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During a visit to the ultra-orthodox, Charadi, Jewish community in Stamford Hill, Communities Secretary Michael Gove warned that the movement to boycott Israel is fuelling antisemitic incidents in the UK.
Rt. Hon. Michael Gove MP gave a passionate speech which condemned the Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, expressing that before the end of this Parliament a Bill (mentioned in the Queen’s Speech earlier this month) to prohibit public bodies from supporting the anti-Israel campaign would be passed. “The BDS campaign is not about running an ethical foreign policy”, he stated, it’s “designed for only one purpose: to attack and delegitimise the State of Israel and the idea that there should be a Jewish state at all”.
The Secretary of State outlined that “it’s critically important that we call out the BDS campaign for what it is: an explicitly antisemitic campaign”, adding that the BDS “campaign has not only undermined efforts for peace in the Middle East. It also leads to community tension in the UK. We’ve seen an increase in antisemitic incidents and the BDS campaign is a driver of that”.
Mr Gove continued, saying “we have got to make it clear that local authorities and other public bodies should not be running campaigns that subvert the United Kingdom’s foreign policy and exacerbate community tension”. He explained that he is “grateful” to cross-party MPs who “understand the importance of fighting antisemitism and who support this legislation”.
He spoke about the “double standards” that can be seen within the rhetoric used by the BDS movement, and expressed his disapproval at the “different standards” that Israel is held at compared to “other atrocities that genuinely deserve our attention”.
The Communities Secretary stated that “we have been warned and we need to take a stand” against BDS and antisemitism as “we know that what begins as prejudice against the Jewish people takes us to the darkest place humanity has known”.
Mr Gove’s comments come in the wake of various action by the UK Government in recent months to combat BDS in the UK. Most recently, at the CFI Parliamentary Reception this month Home Secretary Priti Patel stated that “everything we have seen around the BDS movement is racist”. In February, an amendment to the Public Service Pension Bill preventing public service pension funds from being misused to target Israel through divestments was adopted with the Government’s support after being tabled by former Communities Secretary Rt. Hon. Robert Jenrick MP. During the debate on the amendment, Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Rt. Hon. Simon Clarke MP, underlined that BDS “has nothing to do with pensions and everything to do with politics”.
