UK Politics: Pro-Israel Influence

Mike Wood Excerpts

Monday 22nd June 2026 Westminster Hall

[Iqbal Mohamed]

My definition would be donors who turn a blind eye to blatant violations of Israeli law, British law or international law.

[Mike Wood (Kingswinford and South Staffordshire) (Con)]

Will the hon. Member give way?

[Iqbal Mohamed]

I will continue because of time.

Britain claims to defend its democracy from foreign interference. We rightly sanction Russia for undermining democratic institutions, and warn about the threats from China and Iran to our political system, yet when substantial evidence of foreign influence concerns Israel, our principles of transparency, scrutiny and accountability appear to vanish.

Given the lack of time, I will give just one example. Elbit Systems, Israel’s largest arms manufacturer, operates 16 sites across the UK and supplies around 85% of Israel’s drones and military ground equipment—systems that have been widely used during Israel’s genocide in Gaza. Declassified UK reported that in December 2024, representatives of Elbit Systems met Home Office officials in a private meeting, with details withheld under FOI exemptions. Elbit Systems benefits from substantial British defence contracts. The defence industry cannot become a shield for privileged and secret political access without accountability.

No amount of democracy should exempt a state from scrutiny, no lobbying should be beyond accountability, and no Government should let political convenience override the principles of democratic integrity.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mike Wood (Kingswinford and South Staffordshire) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Harris. We are here to debate e-petition 752646, which calls for a public inquiry into what the petitioners term “pro-Israel influence” on UK politics, party policies and public debate. I thank the petitioners for raising concerns about foreign influence, transparency and public confidence in democratic institutions, but I share the misgivings of my hon. Friend the Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (John Lamont) about the apparent motivations of some the petition’s supporters.

Although Parliament must always take seriously any issue that touches on the integrity of UK democracy, the evidence that has been put forward does not support the allegations. There is clearly deep public concern about the conflict in Gaza and the west bank, and that strength of feeling runs across communities and all parts of the country. As the hon. Member for Pontypridd (Alex Davies-Jones) made clear, there is nothing wrong with criticising the political decisions of any Government, including that of Israel—I have certainly done so myself in relation to illegal settlements—but it is concerning when Israel is singled out for scrutiny in a way that no other country is.

When donors who happen to be well—

[Iqbal Mohamed]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mike Wood]

The hon. Gentleman did not have the courtesy to give way to me, but I will give way to him.

[Iqbal Mohamed]

I apologise for not giving way earlier. On the point about Israel being singled out, the Rycroft review focused specifically on Russia and China, and did not mention Israel once. It was correctly carried out and nobody had any objections. What is the difference?

[Mike Wood]

The difference is that every day of every week of every year there are concerted attacks from Russia and China on our democratic system, on communities around the country and across online media, to try to set one part of our community against another, and they do not care who wins.

When the hon. Gentleman spoke earlier about donors—mostly about donors to the Labour party, but I know there are donors to other parties—he described them as pro-Israel because they happened to be Jewish and had not questioned the actions of the Israeli Government. It is hard to find a clearer breach of the international definition of antisemitism than to hold Jewish people in the UK accountable for the actions of the Israeli Government, which is what the he appeared to do.

[Joy Morrissey (Beaconsfield) (Con)]

Anti-Israel hatred creates a scourge of antisemitism against our Jewish community. They suffer for doing nothing other than being British Jews who happen to live in this country, and are caught in the middle of the conflict for no other reason than their ethnic and religious background. Does my hon. Friend agree that that is simply unfair and racist?

[Mike Wood]

I could not agree more strongly. Let me be entirely unambiguous from the outset: His Majesty’s Opposition firmly reject the premise of the petition and any suggestion that Israel—or any British organisations expressing solidarity with it—represent a malign or covert influence on British politics and democracy.

[Jim Shannon]

I commend the hon. Gentleman, who is speaking exceptionally well, for his very strong words. Does he agree that the Government were right to take action against Palestine Action? The Government went to the Court of Appeal and won that case. Palestine Action has stepped over the line of what is acceptable when it comes to protesting, so it should be condemned for being an illegal organisation.

[Mike Wood]

The hon. Gentleman gets to the heart of the issue, as he so often does. Protest stops being peaceful protest when it involves using weapons to harm and intimidate those who hold a different view. To suggest that open and transparent advocacy by British citizens and established communal organisations constitutes an improper or malign conspiracy is not only factually incorrect but treads into deeply troubling territory. As I have said, the petition is not supported by credible evidence. Instead, it invites vague suspicion of covert—

[Ayoub Khan]

Will the hon. Member give way?

[Mike Wood]

I have given way a number of times; I need to make a little progress.

The petition invites vague suspicion of covert, improper activity by unnamed organisations and we must call it out for what it is. The use of terms such as “the Israel lobby” to describe British Jewish communal bodies combines unfounded claims of disproportionate backroom influence with the ancient insidious trope that Jewish citizens are inherently disloyal or untrustworthy.

[Ayoub Khan]

Will the hon. Member give way?

