Skip to main content
Gifts from The Morning Star
Campaigners building pressure on councils to end pension fund ties to arms companies
People bury the bodies of Palestinians taken by the Israeli military during operations in Gaza and returned this week, in Khan Younis, Gaza Strip, September 26, 2024

CAMPAIGNERS across Britain are stepping up pressure on councils to end ties with weapons companies that are complicit in “Israel’s apartheid” through their pensions schemes.

Lewisham residents and activists will hold a rally outside Lewisham Town Hall on Wednesday October 2, as councillors hold their regular meeting.

The rally will demand that the council disclose and divest the pension scheme it manages away from arms manufacturers.

The action follows the passing of a resolution this month by the council’s pensions investment committee to explore divesting Lewisham’s pension funds from companies involved in arms trade, facilitating human rights abuses and operating in illegally occupied Palestinian territories.

Cllr Liam Shrivastava, who seconded the resolution, warned 13.4 per cent of the council’s pension fund is managed by BlackRock, which holds significant investments in Israel and arms companies including Lockheed Martin, RTX Northrop Grumman, Boeing and General Dynamics.

Mr Shrivastava stressed the need to give residents and pension members assurances that their money was not funding illegal and unethical activities.

He said: “They would want to have a peace of mind that our investments are not implicated in weapons manufacture, transportation of munitions, infrastructural technology or other activities that assist the activities of the Israeli state in its continued occupation of Palestinian territories and its bombardment of the Gaza Strip.”

Campaigners said that community pressure and the will for divestment were explicitly referenced when the motion was proposed, and promised to keep up the pressure until the ties were cut.

In Wales, Rhondda Cynon Taf (RCT) County Borough Council passed a motion on Wednesday supporting calls for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and the return of all hostages on both sides.

But a drafted model of the motion by RCT Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) and presented by Labour councillors was heavily rewritten and delayed. A call for ending arms sales to Israel and divestment of RCT pensions from arms manufacturers was omitted.

RCT PSC says its research shows that the borough’s pension fund has an investment of more than £97 million “in the oppression of the Palestinian people.”

The group said it is considering its next steps, which will include talking to local union branches to build on their campaign.

The 95th Anniversary Appeal
Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
More from this author
People take part in a demonstration at Trafalgar Square in London in support of Palestine Action,  June 23, 2025
Britain / 23 June 2025
23 June 2025

Home Secretary Cooper confirms plans to ban the group and claims its peaceful activists ‘meet the legal threshold under the Terrorism Act 2000’

President Donald Trump speaks as a flag pole is installed on the South Lawn of the White House, June 18, 2025, in Washington
Iran-Israel War / 18 June 2025
18 June 2025

US president says his nation might join forces with Israel in attacking Iran

California Highway Patrol officers arrest two men after a dispersal order during a protest, June 14, 2025, in Los Angeles
United States / 18 June 2025
18 June 2025
Similar stories
Children play at a tent camp for displaced Palestinians in G
Britain / 7 February 2025
7 February 2025
Urgent divestment call for local authority schemes
Features / 12 October 2024
12 October 2024
PETER LEARY looks ahead to next weekend’s Palestine Solidarity Campaign conference, to discuss how to put pressure on governments and institutions to stop arming Israel and turn strategy into action