In April, former UK Conservative Party Foreign Secretary Sir Alan Duncan spoke out on the pro-Israeli lobby influence on the Conservative Party - and was immediately accused of “antisemitism” and suspended from the Party.
On 16th July after an investigation he was cleared of all charges. This is what he had to say - and didn’t pull his punches.
This article also looks at this from the Australian Lobby perspective - parallels with the lobby here and learnings from Duncan’s approach.
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Article updated: Monday 23rd Sep 2024 (Sleekit Scotsman ☮️🏴 articles are updated periodically to add latest information on the subject of the article for relevance)
After the IDF murder of World Central Kitchen relief workers on 1st April1, a senior member of the UK Conservative Party and a former Foreign Secretary - Sir Alan Duncan - spoke out about the undue influence of pro-Israeli groups in the UK Government.
He was immediately suspended from the party on “charges of antisemitism”.2
On 16th July the committee tasked with investigating the charge fully exonerated him.3
Duncan then gave a scathing press conference, revealed disturbing elements uncovered by the investigation itself and called for further action to effectively dismantle the pro-Israeli influence networks on the Conservative Party.
After his statement he answered questions from journalists and in an interview with Declassified UK succinctly summarised:
noted the parliamentary “Conservative Friends of Israel” (CFI) group was trying to force the extreme policy of a foreign country on the UK Government
forced by groups claiming to represent the views of the Jewish community (Duncan called out the Board of Deputies of British Jews (JBOD) and the Campaign Against Antisemitism(CAA)- formed in 2014 to counter public opinion against IDF Operation Protective Edge which killed 2000 civilians and the ICC began investigating in 2021)
calling for the decoupling of domestic Jewish opinion from the foreign policy influence based on Israeli wishes
This is the interview Duncan gave with LBC on 4th April 2024.
Essentially he:
Called for an arms embargo on Israel
Questioned the impartiality of the Minister for Security Tom Tugendhat - quite rightly - who in 2017 in the Spectator Magazine wrote that he disagreed with UN Resolution 2334 which declared Israeli settlement building in the occupied territories illegal.4 Tugendhat was responsible for working with the Home Secretary Michael Gove to redefine the rule for protest in the wake of pro-Palestine protest in the UK.
Noted direct influence on the PM’s Cabinet promoting Netanyahu’s extreme policies - and those individuals should be sacked
Gave another example of the “underhand” action of Home Secretary Michael Gove attempting to introduce legislation to prevent local authorities from boycotting or even advocating a boycott of implicitly ILLEGAL Israeli Goods from illegal settlements. A direct contravention of international law and the official Conservative Party line.5
This he alleged was the result of direct lobbying from Lord Polak of the Conservative Friends of Israel6 to the PM - suggesting that this would upset a huge donor base to the Party - thus “backdooring” UK Foreign Policy.
For speaking out - Duncan was immediately suspended on a claim of antisemitism and subjected to the parties complaints investigation process by the Conservative Campaign HeadQuarters (CCHQ).
However - when he got the report back on the 16th it revealed some disturbing details he noted “discredited the Conservative Party and amounted to a despicable McCarthyite witch hunt”.
He recapped the process of his suspension:
He was first contacted by the Press regarding the complaint - who had comments from the Board of Deputies of British Jews and the Campaign Against Antisemitism (whose CEO Gideon Falter was filmed attempting to incite a pro-Palestinian crowd and lying to police in April in addition to being a central figure in orchestrating the removal of Jeremy Corbyn from the UK Labour Party).
He noted these comments followed the regular pattern of these organisations who viciously accuse anyone criticising Israel of being antisemitic
The Conservatives:
broke their own rules by talking to the Press before him
not saying which clause of code violated
refused to give him a copy of the complaint he was required to answer
Duncan was speaking in response to the 1st April atrocity and not for any political gain or to cause inconvenience at a sensitive time.]
He could not have known that PM Rishi Sunak would call a surprise general election a month later - which made the burying of the issue all the more convenient for the Conservatives.
An umbrella-less Rishi Sunak calls the UK Election on 22nd May 2024
The panel reached the conclusion that there was no case against Duncan - and more specifically that his remarks were NOT antisemitic.
