Economic Activity of Public Bodies (Overseas Matters) Bill

Crispin Blunt Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 3rd July 2023 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

No. The founder of the BDS movement, Omar Barghouti, has been clear in his opposition to the existence of Israel as a Jewish state. He has attacked what he calls the “racist principles of Zionism”—that is, the fundamental right of the Jewish people to self-determination. The man who founded and is in charge of the BDS movement has argued that Zionist principles

“maintain Israel’s character as a colonial, ethnocentric, apartheid state.”

On that basis, he opposes any idea of a two-state solution—a secure Israel alongside a viable and democratic Palestine. Instead, the BDS movement’s leader wants a

“one-state solution…where, by definition, Jews will be a minority.”

It is entirely open to any individual to agree with that proposition, but it is no part of this Government’s determination or intent to give any heart or succour to a movement that argues that the two-state solution is wrong and that Jews should be a minority in one state.

[Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con)]

Can my right hon. Friend help us here? As the effect of Israeli policy since 1967 has been to build out of existence the possibility of a two-state solution by settling 700,000 Jews who have arrived in the state of Israel, with their right to go there under Israeli law, it is now no longer possible for there to be a two-state solution, so what is British policy to be?

[Michael Gove]

British policy is, as my hon. Friend knows, to promote a two-state solution. I know that he has a long, passionate and committed interest in this subject and I respect the compassion and knowledge that he brings to the debate but, respectfully, I disagree with him. I believe that a two-state solution is the right approach, which the BDS movement does not believe.

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[Stephen Crabb (Preseli Pembrokeshire) (Con)]

I rise to speak in support of the legislation this evening. I welcome the fact that we are following through on a manifesto commitment to bring forward legislation in this difficult, sensitive and complicated area. I very much agree with the remarks made by my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy), and my right hon. Friends the Members for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland (Sir Simon Clarke) and for Chipping Barnet (Theresa Villiers).

We have had a number of speeches striking slightly different tones. There was a very good speech from the hon. Member for Wigan (Lisa Nandy), who tried to strike a reasonable tone and explained the rationale behind Labour’s reasoned amendment. Unfortunately for her and for the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Steve McCabe), who also made a thoughtful and intelligent speech, many of the speeches from the Opposition Benches seemed to be in favour of boycotts, and wanting to keep a candle burning for being able to use boycotts, divestment and sanctions as tools at a local authority level, or among other public bodies. We on the Conservative Benches are clear that we do not want to see public money being used in that way. We are clear about the main purpose of this legislation, which is to tackle, as has already been discussed, the BDS movement, with its pernicious effects, its links to antisemitism and the very ugly and divisive character behind it. To any Conservative Member who stands up and says that that was not the purpose of our commitment in the manifesto, I say that that is just not true. The gestation of the Bill—the process that it has gone through and the internal discussion—has very much centred on trying to do something for the first time about the BDS movement.

To those Members who argue that the problem with this legislation is that it will attract legal challenge, I say that every single time we have tried to do something about the BDS movement it gets a legal challenge. We know that the BDS movement will try to fight this in the court. That is not a surprise, but that should not be a reason for us to resile from our commitment to do something about the matter.

There will be Members in the House today who believe that the BDS movement, leaving aside its ugly antisemitic characteristics, is a legitimate way of trying to challenge the state of Israel. We heard that in some of the speeches. The trouble with the BDS movement, as we know, is that time and again it singles out the state of Israel in a way that it does not do with other countries.

As for the Labour party trying to maintain a reasonableness about its position, I say look at what it does when it is in government. When the Welsh Labour Government tried to introduce a new national procurement note in 2020, what did they do? Surprise, surprise, they singled out one state for potential sanctions—the state of Israel. I am talking about Labour Ministers of the Crown today serving in the Welsh Government in Cardiff, so Members will forgive me if I do not have total confidence in the reasonableness of the Labour position that it is trying to put forward.

[Crispin Blunt]

The BDS is a Palestinian-led movement. Who else is it supposed to protest against? I realise that it has a global application, but it is a Palestinian-led movement about Palestine.

