As one of your constituents, I am asking you to make the Councillor Pledge for Palestine, recently launched by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC).
PSC is asking local government representatives to make this commitment:
As a councillor, I will take all appropriate steps to:
Support efforts to prevent, and ensure accountability for, Israel’s crimes of genocide, military occupation, ethnic cleansing and apartheid.
You can make the pledge on the PSC website by following this link.
PSC will publish a list of all the councillors who have made the pledge, so that we – the voters – know if our councillors have committed to uphold the rights of the Palestinian people.
This is not only because Palestine is a major issue for millions of voters, but also because local council administered pension funds invest more than £12.2 billion in companies enabling Israel’s genocide, military occupation, and apartheid against Palestinians.
A legal notice obtained by PSC and written by legal experts at Doughty Street Chambers has stated that councils administering Local Government Pension Scheme funds are legally required to take steps to divest funds from companies complicit in Israel's crimes.
Already, 28 local councils across Britain have taken a stand in support of divestment.
Recent polling shows that this is strongly backed by people in our community and across the country. For example, in the South of England three times as many voters support councils divesting funds from companies complicit in Israel’s crimes than oppose it – with even more significant support amongst Labour, Liberal Democrat, and Green voters.
The world is waking up to the scale of Israel’s crimes and it is now widely agreed in political parties: from Labour Party Annual Conference voting to acknowledge Israel has committed a genocide, to the Liberal Democrats, the Greens, SNP, Plaid Cymru and Your Party similarly accepting this reality and demanding widespread sanctions.
I want to know if my elected representatives will stand-up for Palestine and this will be a factor in deciding who I vote for in the future.
I therefore urge you to make the Councillor Pledge for Palestine today. Make the pledge by following this link.