Below is a model motion for CLPs to consider defending our right to boycott, which has been worked on by Labour & Palestine and Palestine Solidarity Campaign supporters who are active in the Labour Party.
It is important for CLPs to keep raising this issue to put pressure on in the run-up to further debates and votes in Parliament on the Tories’ anti-democratic legislation.
CLPs can still submit motions to this year’s Annual Conference – the deadline for motions is 5pm Thursday 21 September.
Alternatively, CLPs can instead pass the motion and send to the NEC (making the necessary small amendments to the model motion text.)
MOTION: Oppose the Tory anti-boycott bill
Conference shares the concerns of a wide range of civil society organisations – including the TUC, affiliated trade unions, charities, NGOs, faith, climate justice and human rights organisations – that the government’s ‘Economic Activity of Public Bodies (Overseas Matters) Bill’ or anti-boycott bill will limit the ability of public authorities to make ethical choices about spending and investment consistent with human rights, climate goals and international law.
We are proud of our movement’s historic support for boycott and divestment campaigns including the campaign to end apartheid in South Africa. Legal advice commissioned by the Labour Party makes clear that had this bill been law during the 1980s, it would have forced local authorities to do business with that criminal and racist regime.
The Tories have indicated that a major reason for proposing this law is to prevent public bodies from divesting from companies operating in Israel and occupied Palestine – even if they are complicit in violating international law and human rights.
Conference believes that public bodies and democratic institutions should be able to spend, invest and trade ethically in line with international law and human rights.
Any suggestion that, alone among peoples facing oppression around the world, Palestinians should be singled out and denied the right to appeal to people of conscience for support is wrong, runs counter to Britain’s legal obligations, and must be rejected.
Conference calls on the PLP to vote against the bill and, if it is passed, commits to repealing the anti-boycott law when Labour is in government.
Labour & Palestine 