Duncan noted the Panel themselves acted exemplarily and had no issues with their process or impartiality - as it should be.
The adjudication was reached on 16th June - but CCHQ held off telling Duncan the outcome for a month, conveniently two weeks after the UK General Election and Starmer’s landslide win.
Conservative Party record of decision - complaint not upheld. Jul 16 2024 International Centre of Justice for Palestinians (ICJP) - “Ex-Foreign Minister Sir Alan Duncan fully cleared of wrongdoing following Conservative Party antisemitism investigation“ here
He noted the issues on the hysteria around “antisemitism” and specifically the problems with the IHRA definition:
When it comes to accusations of antisemitism, we are not equal under the law. Where the IHRA definition has been adopted as the benchmark for conduct, there is no equivalent benchmark for those who feel wrongly accused, or who consider their attackers to be the real extremists.
Where antisemitism genuinely exists, it should be ruthlessly called out. But it should not be artificially used to divert attention from legitimate comment on Israel.
These issues were prophetically pointed out back in 2016 by Geoffrey Robinson AO KC in his legal analysis of the UK Government’s decision to adopt the definition.7
Duncan made clear points on the cause and impact of the claims:
The perverse and I would argue corrupt relationship between the Conservative Friends of Israel (CFI) and the top of the Conservative party this has gone on for too long - money improper influence and the promotion of Israeli interests above our own have contributed to the destruction of the UK's independent foreign policy.
They've also undermined UNRWA, the UN and international law, and it all comes at the expense of innocent Palestinians.
You need no greater evidence of this than the total silence we saw about Gaza during the election campaign likewise nor was there a squeak about the acceleration of illegal settlement building and repulsive settler violence in the West Bank.
These issues have been buried more quickly than Gaza's 40,000 dead. If the conservative party is to recover it cannot do so without admitting and addressing this poison in its midst.”
On reading the report with his lawyers, Duncan noticed details vindicating his position and requiring further investigation.
It turned out that there was no official complaint - it was a “quiet word” by nameless individuals that compelled “the Party” to suspend him and investigate.
Which aligned perfectly with Duncan’s allegations as he pointed out this very form of coercion was being used to get around official Party processes - including the implementation of foreign policy of the UK.
The decision to suspend and investigate was a political decision from “unnamed actors”.
Duncan had engaged a legal team to refute the claims but which also uncovered the breaks in process requiring further investigation. Questions to answer:
What happened in CCHQ? Who made the decision to shape and adopt this complaint?
Who instructed press officers to notify the media?
What contact was there about this between CFI, the then Party Chairman, Oliver Dowden, or any others?
And proposed changes:"
Will the Party undertake to decouple itself from CFI, and direct its efforts to supporting Jewish people within the UK, separate from defending Israeli excess?
Will the Party come clean on who paid for Priti Patel’s trip to Israel after which she was sacked as Development Secretary?
Will the Press put each and every Conservative leadership contender on the spot about their adherence to international law and the illegality of settlements?
On these questions he noted “I hope all decent journalists and public figures will assist in that endeavour”
Duncan was cleared and gave a Press Conference on 16th July.
As at 19th July – a Google Search of all media outlets publishing his story showed below:
Not one UK Press outlet other than the Guardian in Google Search of what should be a scandalous breaking story. And yet - we know how a search of complaints of antisemitism would go nearer the time, or here in Australia on The Greens / Fatima Payman etc.
And that’s it. The Guardian, Middle Eastern sources and further down the page another UK source - the Jewish Chronicle8. Which reported:
The Chairman of another Jewish group the National Jewish Assembly (NJA) Gary Mond had resigned his membership of the Conservative Party
Interestingly the purpose of the NJA is stated as “a truly representative conduit for the communication of the views of British Jewry to government and other decision-makers on the three key pillars of - national Jewish life, fighting antisemitism and supporting Israel” - the very conflation Duncan was referring to.
Mond resigned in protest at the Party not willing to “Stand by Conservative Friends of Israel in upholding the complaint against Duncan”
Vowing to continue the fight and appeal the decision (to Duncan’s point - who, and how would actors influence an independent Conservative Party Review Board?)
