A Labour Friends of Israel trip last year. (Photo: LFI)
Parliamentary candidates went on paid-for trips to Israel ahead of the general election, Declassified has found.
Over a dozen new MPs accepted funding from pro-Israel lobby groups before they were even elected to parliament.
The donations were provided by the Labour and Conservative Friends of Israel groups, which aim to promote Israel’s interests in Britain but do not disclose their own sources of funding.
Twelve successful Labour candidates and three Conservatives travelled to Israel with these organisations in the year leading up to Britain’s general election.
The total cost of the trips was over £30,000, with some of them taking place amid Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza and being described as “solidarity” missions.
The revelation comes in the first MPs’ register of interests for the new parliament, which was released this month.
Andrew Feinstein, an arms trade expert who stood as an independent candidate against Keir Starmer, told Declassified: “It is deeply disturbing that the Friends of Israel organisations are attempting to cultivate politicians in Britain even before they are elected”.
UK Labour Party Shadow Foreign Secretary repeatedly heckled at a speech to the Fabian Society over his and the Labour Party’s support for and complicity in Israel’s genocide of Gaza.
The man who wants to be foreign secretary is reassuring elite audiences that UK foreign policy will not seriously change under a Keir Starmer government – a strategy confirmed in Labour’s election manifesto.
David Lammy and Keir Starmer in Normandy. (Photo: Labour Party / Flickr)
“Labour has been clear throughout this conflict that international law must be upheld”, David Lammy recently told parliament, referring to Gaza.
The opposite is the case: Keir Starmer, Lammy himself and other Labour figures, have largely given Israel a free pass in committing whatever crime it wants in Gaza free from any censure by Labour.
Starmer said last October that Israel has the “right” to cut off water and power from Gaza.
Then last month, the Labour leader repeatedly refused to say in an interview with Channel 4 if he would enforce the arrest warrants for Israeli ministers being sought by the International Criminal Court (ICC).
Lammy, who is a lawyer like Starmer, also appears to have a problem seeing where international law needs to be upheld.
Lammy has not overtly supported the ICC prosecutor’s call to arrest Israeli prime minister Benyamin Netanyahu and defence minister Yoav Gallant. Rather, he has told MPs that the ICC’s decision to seek warrants “is an independent matter for the court”.
Last October, after Israel bombed the Jabalia refugee camp in Gaza, killing over 50 civilians, Lammy stated that “it’s wrong to bomb a refugee camp but clearly if there is a military objective it can be legally justifiable. It’s for Israel to explain its actions”.
But Lammy did do something remarkable recently. On 27 May, he nearly condemned Israel directly.
He said: “We condemn the appalling strikes on a supposed ‘safe zone’ in Rafah. The Labour Party have opposed an Israeli offensive in Rafah for months.”
As far as I can tell, this was the first time Lammy has condemned Israel after nearly eight months of slaughter in Gaza.
Ceasefire
A month into Israel’s bombardment of Gaza, Lammy abstained on the British parliament’s vote calling for a ceasefire. He also indicated that shadow ministers who voted in favour of the motion would have to resign.
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Why are Lammy and Labour so supportive of Israel, despite the extent of its atrocities and British public opposition to the attacks on Gaza?
One reason is that Lammy is Washington’s man in Labour and cannot be seen to upset policy-makers in the US who consistently facilitate Israel’s onslaught on Palestinians.
Lammy has constantly signalled that Labour foreign policy under his leadership will deviate little from Washington’s priorities, and he has been a regular visitor to a string of elite, establishment fora in the US.
The other reason is that Lammy is, like 20 percent of his fellow Labour MPs, a recipient of funds from the Israel lobby. Since becoming an MP in 2000, he has accepted donations from the Israel lobby on numerous occasions, the value amounting to £32,550, Declassified has found.
Lammy is also a supporter of the Labour Friends of Israel group, which works to promote the interests of Israel within the Labour Party.
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Lammy’s strategy has also been on show in his recent article in Foreign Affairs magazine, a publication of the US establishment think tank, the Council on Foreign Relations.
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Lammy refers in his article to Israel as one country he sees as a “vital partner” for Britain. This, after it has murdered tens of thousands of Palestinians and is accused of genocide.
Lammy is being advised by Ben Judah, a former columnist at the Jewish Chronicle and senior figure at the Atlantic Council, a Washington-based establishment body that “galvanises US leadership” in the world.
Don’t expect serious foreign policy change under Labour or any real commitment to human rights or international law, even when lawyers are in office.
