OVER the past few years we have seen many Bills in the House of Lords that show a worrying disregard for humanity, but the anti-boycott Bill is the first, as I far as I know, that actually instructs public bodies to disregard morality.

If we have to rely on the moral compass of this government to set standards, then it will be set at a very low bar.

We should not be surprised because Conservative governments have form for being on the wrong side of history. Just two examples:

Declassified files from 1973 show that the British government gave support to the regime of Augusto Pinochet in the full knowledge that it had taken power in a violent and bloody coup and that it was committing acts of murder and torture. Prime minister Margaret Thatcher went so far as to host Pinochet in Downing Street and to defend him when he was arrested for war crimes.

Again, it was prime minister Thatcher who branded Nelson Mandela a terrorist while defending the apartheid regime from sanctions and boycotts, including voting against sanctions at the UN. 

The Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law lists 110 ongoing armed conflicts as of two weeks ago. This may have increased since then; it certainly hasn’t decreased. I would hope that any public body would take account of whether its investment or procurement contributes to the ability of countries to act aggressively against others or to suppress their own populations.

The rights of women and girls to live in safety is not protected in many countries and any British public body that is uncritical of any offending government should be ashamed of itself. Some governments are failing to protect children from exploitation by global companies. Most of us would expect public bodies not to be procuring goods that are made in those conditions.

Our government states that it wants to stop public bodies from pursuing their own foreign policy with its Economic Activity of Public Bodies (Overseas Matters) Bill. Most public bodies have no desire to have a foreign policy, but they may find that some states fall short of the ethical or moral standards that the public body holds as essential requirements for investment. 

Protecting the environment and workers’ rights should also be important in decision-making. Financial consultants, however, are warning that even apparent exemptions may not protect public bodies from being challenged, leading to possible lengthy legal proceedings. 

Barnett Waddingham, one of those consultants, is warning its clients that “an investment decision based solely on considerations of actions which have a significant environmental impact but is not an offence in the UK or elsewhere in the world, would be caught by the prohibitions of the Bill.” 

And that, “similarly, the labour-related misconduct exemption only applies to consideration of actions which would be an offence or result in a misconduct order in the UK.”

The very powerful briefing paper from the Quakers points out that “while the British government has said it will immediately exempt Russia and Belarus from the legislation, it has made no such commitment to exempt other countries that are known to be committing human rights abuses.

“This Bill gives the government the power to control which violations of international law public bodies can protest and which ones they must keep silent about. We believe that public bodies should have the freedom to shed light on abuses around the world, even (perhaps especially) areas where the national government would rather avoid scrutiny.”

The written evidence submitted by Brunel Pension Partnership Ltd and London LGPS CIV Ltd points out that making investment decisions must take account of a country’s politics. They state: “Political risk is an integral component of financial risk. The actions of governments and geopolitical events can quickly translate into financial risk, as they have the potential to disrupt business operations, affect supply chains, alter market dynamics and ultimately impact the financial performance of companies and investments.”

Ultimately this Bill acts as a way of gagging public bodies, including elected bodies, stopping them from publicly expressing what they believe is in the best interests of those they represent. To actually prohibit the publication of statements from public bodies indicating that they would act against offending countries, if it were lawful to do so, has to be one of the worst attacks on freedom of speech. 

This means that if electors approach their local authority, or pensioners approach their pension scheme to ask why they are investing in a country that oppresses its own citizens or which is responsible for tens of thousands of deaths of women and children in an occupied country, they are prohibited from saying that they would have liked to boycott the culprit country, but this nasty piece of government legislation makes it illegal.

This Bill, like many others over the past few years, seeks to grab power from the other national and regional governments and ensure that there is only one centralised power that will, in the name of parliamentary sovereignty, impose its will on the whole of the UK. The Scottish government is withholding legislative consent and has raised important concerns about the use of delegatory powers built into this Bill. 

Finally, this Bill is clearly discriminatory in giving a unique and higher level of protection from political and moral disapproval to one state above all others in the world. 

The written evidence from Jews for Justice for Palestinians submitted in August 2023 points out that “the claim that boycott and divestment advocacy” leads to “increases in anti-semitic incidents” is entirely without evidence. The level of incidents has been on a rising trend in recent years, but that is correlated closely with spikes of violence in Israel and Palestine, particularly with the major Israeli army attacks on Palestinian areas, not with boycott and divestment advocacy.”

Why should Israel should be given a unique status under this Bill when every other state in the world can be added and removed by delegatory powers?