A PIECE of legislation designed to prevent public bodies, including local authorities, from steering clear of investments in countries whose human rights records they disagree with is before Parliament.

On July 3 only 10 MPs voted against it, with many abstaining. Backers included the legislation’s sponsor Michael Gove and the parliamentary frontman for Labour Friends of Israel Steve McCabe.

The target of the legislation is not, as might be supposed, Russia — but Israel. There is a significant boycott, divestment and sanction (BDS) movement that focuses on the activities of the Israeli government, which is currently of a hard to far-right political nature. Military intervention in Jenin, part of an area Israel occupies, underlines the reality of that government’s activities.

Meanwhile the government of course is officially boycotting Russia over the war with Ukraine. There clearly remain links, however, between the Tories the Russian government and business people.

A recent party at the Russian ambassador’s residence in London was attended by some Tory peers. For Tories, human rights may be nodded at — but the key is profit… and boycotts aim to hit profits.

The most successful Britain-focused boycott in recent history was against apartheid South Africa. It was wide-ranging, covering everything from South African produce to sport. It wasn’t the only thing that brought apartheid down, but it helped — as Nelson Mandela himself reflected.

Boycotts however have a much longer history. They started out as simple acts of solidarity. In the 1820s when trade unions were banned under the Combination Acts, craft workers would simply refuse to work with someone if they were not covertly a union member.

Other boycotts aimed to hit government revenue and the profits of those who supported it.

Henry Hunt, who was the speaker at Peterloo in 1819, promoted his “breakfast powder,” which consisted of roasted corn. The aim was to boycott tea and coffee which were excisable articles and therefore hit an undemocratic government in the pocket. Dissenting ministers in the early 19th century smoked raspberry leaves rather than tobacco with a similar purpose.

In the late 1830s, the Chartists called a “grand national holiday” where the call was to abstain from all excisable goods such as beer and tobacco. The idea again was to deprive the government of revenue. It didn’t work because it relied on individual effort, rather than a collective and organised campaign.

Better organised was the tactic of “exclusive dealing” which the Chartists operated in the late 1830s and the 1840s. The Chartist plan was to boycott shops and businesses that did not support the Charter. Conversely, those businesses that did, advertised the fact to attract custom.

The Chartist paper the Northern Star on June 24 1848 printed a letter on the subject. The correspondent noted that they had passed a shop in Bishopsgate in central London which had a placard on display.

It read: “The People’s Charter is recognised and fully supported at this shop.” The letter went on to argue that frequenting only shops that backed the Charter would underline to the “shopocracy” that working people had a right to vote

As with the BDS movement in 2023, the aim of the boycott was to highlight the tyranny and injustice of an autocratic government through organised collective action and by hitting profit to achieve political change. The Tories were no keener on such boycotts in 1848 than they are 175 years later.

History suggests, however, as with anti-apartheid, that they can work. Profit was of course disrupted so Tories did not like it or the call for democratic rights that was behind it — and they still don’t.

Keith Flett is a socialist historian. Follow him on Twitter @kmflett.