And in the same breath - ironically the next article in the Jewish Chronicle noted that the publication had received briefing notes from Labour Friends of Israel - which was to report on a “recommendation” to the UK Government to transition management of UNRWA to the Palestinian Authority.
Where are the “decent journalists” that Duncan is appealing to in order to expose the pro-Israeli influence - noting Press hysteria was happy to foment the false accusations in the first place.
With the change in Government the focus is elsewhere.
So to Australia - potentially the most well established generational pro-Israeli lobby in the world (see “related articles” section for overview article).
Sir Alan Duncan was speaking out against a single UK “Friends of Israel” group.
In Australia - with one third of the population of the UK and a much smaller Parliament- Federal and two State Parliaments have ELEVEN Friends of Israel Parliamentary groups.
Over many years multiple MPs, journalists and other public figures have taken paid pro-Israeli lobby trips to Israel cultivating thinking in a particular way at best.
The result is 56 of our CURRENT sitting MPs have taken pro-Israel lobby funded trips to Israel over the years. The number is shocking - but the salient positions many of those MPs occupy is more telling - to name a few:
Federal House and Senate Leaders and Deputy Leaders of the Opposition (Peter Dutton, Susan Ley, Simon Birmingham, Jonathon Duniam)
Deputy PM & Defence Minister (Richard Marles)
Treasurer & Assistant Treasurer (Jim Chalmers, Tim Watts)
Foreign Affairs Minister (Penny Wong)
Victorian Deputy Leader of the Opposition (David Southwick)
NSW State Premier (Chris Minns)
There is a direct correlation between those that have taken the trips and the defensive behaviour of Israel in the House in terms of speeches and voting patterns.
There is an inappropriately close relationship and direct access between members of the pro-Israeli lobby and our politicians that has been in place over a long period of time with direct Prime Ministerial access.
And in June six Victorian State MPs took a “secret squirrel” AIJAC trip to Israel as the battle raged in Gaza in the areas Biden and others designated “a red line”.
The trip coincided with the IDF operation to rescue 4 hostages where they entered Nuseirat Refugee Camp during the day disguised using humanitarian relief worker vans.
This subterfuge is clearly defined by international law as the war crime of perfidy - for good reason - the risk to civilians.
And so it was almost 300 Gazans were killed in the operation and at least 700 injured - in order to rescue 4 hostages.
And the Victorian MPs - entertained by the pro-Israeli lobby - celebrated this as “a heroic IDF operation”. Hence why this trip has had a lot less publicity than others.
She happened to be a young Muslim woman - and was heavily criticised, demonised and ostracised.- suspended from the Party and her own citizenship questioned.
She had no choice but to leave Labor and continue as an independent.
So again - who - with some Party elder Ministerial experience will speak out on this? How will their voices be amplified without the NewsCorp Press acting as the mouthpiece of the lobby in an orchestrated campaign, whilst they are threatened with lawfare from the network of pro-Israeli lawyers leveraging their day jobs in the lobby.
Only Bob Carr, the former Premier of NSW and Foreign Secretary and Deputy PM of Australia had the courage to speak out frankly - but in frustration at the lobby’s control over PM Julia Gillard whom they assisted in unseating Kevin Rudd in 2010.
Sydney Morning Herald Apr 10 2014 - “Bob Carr's texts to Gillard reveal 'extraordinary' influence pro-Israel lobby had on former PM“ here
But who else?
The frankness and common sense voice of authority is desperately needed in Australia that must come from the political community themselves to bolster voices in the community.
Over the last 30 years I have vocally supported the rights of Palestinians. I am a defender of international law, the United Nations, and human rights. I have consistently criticised the illegal colonisation, through settlements, of land which does not belong to Israel and which is rightfully Palestinian.
Although this is also the stated policy of the Conservative Party and all British governments, it has made me the target of political attack from those who believe otherwise.
These attacks have come from Israel itself but also, and in some ways more viciously, from UK-based organisations who claim to represent UK Jewish opinion. They tend to transform that presumption into the defence of everything Israel does, however extreme.
In April, Israel’s reprisals in Gaza were at their most intense. The death toll had reached 30,000; a high proportion were women and children; hundreds of thousands were being forcibly displaced; they were being denied food and water; the UN and UNWRA were being derided; international law was being broken; and many across the world were calling for arms sales to Israel to cease.
