Gaza: Revolt in the Foreign Office
David Cameron with Benjamin Netanyahu, April 2024
Matt Benson reports in Declassified UK on 30 May 2024:
Amid Britain’s ongoing complicity and support for Israel’s ‘plausible genocide’ in Gaza, an increasing number of staff in the Foreign Office, I’m told up to 300, have formally raised concerns with ministers, seeking a change of course.
They are questioning ministers’ actions and policy in relation to Gaza and asking to see the legal advice they received that this is based on – advice that they have so far refused to publish, despite calls to do so from some in parliament.
But foreign secretary David Cameron has not responded to these concerns directly. Instead, he sent the Foreign Office’s political director, Christian Turner, to have a meeting with a small contingent of those raising concerns about UK policy and breaches of international humanitarian law in Gaza.
The meeting, which took place in person at the department’s King Charles Street head office, was not minuted and participants were not allowed to take notes. This may appear benign, but not having notes of a meeting in the civil service is highly unusual, never mind a senior civil servant telling officials they aren’t allowed to take notes. Notes are taken as a record of decision making and discussions, so it raises concerns that this was actively stopped from happening in this case.
This meeting was part of the effort to silence legitimate concerns from a range of officials from across the department, including any potential individual accountability for civil servants working on issues related to Israel and Palestine.
Some staff are even rejecting requests to work on the crisis due to concerns of complicity in war crimes.
Raising concerns about policy is a perfectly legitimate role of civil servants. In fact it’s a key part of the job, to ensure the UK remains in compliance with its international and domestic obligations when faced with ministers, and now seemingly director-level civil servants, who may be in contravention of these agreements.
The Foreign Office was approached for comment and its spokesperson said: “The UK wants to see an end to the fighting in Gaza as soon as possible and we continue to call for international humanitarian law (IHL) to be respected and civilians to be protected.
“As the Foreign Secretary says, Israel has committed to act within IHL and has the ability to do so, but we are also deeply concerned about the impact on the civilian population in Gaza.”