BICOM

The Labour Party voted yesterday to support an international investigation of Israeli action on the Gaza border and to halt UK arms exports to Israel.

The motions were passed after a lengthy debate that saw Palestinian flags waved in the convention hall and participants chanting, “Free Palestine”. “[The] conference urges an independent, international investigation into Israel’s use of force against Palestinian demonstrators; a freeze of UK Government arms sales to Israel; and an immediate unconditional end to the illegal blockade and closure of Gaza,” the motion read.

More than 188,000 people voted to debate Palestine at party conference, thousands more than for traditional Labour concerns such as the National Health Service, the welfare system, or Brexit.

The conference condemned the US decision to cut funding to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), describing the move as an “aggressive attempt to rewrite history, and erase the victims of the 1948 war, who were expelled or fled from their homes in Palestine”. Conference members urged the Government to increase aid to UNRWA and to encourage other member states to do the same. The UK announced in September that it will give an extra £7m to UNRWA, to compensate for US cuts, increasing its funding so far this year from £28.5m to £45.5m. In 2017 the UK donated £67m to the UN agency.

Speaking at a Labour Friends of Palestine event at the conference on Monday, party leader Jeremy Corbyn said a Labour government would recognise a “state of Palestine” as soon as it is elected. Corbyn was also questioned by John Snow on Channel 4, in which he refused to answer a question as to whether he regretted giving interviews to Press TV, an Iranian-backed news agency that had its licence revoked in the UK. Corbyn said: “I took part in some programmes of Press TV. I stopped doing anything for Press TV when they dealt with the [2009] elections in Iran.” It has emerged that Corbyn was giving interviews for Press TV until 2012.

Deputy leader Tom Watson told the Labour Friends of Israel meeting that the party had a “moral obligation” to remove antisemitism within its ranks. He said “failing to tackle the problem risks eternal shame” on the party, and condemned those who make “grotesque parallels between the Jewish state and the Nazis” and others who call for boycotts of Israeli goods.

Shadow Foreign Secretary Emily Thornberry told the conference: “I stand here with no hesitation when I condemn the Netanyahu government for its racist policies and its criminal actions against the Palestinian people.” She added: “But I know as well, and we must all acknowledge, that there are sickening individuals on the fringes of our movement, who use our legitimate support for Palestine as a cloak and a cover for their despicable hatred of Jewish people, and their desire to see Israel destroyed”.

Speaking about racism in the Labour Party, she said: “I never thought I’d have to say in my lifetime as a Labour member and activist, and it is simply this: that if we want to root out fascism and racism and hatred from our world, and from our country, then we must start, we must start, with rooting it out of our own party.”