Home FEATURED David Lammy Suspends Some 30 Arms Export Licences to Israel

David Lammy Suspends Some 30 Arms Export Licences to Israel

"Given the British Labour Party’s history of anti-semitism, this move will come as no surprise to many, and one can only imagine the almost orgasmic joy this would have brought to many members of a party that has such a long record of anti-semitism."

by gary cartwright

Telling MPs he had received back a legal assessment he requested after Labour won this year’s general election, the Foreign Secretary David Lammy this morning announced that he was suspending some 30 arms export licences to Israel.

He said the suspended items included “components that go into military aircraft, including fighter aircraft helicopter and drones.”

The move was met with some despair in Israel.

Given the British Labour Party’s history of anti-semitism however, this move will come as no surprise to many, and one can only imagine the almost orgasmic joy this would have brought to many members of a party that has a long record of anti-semitism.

Neither will the appointment of one Minouche Shafik, who now works alongside Lammy, dealing with the government’s approach to international development, having resigned earlier this month from her position as head of Colombia University in the U.S. following criticism of her handling of pro-Palestine protests.

Who is Minouche Shafik?

Shafik, a former deputy governor of the Bank of England, was made a life peer in Britain’s House of Lords in 2020, where she is known by the somewhat Pythonesque title of ‘Baroness Shafik, of Camden in the London Borough of Camden and of Alexandria in the Arab Republic of Egypt.’

Cambridge academic Professor Priyamvada Gopal tweeted “The fact that Columbia University’s President who has had to resign in disgrace is immediately embraced and rehabilitated by Starmerite Labour tells you a lot.”

Shortly after 9/11 Shafik said, “there is a broad base of society which has some sympathy for the terrorists. Not so much because they approve of their methods, but as a form of protesting against the system which is not delivering for them on the economical or the political front.”

She stepped down weeks before school year starts, becoming the fourth head of an Ivy League university to quit after facing controversy related to Hamas’s October 7th attack.

“Columbia University’s President Minouche Shafik’s failed presidency was untenable,” Republican Representative Elise Stefanik of New York, the face of the congressional crusade against campus antisemitism, tweeted upon learning of Shafik’s resignation. 

“After failing to protect Jewish students and negotiating with pro-Hamas terrorists, this forced resignation is long overdue.”

Claims by Keir Starmer, and indeed others of that ilk, that the Labour Party is addressing issues of anti-semitism ring hollow when we look at the facts.

As recently as the 2024 general election candidates allowed their true colours to show whilst on the campaign trail.

During the weekend of February 10-11th, it was revealed that Azhar Ali, Labour’s candidate for Rochdale, had expressed an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory following the October 7th Hamas attacks. 

In comments made at a local Lancashire Labour Party meeting, which were obtained through a leaked recording by The Mail on Sunday, Ali suggested that Israel had intentionally allowed the Hamas atrocities to occur to justify a subsequent invasion of Gaza. 

While Israel did indeed face criticism at the time for dismissing prior warnings about the attacks, there is no evidence whatsoever to support the claim that it deliberately allowed its citizens to be targeted.

For 48 hours, the Labour Party continued to back Ali, who issued an “unreserved” apology for his statements. 

However, on February 12th, after additional anti-Semitic comments by Ali came to light, the party suspended him and withdrew its support for his candidacy.

Compounding the issue, another Labour parliamentary candidate, Graham Jones, former MP for Hyndburn, was suspended the following day after a leaked recording revealed him making anti-Israeli comments during the same meeting.

The BBC suggested that  Mr Jones was suspended for comments he appears to have made about Israel, referring to the Guido Fawkes website which had published audio in which Jones allegedly uses an expletive to refer to Israel and argues that British people who fight in the Israeli Defence Forces “should be locked up”.

The icing on the cake, however, came when a third Labour politician, Hyndburn councillor Munsif Dad, who in June of this year had been appointed as Leader of Hyndburn Borough Council, was revealed to have attended the meeting, which, according to Jewish News was called in order to “bolster support for leader Keir Starmer’s stance.”

Jewish News also reported that in the aftermath of the meeting, Lord Mann, an independent peer who advises the government on antisemitism, has said political leaders need to “train up” parliamentary candidates on how anti-semitism manifests in the UK.

He says: “My advice to the Labour Party, what I think they should do immediately, is get all their candidates trained up on anti-semitism.”

With all due respect to Lord Mann, it might appear that any further training on the subject might be unnecessary, they already appear to have mastered it!

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