Britain’s Anti-BDS Law Is an Attack on Democracy
Amnesty International has denounced Israeli rule over the Palestinians as a form of apartheid. But the British government is trying to outlaw the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions campaign and stop it from using the same tactics that helped liberate South Africa.
Demonstrators protest against the forced eviction of Palestinians from their homes in Sheikh Jarrah, East Jerusalem, outside the Israeli embassy in London, United Kingdom, January 21, 2022. (Rasid Necati Aslim / Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
In December of last year, British Conservative politician Robert Jenrick announced that the UK government was “working to outlaw BDS in the UK” and planned to take action in the next few months. Jenrick’s pledge came after his party included a promise to “ban public bodies from imposing their own direct or indirect boycotts, disinvestment or sanctions campaigns against foreign countries” in its 2019 general election manifesto.
The threat to outlaw the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) campaign should be seen in its wider context. The Conservative Party has a decisive majority in Parliament, which it has used to bring forward a panoply of laws intended to restrict the right to protest and roll back human rights protections. The upcoming anti-BDS legislation is part of that effort.
The impending anti-BDS law also forms part of an international push by the Israeli government and its supporters to suppress solidarity with the Palestinian people and, by extension, BDS campaigns. We have already seen the fruits of that effort across Europe and in the United States, with state-level laws designed to curtail BDS.
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