[Stephen Crabb]

My hon. Friend is right: it is a Palestinian-led movement. When we consider the individuals and organisations—Palestinian and otherwise—at the root of it, we can see that the movement is deeply problematic. I do not believe that any Conservative should be identifying and aligning themselves with any aspect of the BDS movement.

I welcome the legislation. I welcome, too, the fact that the Secretary of State has made a very strong commitment to working with others and seeing whether improvements can be made to the Bill. He has shown a genuine openness in that regard. None the less, improving the Bill cannot mean watering it down to make it ineffective, which we know the opponents of the Bill—the BDS movement outside this place—want us to do. I hope that the Government will remain robust and clear-sighted on this, but I also hope that we can work pragmatically and get good legislation on the statute book.

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[Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con)]

I draw the attention of the House to my declaration in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield), with whom I very largely agreed.

I want to start with a challenge to my right hon. Friend the Member for Preseli Pembrokeshire (Stephen Crabb) to finish off the answer to my question about BDS itself. BDS is a Palestinian-led movement, so it is not remotely surprising that its attention centres on the policies of Israel, which is in illegal occupation of Palestinian territory. It is Israeli policy that is preventing any possibility of a two-state solution from becoming a reality and BDS is the only movement within Palestinian civil society that is pursuing a non-violent course of resistance.

We need to ask ourselves some fundamental questions about what we expect of the occupied Palestinians. If we present the BDS movement in the very extreme way—described to me as “disingenuous” by someone who has messaged me in the course of this debate—it has been presented in this House, we are denying the Palestinians in that sense by banning their only legitimate way of expressing resistance to that occupation.

That is where we need to take a step or two back. We are now on the receiving end of more than 50 years of illegal Israeli occupation of somebody else’s territory. In an egregious way, Israel has occupied and settled that territory with 700,000 Jewish people. The physical result of those settlements is that a two-state solution is now in effect impossible.

There needs to be some serious consideration of the implications of Israeli policy, because it has been deliberate. We sit here parroting our support for a two-state solution, and the only point of difference I have with my hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Melton (Alicia Kearns) who is now Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee is that I am afraid I now do support a one-state solution, because a two-state solution is now impossible.

I hope that hon. Members on the Front Bench will reflect that the people who convinced me of that were the negotiation support unit that the Department for International Development was paying for in 2002 to give the Palestinian negotiators a bit of capacity and heft in conducting negotiations with their Israeli counterparts. Diana Buttu and Michael Tarazi were themselves then in favour of a one-state solution. What is wrong with that as a vision? Indeed, it would mirror the original sense of moral purpose about the state of Israel. It was a great achievement of the 20th century to find a homeland for the Jewish people, who have been on the wrong end of history for hundreds and hundreds of years, particularly the appalling policies towards Jewish people in Europe.

I say to my colleagues: do not try to present the one-state solution as a terrorist answer driving Israelis and Jews into the sea—that is absolute nonsense and of course it will never happen. If we are about trying to create national reconciliation and a path to peace, we need now to start thinking originally. Palestinians are looking over the wall at Israel and, strangely enough, young professional Palestinians want what the Israelis have. I do not think that Israelis in a similar position want to send their children, in 20, 30 or 40 years’ time, to police the occupation.

We see today the terrible events in Jenin, which are a product of the disaster and false horizon that the Oslo process has turned out to be for the Palestinian people. There is desperate anger in occupied parts of Palestine, where everything is being taken away from people, but here we are attacking a movement that tries—although, of course, there are elements of unacceptable rhetoric—to stay within the limits of peaceful resistance to illegal occupation.

It would be thought absolutely astonishing that we are faced with this measure in the British Parliament. We need to think back on our history and the Balfour declaration. There were two parts to that declaration. We have delivered on one of them, but I am afraid that the rights of the people who were living in the territory that is now Israel have been violated in the most profound and fundamental way. We now have to deal with the dispossession that came of the establishment of the state of Israel. We need to deal with the results of this illegal occupation. We in this House are about to take away not only the ability to seek peacefully the means to do that through local authorities, but people’s right to express support for it. This is a very un-Conservative measure and it needs to be rejected at the first opportunity, which is this evening, and that is how I will be voting.