Economic Activity of Public Bodies (Overseas Matters) Bill

Andrew Percy Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 25th October 2023 Commons Chamber

[Dame Margaret Hodge]

I beg to differ with what the right hon. Gentleman says, because the Bill in itself is so contentious that it will not actually stop activity, but encourage those who want to argue against the state of Israel and want to argue against what is currently happening in the Israeli-Palestinian war. It will give them added strength, so I simply disagree with him. At a time like this, the worst thing we can do is introduce contentious legislation.

[Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)]

I respect the right hon. Lady for her views, but just on that last point, the idea that we should not do something because the people who hate Israel will be even angrier about it does not seem to me to be a very credible argument. These people were out in front of the embassy in the immediate aftermath of the attacks demanding boycotts of Israel, before Israel even had time to respond. Is it really a credible argument that we should not do this because it might make the people who hate Israel even angrier?

[Dame Margaret Hodge]

I hope that as I develop my argument the hon. Member will listen, because it is the flaws in the Bill that I think actually damage its intention, which is to limit and deal with the evils of the BDS movement. I said a little earlier that I oppose the BDS movement. I recognise that the BDS movement probably has the intention of trying to destroy the state of Israel. I want to tackle that, but I think that doing so in the way that is proposed in this legislation will simply damage that intent, not meet it. I think maybe that is where he and I differ.

The Bill is flawed in so many ways. The main reason is that it is not designed to tackle a problem; it is designed to score a crude party political point, as I said on Second Reading. I am afraid that the Secretary of State himself gave the game away on that occasion, when he said:

“The question for every Member of this House is whether they stand with us against antisemitism or not.”—[Official Report, 3 July 2023; Vol. 735, c. 591.]

I respectfully say to him that that is not the question, but it does lay bare the truth about the Bill. The Government believe that they have set a trap for the Opposition: if we speak against the Bill, they will try to paint us as antisemites. But I say to the Government that if they pass the Bill in its current form, it is they who will be encouraging antisemitism by fuelling hatred. They will be encouraging antisemitism by specifying on the face of the Bill only one country where the boycott of goods would be illegal, simply confirming in people’s minds that Israel and the Israel-Palestine conflict is a special case, different from all the other cases around. That is a constant problem, a constant issue that is raised with me by people who are worried and concerned—over time, not particularly in relation to the war as it stands—about attitudes in the UK to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Everybody says, “Why pick on Israel?”

So why do the Government now select Israel? It is they who are encouraging antisemitism by gagging free speech in our universities and council chambers. It is they who are encouraging antisemitism by trampling on the democratic rights of local politicians. It is an incredible arrogance for us as MPs to sit here and think that somehow we are better than, or different from, locally elected councillors who also have political views and who also carry out important democratic jobs in their councils.

It is the Government who are encouraging antisemitism by ignoring our obligations under the UN Security Council. It is they who are encouraging antisemitism—and I say this on the basis of my experience of fighting the British National party in Barking from 2006 until the general election in 2010—by refusing to engage in an open debate. By closing the debate, they give added credibility to the idea that those who seek to destroy the state of Israel are somehow wronged.

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This legislation is not something that I would expect from a Conservative party at any stage in its life, and certainly not now. If the Government pursue it, it leads us to the conclusion that my right hon. Friend the Member for Barking reached: that it is being done for grubby political purposes. If that is the case, we are in the gutter of politics rather than at the high level of politics that we should be debating in this country.

[Andrew Percy]

The right hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) put forward a clever argument, but many of us see through it to the real motivation. He himself said that he supports part of the BDS campaign.

The issue of timing is interesting. I am not sure whether we are being asked to wait until Hamas give us permission to bring the Bill back. Should we wait for their decision to end the violence, so that we are then able to bring this forward? People advanced the same arguments that they are advancing today before the massacre, so there will never be a good time to bring the legislation forward if we follow that line.

The right hon. Member for Barking (Dame Margaret Hodge) and I have disagreed on some things, but I respect her very much. She has been very brave in lots of the things that she has done in recent years, but I think that it was beneath her to accuse people who support the legislation of driving antisemitism. That was an unfortunate slip, because it is a fact that the Jewish Leadership Council and the Board of Deputies support the legislation. She may be right that others in the Jewish community do not, but it is a fact that leadership groups within the community support the legislation.

