The UK’s Communities Secretary Steve Reed has warned councils that divestment of Israeli products could result in legal action against them. They may be sued if money stops flowing into the war chest of the genocidal land theft project sometimes referred to as ‘Israel’.
Reed warned that councils choosing not to fund an active Holocaust could be liable under the Procurement Act 2023. Under this legislation, councils are required to robotically follow the guidance of the Procurement Review Unit (PRU) — attached to the cabinet office — rather than the consciences of their elected councillors.
The PRU can add suppliers to a debarment list, forbidding trade with them. They can also issue instructions like they did immediately after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, requesting public sector entities to:
evaluate contracts linked to Russian or Belarusian suppliers and determine whether termination is legally viable, if a replacement supplier could be secured without compromising value for money, affordability, or the continuity of public services.
Friends in the Zionist lobby
The government has issued no such instructions about Israeli suppliers — a double standard we’re all too familiar with.
It’s always handy in such cases to check if your MP is a war criminal, and luckily www.MPwarcrimes.co.uk allows us to verify Mr Reed’s status. It turns out that yes, he is complicit in war crimes having refused to vote for a ceasefire in the Zionist assault on Gaza. He also accepted £1800 from Labour Friends of ‘Israel’ — placing personal gain above public interest. The self-proclaimed lobbyist group is well known for advocating on behalf of the colonial settler project in British politics.
Reed also offered the following boorish advice to local authorities:
Councils should stay out of foreign conflicts and get on with the job of delivering local services.
The Gaza holocaust is not, of course, a foreign conflict.
A modern day genocide requires the participation of many parties. Its execution goes beyond the fascist lawmakers in the Knesset approving mass murder of Palestinians or the settlers backed by state forces. It requires a machinery of genocide that is global in reach and scope.
That includes the arms factories in Britain that ship weapons to the settler-colony, policemen that arrest peaceful protesters, and councils that buy from ‘Israeli’ suppliers. The latter keeps the Zionist economy going, enabling a revenue stream for Israel to buy arms and pay the salaries of Israeli Genocide Forces (IGF) soldiers. All these factors mean the colossal slaughter in Gaza is very much local to Britain.
Israeli goods boycott gains traction
The pressure on councils to continue engaging in trade that enables war crimes follows recent decisions by town halls to cease involvement with ‘Israel’. These decisions reflect growing concerns about the ethical implications of such trade. Oxford City Council passed a Boycott, Divestment and Sanction (BDS) motion that aims for divestment from:
institutional investments/pensions [with] companies complicit in war crimes.
Newcastle Council has passed a similar motion, while Cumberland’s local authority has committed to various BDS style policies. These include a commitment to stop funding firms selling arms to the land thieves squatting on historic Palestine, and a pledge not to buy from illegal settlements. The BDS movement is viewed by the Zionist regime as its greatest threat, with the capacity to cripple its economy as boycotts in South Africa achieved.
In the wake of the recent boycotts, antisemite shadow communities secretary James Cleverley engaged in vile comments about Jewish people by associating them with Zionist criminality.
He claimed that:
The Government is turning a blind eye to growing anti-Semitism in town halls across the country.
A boycott on ‘Israel’ is not an attack on Jewish people, unless you hold the toxic view that Jewish people are inseparable from the illegal Zionist endeavour destroying West Asia. In further unevidenced and inflammatory remarks, he continued:
Labour councils are bringing in Israel boycotts in a cynical, sectarian attempt to win votes. Those boycotts are frequently a cover for attacking Jewish people and culture.
The spectre of Thatcherism
The enthusiasm for attacking local democracy is nothing new, of course. It was a key plank of Thatcherism. The hideous crone saw Labour-controlled councils as a key opposing force to her neoliberal agenda. The Conservative government of the 1980s oversaw brutal cuts to local government funding, alongside rate-capping which also hit the spending power of councils.
This shredding of devolved powers makes Britain one of the most centralised nations in the world, with enormous power concentrated in Westminster. Combined with a first-past-the-post voting system, this allows a tiny minority – sometimes called a parliamentary dictatorship – to force through policies with little mandate or opposition.
Democracy is now being further eroded through stances like Reed’s, and the destruction of protest rights. All for the least noble cause imaginable – ensuring Britain’s continued participation in the Gaza Holocaust, one of history’s most appalling crimes.
Featured image courtesy of Anne Paq/Electronic Intifada
This post was originally published on Canary.