Are we usually about reducing local democracy? Preferably not, but doing so whilst crushing freedom of expression around a decades long breach of international law, which is worsening a globally recognised historic and continuing grievous injustice isn’t what my Party is or should ever be about.
In the last 26 years as a Conservative MP, I have observed countless seemingly seismic political shifts, across the political spectrum. But for Conservatives, the upcoming anti-BDS (Boycott, Disinvestment and Sanctions) Bill is a near perfect example of how good intentions can pave the road to hell if care is not taken about the implications of what we actually do.
With attacks on individual liberties, democratic principles and the foundation texts of international law, this Bill is a full-scale assault on our own values. Many Parliamentary colleagues have already seen it for what it really is, and will fight tooth-and-nail to oppose it. As colleagues are alerted to its true implications, those numbers will grow.
It is officially, and innocuously, named the Economic Decisions of Public Bodies (Overseas Matters) Bill. This banal and bland title obscures its implications.
The Bill is the product of a 2019 Conservative manifesto commitment to “ban local authorities from imposing their own direct or indirect boycotts, disinvestment or sanctions campaigns against foreign countries”. The actual BDS movement is a part of civil society concerned with the desperate plight of the Palestinians, many very visibly on the wrong end of over 56 years of illegal military occupation, territorial annexation and settling by about 700,000 people on what is internationally regarded as Palestinian territory, that would provide the basis of any future Palestinian state.
These “settlers” will typically be Jews from all over the world who enjoy special rights to emigrate to and live in Israel by virtue of being Jewish, having usually exercised those rights after 1967. The scale has made the settlements a physical block to any practical creation of a Palestinian state, and their disputed tenure has generated a voting block in Israel that is strongly opposed to compromise and large enough to paralyse any immediate prospect of sufficient support for a governing Israeli coalition that could contemplate a settlement with the Palestinians.
The Bill takes a sledgehammer to crack the nut of a legitimate campaign, but one that by aiming itself directly at the State of Israel has opened itself to a charge of being anti-semitic. That charge is as unfair as this movement has so far been effective in altering UK or Israeli policy. This measure may unintentionally change all this. The Bill bans public bodies from making procurement decisions that show ‘moral disapproval’ of foreign states.
So a local council that wanted to avoid spending public money, and their workers’ own pension funds, on procurement from a country they considered as abusing human rights, could not do so. They would be forced to engage with countries with policies incompatible with their values.
It undermines the principle of local democratic representation, in effect centralising power in Whitehall accountable to Westminster. So our Party, the Party of a smaller state, will dictate that every public body, from local councils to universities, can only contemplate measures against any jurisdiction if that jurisdiction is on a central government list.
Appallingly there is also a ‘gagging clause’. That not only prevents employees in public procurement from publicly supporting boycotts, but there is even a ‘double lock’, as employees can’t even say they would theoretically support boycotts if they legally could.
The party I joined had the torch of liberty as its logo. Protection of individual liberty is one of the most quintessentially Conservative principles going. It was fundamental to our belief system that individuals be allowed to say what they think, if they avoid inciting hatred of others, spend their money how they want and are free as possible to get on with their lives, these freedoms don’t impinge on others. This gagging clause overrides these rights and responsibilities in favour of the view of Central Government.
The Bill Minister maintains this is a domestic measure only, with no implications for our foreign policy. This is specious nonsense.
The Israel-Palestine issue has engaged me since my first visit to Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories (OPTs) in 1983, whilst studying the politics of the Middle East at university and during my military service. Unsurprisingly this engagement continued in my political career. In 1994 I accompanied Malcolm Rifkind, as the first British Defence Secretary to officially visit Israel, and of course as his Special Adviser when Foreign Secretary.
I chaired the Commons Foreign Affairs Committee from 2015 to 2017. The incumbent, my successor-but-one, Alicia Kearns, made an excellent point in The Guardian last week, saying that country-specific legislation undermines our foreign policy.
She’s absolutely right. The government has given itself the power to exempt certain countries from this legislation. However, a further clause grants Israel permanent protection from ever being exempted by this government or any future government, unless they obtain the specific approval of parliament by amending this bill. It is the only country in the world with this everlasting impunity.
The century old, unresolved conflict between the state of Israel, and those from the territory on which that state was created, is still one of the main drivers of conflict in the Middle East.
The threat of boycotts is an important foreign policy tool, but this bill works to disarm us. For most countries, it removes a string from our foreign policy bow, but for Israel, we’re snapping the bow in half, removing the wider community from expressing any disapproval, not least when the UK government, whilst carefully saying the right things, has done nothing to actually support law and justice.
The timing of this unique status for Israel is even more remarkable given the views of the current Israeli government. Since December 2022, an extremist far-right coalition, including ultranationalist settlers, have gained, and already abused, power. The appalling and inciteful rhetoric of extremist ministers like Ben-Gvir and Smotrich, who is not only Finance Minister, but now responsible for the conduct of the occupation, has emboldened Israeli settlers to increase their violence against Palestinian people.
What a moment, when things have been so bad for so many years, and are getting worse rather than better, for the government to shield Israel from criticism and force public bodies to be complicit in Israel’s policy in illegally occupied territory.
Worst of all, the same clause that exempts Israel, exempts the Golan Heights and Occupied Palestinian territory. This contradicts decades of stated objectives of UK foreign policy.
It’s an unprecedented move that recklessly endorses annexation by stealth. At a time when settlers are already emboldened by their extremist government, we propose to fuel the fire with the encouragement of this statutory impunity.
The stated purpose of this bill is to address antisemitism. Yet the specific exemption of Israel and its illegally occupied territories, from any wider public engagement with sanctions in the face of truly shocking fundamental breaches of international law, and the consequence of Israeli policy playing out publicly in too much blood, overwhelmingly Palestinian, can only serve to reinforce a fundamental sense of unfairness. The association in the public mind between Israel and the global Jewish community, purposely encouraged by Israel’s more reckless supporters, will serve to widen and deepen any antisemitism that is present in our communities.
Yet the Jewish community in Israel and around the world are deeply split over the policy of the current Israeli government. We haven’t listened to Jewish students or all the notes of the discordant Jewish lobby. This Bill, if enacted, can only make anti-semitism worse.
Justice for Palestinians has always gone hand-in-hand with security for Israel. These are now horribly out of balance.
The British value of ‘fair play’, as well as the instinctive sympathy for the underdog, will now be further engaged, but in the wrong way, against my Party and all its values and instincts. In short, it is an un-Conservative, unqualified catastrophe, in what it says about what we are for.