Why now? For me, it was going down to see one of the marches two weeks ago. I do not want to call them marches for peace, because they were not; they were marches filled with hate. There were people there enjoying what happened in Israel. I saw many of them holding deeply antisemitic signs, many of which called for a boycott of the Israeli state. That said to me that this is a moment when we have to grasp this issue, which has been a poisonous part of political discourse on the middle east for so long. If not now, then when? There will never be a perfect time.

As I said in my intervention, even before the Israeli Government had acted in any way in Gaza in self-defence, BDS campaigners were outside the Israeli embassy, after 1,400 Israelis had been murdered—the worst murder of Jews since the holocaust. What were those campaigners doing? They were not there expressing sympathy for what had just happened; they were demanding that people boycott the state of Israel. This is a pernicious, nasty, antisemitic campaign, and there is no pretending otherwise, as indeed some people who oppose the Bill will agree.

The metrics are clear: BDS activities drive antisemitism. That is a fact, and we are all in agreement on that. On the pretence that there are lots of other countries at which this is aimed, let us be honest: only Israel is the focus of BDS activities. That is where the action in local government and the Welsh Government has been. It has all been about Israel. Let us be honest: for some of the people arguing against the legislation, it will always be about Israel. Whatever has happened, they are always here with words against Israel, holding Israel to different standards. It is the same people; they just find a different argument. It is the same on every issue related to the middle east. They are always here, some of them in this House, and it is always about the behaviour of the state of Israel.

I find it a really bizarre claim that because some people might react unpleasantly, or potentially violently, to us banning a campaign that all of us who have spoken so far—well, maybe not all of us—agree is antisemitic, that might inflame community tensions. What we are saying there, in effect, is that the elected House of Commons of the United Kingdom should not act because some people might not like it and might get violent. A country that follows that line of argument is a country that is lost. We agree that this is antisemitic and it should not matter, therefore, whether some people who might not like our approach might react. They have been reacting fairly unpleasantly already—we have all seen the marches—so I just do not buy that argument.

[Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)]

I have a huge amount of affection for my hon. Friend and understanding of what he is saying. I ask him to give me his view on the following, which relates to my concern. I take everything that he is saying, but at a time when our country can play a pivotal role in trying to de-escalate and find a peaceful solution to the horror unravelling in the middle east, what assessment has he made of the damage that could arise from a claim of partiality being levelled against the Government for bringing this Bill forward at this time?

[Andrew Percy]

My hon. Friend said he had affection for me. Not many people say that, so I welcome it and I will be framing that part of Hansard. However, I will just push back on the point he makes. How is impartiality impacted by outlawing something that all of us agree is antisemitic? Who sits on the Palestinian BDS National Committee? It is Hamas and Islamic Jihad. So are we saying that we should not ban this antisemitic campaign because some people might not like that. We can push that argument quickly back in the other direction.

I went over my time on the last occasion, so I am going to stay absolutely within my time now, Madam Deputy Speaker. I will end with a powerful quote in The Jewish Chronicle today from its former editor Stephen Pollard. He said:

“You might think that now of all times, when the world has witnessed the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, there would be a clamour, a rush, even a demand for the BDS Bill to be passed. Now of all times, surely, is the time to stand up and say we see where Jew hate leads.”

That is the best argument for this legislation and for why now.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

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[Michael Gove]

The fact that they are listed separately and individually affirms the absolutely principal purpose of treating them individually and separately. Were—[Interruption.] I am sorry, but if Opposition Front Benchers think it is appropriate to smile, laugh and joke about this issue, I regret that. If people disagree in a principled fashion, I respect that. But the key thing is that we know there are people who have attempted to use language relating to what happens in the occupied territories—indeed, the former Attorney General, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Northampton North (Sir Michael Ellis), cited a number of examples of this—specifically to seek to target people on the basis of their Jewish identity, and that is wrong.

[Andrew Percy]

There is another point. If we accept, as everybody who has spoken today has apparently accepted, that the BDS campaign is a pernicious, antisemitic campaign, we should know that it is pernicious and antisemitic whether it is against the state of Israel or against products that come from the Occupied Palestinian Territories. The BDS campaign should be outlawed wherever it takes place. It is very simple.

[Michael Gove]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right and, indeed, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Northampton North again made it clear that in France and Germany the BDS campaign is outlawed in the way that we seek to do here. No one denies for a moment that France and Germany, under Emmanuel Macron and Olaf Scholz, are valued partners for peace and upholders of international law.