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British Rebellion Grows Against Arming Israel

London’s mayor, 50 Labour MPs and Winston Churchill’s grandson have joined widening calls to defy Israel’s impunity by demanding the U.K. stop sending it arms, reports Joe Lauria

Joe Lauria, in Bradford, England, Consortium News, April 4, 2024

Even Winston Churchill’s grandson is calling for Britain to stop shipping arms to Israel. 

Asked whether it was time for Britain to stop sending weapons to Israel after it killed seven international aid workers this week, the Conservative peer Lord Nicholas Soames said, “It’s probably time that that happened now, yes, I think if we’re determined to show that we are not prepared to countenance these ongoing disasters.”

The rebellion within British ruling circles against knee-jerk support for is Israel is spreading after the killing of the aid workers and after leaked audio recordings on Saturday revealed the British government is ignoring the advice of its own lawyers not to continue supplying weapons to Israel for its Gaza operation without risking complicity in crimes against humanity. 

[It took Westerners, including three Britons, being killed to spur this action after more than 32,000 Palestinians are dead. It also forced Israel on Friday to sack two military officers and reprimand two top commanders for “serious” errors in killing the aid workers, who were in marked cars. There’s nothing like the fear of an arms cutoff to make Israel try to do something.]

On Wednesday, more than 600 British lawyers, academics and retired senior judges — including three who sat on the country’s Supreme Court — wrote to Prime Minister Rishi Sunak imploring him to cut off military aid and even called for sanctions against the most senior Israeli leaders. 

The rebellion is erupting in both major parties, as well as in the Liberal Democrats, which on Thursday wrote to No. 10’s ethics advisor to urge a probe into whether U.K. arms sales could be a breach of Britian’s ministerial code. The letter said “the UK must not be complicit in breaches of international humanitarian law,” The Guardian reported.

The Labour Party is in upheaval as the mayor of London and 50 Labour MPs on Thursday said Britain should no longer arm a state that is increasingly unable to hide its crimes. “In my view, the fact the government is not publishing the legal advice, one can only draw one conclusion,” Mayor Sadiq Khan told the Politics Joe website. “I think the government should be pausing all sales of weapons to Israel. I think we should be holding to account the Israeli government.”  He added: It’s got to stop.”

As he tries to unify a fractious party over the issue, Labour leader Keir Starmer has not gone beyond calling for the legal advice mentioned in the leaked audio to be made public.

Britain exported £42 million of weapons to Israel in 2023.  Figures since Oct. 7 last year have not yet been released.  A British break with Israel on Gaza would be politically more significant than the size of the arms transfers. 

Tories Imploding Too

Rebellion is breaking out in the ruling Conservative Party as well. Churchill’s grandson has been joined by Lord  Hugo Swire and three Tory MPs – Paul Bristow, Flick Drummond and David Jones – in demands that arms shipments be halted. 

Sir Alan Duncan, a figure reviled by Julian Assange supporters for gleefully organizing his arrest from the Ecuador Embassy in April 2019, is being investigated by the Conservative Party for potentially “anti-semitic” remarks after he criticized pro-Israel Tory “extremists.”

“The time has come to flush out those extremists in our own parliamentary politics, and around it, some of whom are at the very top of government, or have been,” he told a radio interviewer on Thursday. “They have never been called to account by journalists to say: Do you agree with your own party’s policy? Do you condemn illegal settlements?’”

Duncan, a former minister in Conservative Theresa May’s government, added: “Conservative Friends of Israel has been doing the bidding of [Benjamin] Netanyahu, bypassing all proper processes of government, to exercise undue influence at the top of government.” 

David Cameron, the former prime minister, current foreign secretary and prospective Tory leader once again, is reportedly under pressure from these party “extremists” because he doesn’t share their fanatical devotion to Israel.  This is a man who as prime minister once called Gaza an “open-air prison.” He is far more restrained in his criticism now. But he’s feeling the heat in party backrooms……………………………. more https://consortiumnews.com/2024/04/04/british-rebellion-grows-against-arming-israel/

April 7, 2024 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Israel, politics, UK