London’s Camden Council skirts calls for Israel divestment

Pro-Palestine campaigners have vowed to maintain pressure on Camden Council – the same constituency as UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s – after councillors rejected calls to commit to divesting from companies with ties to Israel.

In a meeting late on Monday evening, the Labour-run council debated a petition signed by more than 4,000 residents to undertake a “thorough and transparent audit” of its pension fund investments and divest from any companies involved with the Israeli military or the illegal occupation of Palestinian territories.

The petition, led by Camden Friends of Palestine, was presented to the council by Palestinian and Camden resident Lubaba Khalid and holocaust survivor Stephen Kapos as hundreds of pro-Palestine protesters gathered outside the town hall.

“How do you want history to remember you?” Khalid asked the council.

“Will history recall that the council chose to take a principled stance refusing to invest in companies complicit in the breach of international law? Or will it reflect on the missed opportunity when this council failed to align its actions with its values?”

Freedom of Information requests revealed last year that Camden Pension Fund had around £83 million invested in companies with ties to Israel, including several listed on a UN database tracking involvement in illegal settlements such as Airbnb, Booking.com and Expedia.

The fund’s largest single investment is in Amazon, which provides cloud storage services to the Israeli military.

Israel has killed more than 47,000 Palestinians in Gaza and reduced much of the territory to rubble in the 15 months since 7 October 2023 and stands accused of war crimes by the International Court of Justice. 

UN experts and international human rights monitors have described Israel’s military campaign as genocide, while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant are wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Following Monday’s debate, councillors voted in favour of the borough solicitor’s recommendation to refer the matter to the Pension Committee. Camden Friends of Palestine said ahead of the meeting this move would amount to “sticking its head in the sand”.

Committee Chair Rishi Madlani told the council that the committee will prioritise its exposure to conflict zones and human rights, and incorporate a UN sustainable development goal that focuses on promoting peaceful and inclusive societies, but declined to make any commitments towards divesting from Israel-linked companies.

“It’s disappointing that councillors didn’t stand up and support divesting from companies that are complicit in breaking international law,” Khalid told The New Arab following the vote.

“It’s really heartbreaking being Palestinian and directly affected by what these weapons have done in Gaza.”

Local trade union representatives say the council failed to consult staff before the vote despite a “groundswell of support” for divestment.

“Half of the deputation was made up of staff representatives, from the union branch and staff networks in the council. They didn’t even bother to ask us about what the staff thought. I think that’s disgraceful,” Liz Wheatley, the secretary of the local Unison branch, told The New Arab.

During the debate, the Green Party’s Lorna Russell was the only councillor to speak in favour of divestment.

“While it gives me no pleasure to stand here and say that Camden has made the wrong decision and will probably try and brush things under the carpet, we will take this fight to the Pension Committee and we will not give up,” she told campaigners outside the town hall following the meeting.

“It is our moral duty to do the right thing and that is to make sure that our investments are not in breach of international humanitarian law.”

Though several local authorities in London have debated divestment since the start of the Gaza war, the vote at Camden Council was especially significant because the borough is home to many of Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s constituents.

Starmer saw his majority halved in the 2024 election, thanks largely to the insurgent campaign of independent pro-Palestine candidate Andrew Feinstein.

“This is not a defeat for us,” a spokesperson for the Camden Friends of Palestine told The New Arab.

“We hope that this is the first small step towards actually divesting from the companies that are complicit in this… the ball is now in the Pension Committee’s court. We’ll be at the next committee meeting asking them why it’s taking so long.”

A number of borough councils in London have voted in favour of divestment since Israel launched its brutal war on Gaza, including Islington and Waltham Forest.

Tower Hamlets Council will on Wednesday vote on a similar motion to divest from arms companies.

Campaigners will hold rallies outside Lewisham, Hackney, and Redbridge town halls this week urging their local authorities to divest.