The announcement on Tuesday by the foreign secretary, Ed Miliband, of an import ban on goods from illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories, as well as a comprehensive sanctions regime, is a hard-won victory for the Palestine solidarity movement.

This is not simply a change of heart by the government: it is a direct result of sustained pressure from activists and organisers across the Palestine movement, who have consistently held the government’s feet to the fire over its complicity in the atrocities being committed in Gaza and the West Bank. Miliband’s announcement shows us what organised and persistent campaigning can achieve, and inspires confidence that movements can force political change.

Over the past three years, Palestine has become a political and electoral challenge for the Labour party, as well as a fundamental issue of public conscience. This move signals a political reset in the UK government’s foreign policy approach to Israel. But as the UN special rapporteur Francesca Albanese has said, a ban on goods from settlements must be part of a “true paradigm shift”; the government can, and must, go further.

There has already been sustained backlash at the move, with the US........

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