Conservative MP Robert Jenrick won his amendment to the Pensions Bill in February 2022 to allow the government to stop public sector pension providers from making ethical investment or disinvestment choices that are not in line with ‘UK foreign and defence policy’. In other words, from divesting from companies complicit in Israeli apartheid. Jenrick tagged a late-stage amendment onto a pensions bill already going through parliament. In their manifesto for the 2019 General Election, the Tories promised a bill to make BDS illegal; they are stopping any publicly-funded bodies from boycotting apartheid Israel. The bill was passed on February 22, the government backed the amendment and MPs voted by a majority of 218 in its favour. See The Pension Expert of 23/2/22
The 13 Lib Dem MPs voted against it…but it appears that over 60 Labour MPs supported the move. Several brave Labour MPs spoke out against the amendment. Coventry South MP Zarah Sultana said it would have a “chilling effect” and ensure that pension funds were “weaponised against human rights campaigns”. Hammersmith MP Andy Slaughter said it had no place in the Bill and Kemptown MP Lloyd Russell-Moyle said it would not allow for any fund to operate with an “ethical framework”. Labour’s former deputy leader John McDonnell said: “I don’t believe it is the role of the state to ride roughshod over my moral choices.”
Following the vote, Jenrick told the Jewish Chronicle: “BDS against Israel is all too often connected to antisemitism her in the UK and does nothing to promote peace and is increasingly out of step with the mood in the Middle East following the Abraham Accords, whereby a number of Gulf states are forging productive links with Israel.
“It is unacceptable for local councils to be making divisive foreign policy interventions contrary to the position of the UK Government. I am delighted that my amendment has passed and wil be the first step in legislation outlawing BDS in the UK. I hope it presages a wider Bill in the forthcoming Queen’s Speech tackling BDS throughout the public sector.”
Ben Jamal, director at PSC, said: “The attempts to delegitimise the BDS movement are shameful. Boycotts and divestments are time-honoured tactics rooted in universal principles of accountability and justice used throughout history by those concerned about being complicit with supporting systems of injustice.
“Pension schemes should divest from companies involved in illegal activity, and are legally entitled to do so.”
Omar Barghouti, co-founder of the BDS movement for Palestinian rights, added: “This amendment is not merely anti-Palestinian, it is also a shocking form of anti-democratic repression. It attempts to prevent UK taxpayers and their elected local councils from avoiding investment in war crimes, fossil fuels, apartheid and grave human rights violations.”