see Alaa Abd El-Fattah back in the UK" (Tweet) – via X (formerly Twitter).{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: deprecated archival service (link)
  15. ↑ Allegretti, Aubrey (28 December 2025). "Calls to strip citizenship of freed dissident hailed by PM". www.thetimes.com. Retrieved 29 December 2025.
  16. ↑ Turner, Camilla; Sawer, Patrick; Hymas, Charles (27 December 2025). "Starmer welcomes 'extremist' to Britain". www.telegraph.co.uk. Retrieved 29 December 2025.
  17. ↑ Yorke, Harry (27 December 2025). "Killing Zionists is OK, said released activist Alaa Abd El-Fattah". www.thetimes.com. Retrieved 29 December 2025.
  18. ↑ "Egyptian dissident should be deported from UK, say Tories". BBC News. 28 December 2025. Retrieved 29 December 2025.
  19. ↑ "Hamish Falconer: Labour Minister pictured on stage at glitzy London jazz club while claiming to be in Middle East 'pushing for Gaza peace deal'". www.gbnews.com. Retrieved 20 July 2026.
  20. ↑ Holl-Allen, Genevieve (22 April 2025). "Minister under investigation for late registration of interests". The Telegraph Newspaper.
  21. ↑ Skwawkbox (1 July 2026). "Corbyn demands smear retraction from Zionist minister Falconer". Canary. Retrieved 20 July 2026.
  22. ↑ Harding, Thomas. "Minister Falconer ends two-year struggle defending Labour's Israel policy". The National. Retrieved 20 July 2026.
  23. ↑ Bell-Cross, Lorin (12 January 2026). "Middle East minister defends government over claim it does not confront 'genocide' language on Israel". The Jewish Chronicle. Retrieved 20 July 2026.
  24. ↑ Bell-Cross, Lorin (12 January 2026). "Middle East minister defends government over claim it does not confront 'genocide' language on Israel". The Jewish Chronicle. Retrieved 20 July 2026.
  25. ↑ "UK Middle East minister appears to accept 'risk of genocide' in Gaza". Middle East Eye. Retrieved 20 July 2026.
  26. ↑ Quinn, Ben; correspondent, Ben Quinn Political (25 February 2026). "Moves to pave way for Chagos handover paused, minister tells MPs". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 20 July 2026. {{cite news}}: |last2= has generic name (help)
  27. ↑ "Declassified UK (@declassifiedUK) on X". X (formerly Twitter). 3 July 2026. Retrieved 20 July 2026.
  28. ↑ Director, Ingrid Burke Friedman | JURIST Editorial (16 September 2025). "Explainer: What the UN Genocide Finding Against Israel Means Under International Law". www.jurist.org. Retrieved 20 July 2026.
  29. ↑ "Israel has committed genocide in the Gaza Strip, UN Commission finds". OHCHR. Retrieved 20 July 2026.
  30. ↑ "Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory". Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect. Retrieved 20 July 2026.
  31. ↑ M.I. "Report: "Gaza Genocide: a collective crime" by the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967 (A/80/492)". Question of Palestine. Retrieved 20 July 2026.
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