At least 41 of the UK Labour Party’s 197 sitting Members of Parliament (MPs) have accepted money from the Israel lobby, according to a report by an alternative UK media outlet.
More than £280,000 have been spent by the groups, paying for more than 50 visits to Israel by Labour MPs since 1999, the report stated. It also noted that an additional £210,000 has been spent by individual pro-Israel lobbyists.
The funders include Labour Friends of Israel and its primary benefactor, Trevor Chinn, a multi-millionaire business tycoon who has long been a supporter of Israel and pro-Israeli groups in the UK.
Labour Friends of Israel (LFI) describes itself as a “Westminster based lobby group working with the British Labour Party to promote the State of Israel,” and currently counts 75 Labour MPs as supporters or officers a number that has increased even as Israel’s campaign in Gaza has intensified and that the International Court of Justice described as a “plausible” genocide in its preliminary hearing.
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The organization’s UK branch is headed by former Labour MP Joan Ryan. It focuses on bringing MPs and Journalists to Israel for “fact finding” missions and often pays for the expenses of those trips.
At least one Labour MP, Margaret Hodge, has continued to accept money from the Israel lobby. Over a quarter of Chinn’s £195,210 donations to Labour members were given to Keir Starmer, the leader of the Labour Party, during his campaign for that post. He did not reveal the donations until after his election.
Eleven MPs inside Starmer’s shadow cabinet have also accepted funds from Israeli lobbyists, the same outlet reported in November.
The Labour Party in the UK has not called for a ceasefire in Gaza and the UK has been one of Israel’s staunchest supporters, arguably behind only the United States. Chinn has funded LFI and other pro-Israel groups since the 1980s.
Other pro-Israel donors to Labour MPs include David Menton, the former director of the British Israel Communications and Research Centre and Red Capital, a private company headed by the former chairman of LFI, Jonathan Mendelsohn.
In the past two days, Starmer has suspended two parliamentary candidates, Azhar Ali and Graham Jones, after they made comments that were critical of Israel and were accused of antisemitism.
By Ian DeMartino
Published by Sputnik Globe
Republished by The 21st Century
The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of 21cir.com