In what was just the latest of many interventions in which I defended the importance of international law, I was interviewed on April 4th by Nick Ferrari of LBC.
In that interview I called for arms embargo, and also accused some senior Conservative figures of not believing that illegal settlements were indeed illegal. I also accused them of promoting Netanyahu’s extreme policies to the point where some should be sacked from the then Government, or expelled from the House of Lords.
What happened then is a political scandal which discredits the Conservative Party, and which amounts to a McCarthyite witch hunt which is nothing less than despicable.
I was contacted by the press who had been told I was accused of being antisemitic and was to be put into the Party’s complaints procedure under threat of expulsion. Nobody at that stage from the Party had contacted me.
The Party refused to tell me who had complained or what precisely the complaint was. All I had to go one were some comments to the press by the likes of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, and the Campaign Against Antisemitism. They accused me of peddling antisemitic tropes.
This merely followed the regular pattern of comments from such organisations in which anyone who criticises Israel is more often than not viciously accused of being antisemitic.
The Party broke all its own rules by telling the press before telling me; by not saying what clause of their code I was supposed to have violated; and by refusing to give me a copy of the complaint I was required to answer. I nonetheless was required to offer a defence.
Rather than just resign from the Party in disgust, I engaged lawyers at considerable personal expense to see off what I considered were false allegations.
It was therefore hardly surprising that CCHQ withheld their adjudication for a number of weeks until after the General Election.
I have now received the Panel’s findings. Their exact words are as follows:
Quote The Panel concluded that the complaint could not be upheld for two reasons: 1. the Respondent’s comments did not go beyond political debate, and so were not regulated by the Code, and/or 2. as a matter of fact in this case, the Respondent’s comments were not antisemitic and could not properly be regarded as such. Unquote
I have thus been totally exonerated.
It would be heartening to assume – although sadly unrealistic ever to expect – that the same intense press coverage which was given to the accusation in April will now be given to the outcome.
I would like to think that this would be the end of the matter. But what has been revealed in the adjudication has taken this episode from bad to worse.
It turns out that there was no formal complaint. What in fact happened was that in response to the flurry of press activity the Party itself converted public comments into a complaint which the Party itself levelled against me and treated as if it were a formal complaint, even though none such even existed.
The Panel stated in its accompanying note:
Quote The Panel understood that this was not a matter where any formal complaint had been submitted to the Party so a copy could not have been provided to the Respondent. Rather, it was a matter that had come to the Party’s attention and been taken on by the Party as Complainant. Quote
So I have been put through a complaints procedure which was potentially highly damaging to my reputation, when there hadn’t ever been a complaint. It was in fact a political decision by invisible actors who have not come forward. It was the product of precisely the sort of corrupt collusion I had identified and criticised.
I commend the Panel for their integrity and thoroughness. The three members on it have behaved impeccably throughout. But certain people in the Party have not, and we need to know who they are. What we have seen is a perfect example of the underhand collusion that has existed for so long between immoderate defenders of Israeli extremism and figures at the top of the Conservative Party, both inside and outside Parliament.
They have tried to threaten me. But I will not be bullied or silenced.
When it comes to accusations of antisemitism, we are not equal under the law. Where the IHRA definition has been adopted as the benchmark for conduct, there is no equivalent benchmark for those who feel wrongly accused, or who consider their attackers to be the real extremists.
Where antisemitism genuinely exists, it should be ruthlessly called out. But it should not be artificially used to divert attention from legitimate comment on Israel.
The attacks on me have been vexatious and unjustified, as the panel concluded clearly.
I consider myself free to repeat everything I said in my evidence to the Party’s complaints process, and I will consider publishing all of it.
At its heart is the perverse – I would argue corrupt – relationship between the Conservative Friends of Israel and the top of the Conservative Party. This has gone on for far too long. Money, improper influence, and the promotion of Israeli interests above our own, have contributed to the destruction of the UK’s independent foreign policy. They have undermined UNWRA, the UN, and international law, and it all comes at the expense of innocent Palestinians.
You need no greater evidence of this than the total silence we saw about Gaza during the election campaign. Likewise, nor was there a squeak about the acceleration of illegal settlement building and repulsive settler violence in the West Bank. The issue has been buried more quickly than Gaza’s 40,000 dead.
