Published in the Jerusalem Post, 11 July 2023
On July 3 Britain’s House of Commons voted in favour of a government Bill that prevents local authorities and other public bodies from imposing their own economic boycotts or sanctions against foreign states. The government’s intention is to frustrate the aims of the anti-Israel BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) movement.
Opening the debate, Secretary
of State Michael Gove explained that “Action is required here because there is
an existing, organised and malign campaign that aims to target and delegitimise
the world’s only Jewish state. That campaign seeks to persuade public bodies to
make commercial decisions solely on the basis of harming that state and its
people.”
Legislative
action became necessary because in 2016 the UK courts ruled, and in 2017 the
High Court upheld, that the government was acting unlawfully by seeking to
restrict "ethical" boycotts of Israel. Three city councils were named in the
original court case, and during the debate on the current Bill a fourth was
singled out for mention.
After several hours of debate, the Bill was
given what is known as its Second Reading by 268 votes to 70. Two Conservatives voted against it, while
more than 80 abstained. So did the Labour
opposition, which has said that unless the Bill is amended to its liking during
its legislative passage through Parliament, they will finally vote against it.
During the debate Labour’s shadow minister, Lisa Nandy, while roundly condemning the BDS movement, said: “It is not, in our view, wrong for public bodies to take ethical investment and procurement decisions.”
In December 2019, after
five years under the leadership of hard-left Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour party suffered
its worst electoral defeat since the mid-1930s.
Labour’s leader, Sir Keir Starmer, is attempting to manoeuvre the party
toward mainstream British opinion, but he has an uneasy relationship with the
more left-wing Trades Union movement, the party’s main source of finance, which
views his efforts with suspicion. At its
annual meeting in 2019 the Trades Union Congress (TUC) itself voted in favour of
boycotting Israel, while the following year it passed a motion calling for
sanctions to oppose “Israel’s annexation plans”. Labour’s equivocal position is clearly on
display as it condemns BDS while at the same time abstains from the vote on the
Bill’s Second Reading.
In introducing his anti-boycott
Bill, Michael Gove was determined to explain fully why the BDS movement is
specifically targeted. As he launched
into this part of his speech, he rejected effort after effort by MPs to
intervene, insisting on setting out the government’s position without
interruption.
“The BDS movement
deliberately asks public bodies to treat Israel differently from any other
nation on the globe,” said Gove. “It
asks them to treat the Middle East’s only democracy as a pariah state, and to
end links with those who have a commercial presence there. Let me be clear:
there are legitimate reasons to criticise the Israeli Government, to question
their policy and, if individuals so wish, to repudiate their leadership, as
there are with many other countries…Nothing in the Bill prevents or impedes the
loudest of criticisms of Israel’s government and leaders, including by elected
politicians at all levels of government… But the BDS movement asks that, alone
among nations, Israel be treated as illegitimate in itself…
“The founder of the BDS movement, Omar Barghouti, has been clear in his opposition to the existence of Israel as a Jewish state,” said Gove. “He has attacked what he calls the ‘racist principles of Zionism’ – that is, the fundamental right of the Jewish people to self-determination…He opposes any idea of a two-state solution – a secure Israel alongside a viable and democratic Palestine. Instead, the BDS movement’s leader wants a ‘one-state solution…where, by definition, Jews will be a minority.’
“It is …no part of this government’s determination or intent to give any heart or succour to a movement that argues that the two-state solution is wrong, and that Jews should be a minority in one state.”
The vote on July 3 was only the first tentative step in a long legislative journey. Most UK legislation starts life as a Bill in the House of Commons, introduced either by the government or a private member. If it is not voted down at that First Reading stage, it is granted a full debate and vote – its Second Reading. If it passes that test, it moves into what is known as the Committee Stage, where it is scrutinised word by word, line by line, with each change to the original draft subject to a vote. It then returns to the Commons in its amended form for what is known as its Report Stage and Third Reading.
The next step is for
the Bill to be passed to the House of Lords, the scrutinising and revising
chamber in Britain’s bi-cameral legislative system. Here it goes through precisely the same procedure,
namely First and Second Reading, Committee stage, Report stage and Third
Reading. The Bill as amended by the
Lords is then returned to the Commons, where it is either approved in its newly
revised form, or rejected. If the
Commons do not like the Lords’ amendments, a tug-of-war ensues. In the final analysis, however, the will of
the Commons must prevail. Once it has
received the Royal Assent, a Bill turns into an Act of Parliament, and becomes
the law of the land.
In special cases Bills
can pass through the whole legislative process in a matter of days; sometimes
they can take years. On average a full year is needed to complete the process.
Bills can be carried over from one parliamentary session to another, but if
Parliament is prorogued prior to a general election, the whole legislative
machine is brought to a stop.
The next general
election must take place in the UK on or before January 25, 2025. This Bill, scrutinized and doubtless much
amended, and perhaps improved, will either have received the Royal Assent by
then, or it will be up to a new administration to start the wearisome process
over again.
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-749534
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