Economic Activity of Public Bodies (Overseas Matters) Bill

Tommy Sheppard Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 3rd July 2023 Commons Chamber

[Tommy Sheppard (Edinburgh East) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Reigate (Crispin Blunt).

Like many others, I think this is a sordid and grubby little Bill that takes away many of the political freedoms that we have enjoyed for decades in this country. It follows, of course, similar pieces of legislation from the Government over the past few years. They have sought to restrict our freedom to dissent and protest, but this Bill goes further, as others have already remarked upon. For the first time that I can remember, the Bill seeks to criminalise thought as well as deeds. That takes it into a whole new dimension and is reason enough for it to be thrown out by this House tonight.

We live in a dangerous and uncertain world. Humanity faces many challenges, some of them existential in nature. I would argue that this is a time in our public discourse and public life when we need more moral judgments and ethical considerations, not fewer as the Bill tries to suggest. In fact, the Bill does not actually outlaw local authorities and public authorities taking ethical and moral judgments; it simply outlaws them taking ones that the Government disagree with. The Government are trying to tape to themselves not just the legitimacy of being the elected political Administration of the country, but the role of arbiter and mouthpiece for all of civil society. That is quite ridiculous.

As others have said, many people elect their public officials to represent their point of view, and they have a right to do so. If we constrain the ability of the representative, we also constrain the ability of the people. It is in the field of pension policy that this is most ridiculous. Like others, I am, since the age of 60, in receipt of a local government pension. That is because I paid into a savings fund for the years in which I worked in local government. It is my money and that of my fellow pensioners. What right do this Government have to tell me what I can and cannot do with my own money?

The Government have sought to place the question of Israel right at the heart of this legislation and of their argument. It is fundamentally based on a flawed premise: that criticism of the Israeli Government or of Israeli state policies is in itself antisemitic. That is wrong. We in this House should never get ourselves into the position of thinking that we have to choose between defending the human and political rights of Palestinians in the middle east, and fighting antisemitism on the streets of our own country and throughout the world. We can and we must do both.

I had the privilege to attend last week a meeting called by Yachad, a Jewish organisation, in this House. I heard Michael Sfard, a distinguished human rights lawyer from Israel, speak on the situation. He gave a concise picture of what is happening in Israel today and described the actions of the current Israeli Government—the most right-wing, anti-Palestinian Government that Israel has ever had. He described how two projects are under way in that area of the world at the moment: the first is the de jure annexation of the Occupied Palestinian Territories into the state of Israel, and the second is the changing of constitutional law inside the state of Israel to allow that to happen. That is what has provoked mass demonstrations by the ordinary Israeli public on the streets of Israel, where hundreds of thousands of people are turning up to protest.

That is what has led to a situation in which the current Government of Israel has opinion poll ratings down at 20%. If there were an election today, they would be thrown out of office by a landslide. Yet in the context of what is happening on the streets of the middle east at the moment, and of even the American Administration trying to put distance between themselves and President Netanyahu, what is the policy of the UK Government? Their policy—an outlier in the international community—is to welcome the Israeli Administration with open arms. No one would be more pleased or gain more succour from the passing of such legislation than the current Israeli Administration, and no one would be more crestfallen about its passing than those of progressive liberal opinion inside the state of Israel, who do not want that to happen. The choice that we need to make is whether we will stand with the people of Israel and of Palestine in protecting their human and political rights against a very right-wing anti-Palestinian Administration, or give succour—almost alone in the world in doing so—to that Administration.

I have already run out of time, Madam Deputy Speaker, but let me finish with this. We have to ask ourselves why the Bill comes at this particular time, in the middle of all the crises in the world and the domestic economic crises right here on our own doorstep. Why this piece of legislation at this particular time? I think the right hon. Member for Barking (Dame Margaret Hodge) hit the nail on the head: this is a grubby measure by the governing party to try to embarrass His Majesty’s Opposition for party political advantage. It is sordid, bad politics. It will not help Jewish communities in this country and it will not help to find a solution in the middle east for all the people who live there.