Even the most beleaguered prime minister can try to escape domestic troubles by making a grand and historic gesture.

Sir Keir Starmer will do exactly that on Sunday when Britain is expected to recognise Palestine as a state during a “high level international conference” at the United Nations General Assembly.

Diplomats in the UN chamber in New York, drawn mostly from the non-Western countries of the “Global South”, are used to greeting British speeches with studied and frosty indifference.

This time the bearer of the UK’s announcement will bask in rare acclaim. More than a century after Britain issued the Balfour Declaration in 1917, promising a “national home for the Jewish people” and paving the way for the birth of Israel, the UN audience will rejoice in the symbolism of a British emissary coming before them like a penitent sinner to close the ring of history and recognise Palestine.

The delegates will be particularly delighted when Britain officially re-emphasises its devotion to the “two-state solution”, which holds that creating a sovereign Palestinian state in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip is the only way of resolving the Arab-Israeli conflict.