The election of a Labour Government has injected some rays of hope into this tragic issue. The appointment of Richard Hermer as Attorney General is highly encouraging, and it is to be hoped that the Prime Minister’s own record as a human rights lawyer will inspire him to be courageous and principled. The few months before the US election offer him a window of opportunity to reassert UK policy on adherence to international law.
If the Conservative Party is to recover, it cannot do so without admitting and addressing this poison in its midst. It must start by clearly answering some crucial questions about its conduct.
– What happened in CCHQ? Who made the decision to shape and adopt this complaint?
– Who instructed press officers to notify the media?
– What contact was there about this betweenCFI, the then Party Chairman, Oliver Dowden, or any others?
– Will the Party undertake to decouple itself from CFI, and direct its efforts to supporting Jewish people within the UK, separate from defending Israeli excess?
– Will the Party come clean on who paid for Priti Patel’s trip to Israel after which she was sacked as Development Secretary?
– Will the Press put each and every Conservative leadership contender on the spot about their adherence to international law and the illegality of settlements?
These are but a few on the many questions the Press should be asking about this long-running scandal.
In summary, we must all adhere to international law and uphold the activity of its institutions, its courts, and its people.
In doing so, I will not be bullied or silenced, and I hope all decent journalists and public figures will assist in that endeavour.
The Jewish Chronicle - the only other outlet to report the Duncan story other than The Guardian - is a London based Jewish newspaper - the oldest continually published Jewish newspaper in the world founded in 1841.
During the Gaza crisis there was criticism of the regular one-sided media platform given to its editor Jake Wallis Simons, in particular regular appearances on UK Sky News with lack of diverse views on the same program. This was constantly presented as if it was the majority view.
With a tiny circulation, in 2020 the newspaper faced bankruptcy and was rescued by a Consortium led by current BBC Board Member Sir Robbie Gibb.
Gibb is an influential individual whose past roles have also included:
Head of BBC Westminster and Editor of BBC Live Political News
Deputy Editor of BBC Newsnight
Director of Communications at No. 10 under PM Theresa May (2017-2019)
Given Gibb’s position of influence at the BBC it would seem there is a conflict of interest there - in particular where his past commentary has said that BBC seems to “actively hate Israel”.10
On the purchase of the Chronicle - it would be impossible for Gibb to rescue the newspaper from his own funds - and the members of the purchasing Consortium are opaque at best.11
In view of the particular line of editorial during the Israel-Gaza War - transparency of ownership is particularly important - as it would be if anyone was to purchase a UK Newspaper “on conditions of anonymity”.
As at March 2024 the newspaper has filed to restructure as a Charity which seems inappropriate given the political nature of its content.
The Chronicle would appear to be a heavily platformed, biased media outlet - now for the first time in its history under unstated ownership.
Update: 23rd September: Jewish Chronicle caught publishing untrue Israeli State Propaganda and forced to retract
Well that didn’t take long to above point.
The Chronicle was found to have been publishing completely untrue Israeli State Propaganda and forced to retract.12
Note some of the examples in the article - it’s not IDF Propaganda, the IDF dismissed some of the articles as baseless which suited Netanyahu’s political narrative.
Rightly so - questions are being asked of the ownership of the JC - noting their agenda is ridiculously clear.
I note the Mondoweiss Article on legal precedent for taking action against media knowingly enabling a genocide. Quoting a Rwandan Judge on media propaganda after convicting three media execs after the Rwanda genocide:13
“The power of the media to create and destroy fundamental human values comes with great responsibility. Those who control such media are accountable for its consequences”
Parallels with Australia - where MPs trips to Israel are regularly praised in local Jewish newspapers.
The mainstream media - almost exclusively the News Corp Press - has blatant endless editorials and column space given daily to the pro-Israeli lobby to the exclusion of criticism of Israel or the IDF.
The Australian newspaper in particular (ironically known as “The Israelian”) is the regular mouthpiece of the lobby - with racist cartoons as a regular weekend feature.
Media bias has been one of the keystones in shaping public opinion enabling the continuation of Israel’s approach in Gaza.
As with political influence, there must be accountability and transparency here also.
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