[Mike Wood]

I give way briefly.

[Ayoub Khan]

The hon. Member is clearly very emotional in delivering his points. Would he agree that, whichever nation is concerned, our responsibility to the millions of British citizens is to be transparent? Would he support transparency when it comes to donations of any kind?

[Mike Wood]

Of course. One of the reasons why those donations have been highlighted and publicised as thoroughly as they have is that they are recorded and published. I myself have not taken any donations to which that applies, but there is nothing inherently wrong with them.

The Leader of the Opposition has repeatedly warned that we are witnessing a deeply concerning normalisation of rhetoric towards British Jews that would once have been unthinkable. Far too often, individuals use their political views on Israel as a convenient cover to display blatant antisemitism. We cannot allow a moral and political vacuum to be filled by a hatred of Jews. We must be vigilant that parliamentary procedures, including the e-petition system, are not inadvertently weaponised to legitimise those harmful tropes.

Our political system is built on open, transparent advocacy. Members of this House regularly engage with a wide variety of groups to understand complex international issues, and we recognise and value the long-standing, transparent activities of groups such as Conservative Friends of Israel and Labour Friends of Israel, which work openly to foster strong bilateral ties, trade and security co-operation between the United Kingdom and a democratic ally.

At the same time, our parliamentary democracy benefits from a diverse range of perspectives. Organisations such as the Conservative Middle East Council and other advocacy groups play an invaluable role in ensuring that Members of Parliament receive a comprehensive understanding of the region. They work diligently to ensure that parliamentarians receive detailed information and insights from a range of viewpoints, including pro-Palestinian and pro-Arab perspectives. That is how healthy, transparent democracy should operate: through open debate, visible briefings and competing arguments presented clearly in the light of day. There is no secrecy here, no hidden hand and certainly no malign infiltration.

While this petition asks us to chase shadows and investigate legitimate domestic advocacy, it distracts from the very real, pressing and deeply dangerous threats of foreign interference that our security services warn us about every single day. The greatest threat to British politics and democracy comes not from democratic allies or British community groups, but from hostile foreign state actors, most notably China and Russia. That is why they were at the heart of the Rycroft review.

Our intelligence agencies have been explicit. In October 2025, MI5 issued urgent guidance to Parliament warning that Russian hackers had actively stolen data from Members of Parliament, leaked sensitive UK-US trade documents ahead of the 2019 general election, and even impersonated foreign embassies to contact Ministers directly. We have seen the tangible consequences of that subversion in our legal system, such as the sentencing in November 2025 of Nathan Gill, the former leader of Reform UK Wales, to more than 10 years in prison after he was found guilty of accepting bribes from a pro-Russian Ukrainian politician to peddle Kremlin narratives.

Equally alarming is the sustained, calculated campaign of espionage and democratic infiltration orchestrated by Beijing. MI5 security alerts have warned of covert attempts to recruit individuals with access to sensitive information within the Palace of Westminster. We have seen a string of high-profile cases, including espionage involving the UK Border Force and Hong Kong trade officials, and deeply concerning allegations involving political advisers and researchers. China is actively seeking to pass information on parliamentarians and undermine our sovereign affairs. It continues to spy on our colleagues and to target Hong Kong activists, many of whom remain British citizens and who have sought refuge on our shores, and actively works to weaken our democratic resilience.

The Opposition believe that we must go much further to protect the integrity of British politics and our wider democratic framework, which is why the shadow Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, my hon. Friend the Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Alex Burghart), has called for China to be formally placed on the enhanced tier of the foreign influence registration scheme. That would require strict monitoring of any political activity taking place in the UK at the instruction of the Chinese state. The Government must publicly accept that China is already acting in a matter opposed and hostile to the core interests of the United Kingdom.

[David Taylor]

The hon. Member rightly mentioned Russia and China. Does he agree that Iran also poses a massive threat, is interfering in our democracy and is behind some antisemitic attacks and the spreading of some antisemitic conspiracy theories?

[Mike Wood]

We have seen that Iran, seeing itself as not only a regional but an increasingly global power, is becoming increasingly willing to make physical attacks and also take sub-threshold action against our democracy.

In conclusion, we do not support a public inquiry into the imaginary threat of pro-Israel lobbying. To grant one would be to validate a petition that lacks credible evidence and fuels antisemitic conspiracies. Instead, the Cabinet Office and Government must focus their finite resources on the genuine systemic dangers that face our democracy. Let us strengthen our defences against the hostile state apparatus in Beijing and Moscow, protect our parliamentarians from actual espionage, and maintain a political culture where open, transparent discussion from all sides of the middle east debate can thrive without fear of malicious vilification.

[Iqbal Mohamed]

On a point of order, Mrs Harris. The hon. Member for Kingswinford and South Staffordshire (Mike Wood) referred to my remarks in answering a question. Maybe I was not very clear, but he mischaracterised my remarks as referring to all Jews or Jewish donors. My remarks clearly referred to pro-Israeli donors, whoever they are. To clarify, it is those who support the illegal actions of Israel or—