Palestine is not seeking 2 trillion pounds in reparations from the UK, contrary to claims

On Sept. 21, 2025, the government of the United Kingdom recognized Palestine as a sovereign and independent state. The U.K. was one of a handful of countries to do so over several days as international frustration mounted with the civilian toll of Israel’s war in Gaza, which had leveled much of the territory and caused a humanitarian crisis of mass starvation.

Following the announcement, social media posts, including X posts with millions (archived) of views (archived) apiece, claimed Palestine was demanding 2 trillion pounds — about $2.7 trillion — in reparations from the U.K. following its recognition. This claim spread to other social media sites, including Instagram (archived).

The claim was false. While Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas did call for reparations from Britain, the United States and “everyone who had a role in the catastrophe and tragedy” of the Palestinian people in a September 2023 speech to the United Nations, he never attached a number to that call. As of this writing, Abbas had made no new reparation demands following the U.K.’s 2025 recognition of a Palestinian state.

In its announcement recognizing a Palestinian state, the British government wrote that the state should be led by a “reformed Palestinian Authority.” Abbas, the Palestinian Authority’s president, made an official statement in response to the U.K.’s decision to recognize a Palestinian state. That statement made no mention of reparations.

The claim appeared to stem from a news story and opinion piece that the Daily Mail, a British tabloid, published hours apart on Sept. 20, 2025. The headlines of both pieces claimed that the British government’s decision to recognize a Palestinian state “could” lead to the U.K. paying 2 trillion pounds in reparations. The text of both stories cited unnamed “legal experts.”

“Some international law experts have described £2 trillion, roughly the size of Britain’s total economy, as a ‘good place to start,'” wrote Gabriel Millard-Clothier, the Daily Mail reporter who wrote the news story.

Based on the reference to a “good place to start,” the figure appeared to be pulled from an October 2024 blog post written by Juan Cole, a professor of history at the University of Michigan, arguing for reparations from the British government to the Palestinian people. Cole wrote that the total value of Israeli real estate today was roughly $2.5 trillion. Because “the Palestinians owned virtually all the land” in the territory at the time the British government began administering the Mandate of Palestine in 1920, according to Cole, he said that “$2.5 trillion is a good place to start for British reparations to the Palestinians.”

As of late September 2025, $2.5 trillion was equivalent to around 1.85 trillion pounds, according to the currency converter Oanda.

Cole later wrote about the British government’s decision to recognize a Palestinian state and did not make mention of reparations in that blog post.

Abbas has made mention of reparations before, but without attaching a price tag to those calls. He made a single reference to reparations in a September 2023 speech to the United Nations. That mention came in the following paragraph:

For our part, we will persist with our pursuit of accountability and justice at the relevant international bodies against Israel because of the continued Israeli occupation of our land, and the crimes that have been committed and are still being committed against us, as well as against both Britain and America for their roles in the fateful Balfour Declaration, and against everyone who had a role in the catastrophe and tragedy of our people, calling for acknowledgment, apology, reparations and compensation in accordance with international law.

There are groups in both Palestine and the U.K. who have called upon the British government to give reparations to the Palestinian people, although without attaching a price tag, let alone demanding the government pay 2 trillion pounds. Reparations do not necessarily have to include direct financial compensation, according to Human Rights Watch.

In September 2023, Al-Haq, an independent Palestinian human-rights-focused nongovernmental organization, published a position paper calling for reparations from the British government to the Palestinian people. The paper did not make any demands as to what those reparations should be.

In September 2025, Britain Owes Palestine, a petition campaign based in London, demanded “an apology for Britain’s wrongdoing and the start of a process of accountability and reparation.” The full petition said reparations “include restitution, compensation and satisfaction, either singly, or in combination” and that “it remains possible to consider ‘any financially assessable damage.'” On its website, Britain Owes Palestine said it requests that the British government “Investigate in good faith what forms of accountability, reparation, satisfaction and investment in the Palestinian people and State of Palestine are appropriate in light of the wrongful acts and Britain’s acknowledged responsibility.”

The basis of demands for reparations to the Palestinian people was Britain’s administration of the Mandate for Palestine, which from 1922 to 1948 was the direct predecessor to the modern day state of Israel and Palestinian territories. The U.K. committed “multiple breaches of international law” and “reneged on its promises to support Arab independence” while administering Mandatory Palestine, according to Britain Owes Palestine.