Ex-Foreign Minister Sir Alan Duncan fully cleared of wrongdoing following Conservative Party antisemitism investigation
London, 16th July 2024- Today at a press conference in Central London, former Foreign Minister Sir Alan Duncan reiterated his support for Palestinian people and announced that he has been cleared by the Conservative Campaign Headquarters (CCHQ) of any wrongdoing following an internal investigation resulting from a baseless accusation of antisemitism.
During the press conference, Sir Alan read out the Investigation Panel’s findings, which said that his comments “did not go beyond political debate” and “were not antisemitic and could not properly be regarded as such.”
The initial complaint came after Sir Alan, a defender of Palestinian people’s human rights for over 30 years, appeared on LBC with Nick Ferrari on 4th April 2024. During the initial interview, he defended international law, called for an arms embargo and highlighted the illegality of settlements. He went on to say that politicians promoting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s extremist policies should be sacked from government or expelled from the House of Lords.
Despite his focus on Palestinian people’s human rights, he was subject to an attack that conflated antisemitism with defence of Palestinians’ human rights. He was then subject to an investigation by CCHQ that he referred to as “a political scandal which discredits the Conservative Party, and which amounts to a McCarthyite witch hunt which is nothing less than despicable.”
Sir Alan also highlighted the opaque nature of the investigation process. He was never told who the Complainant was, wasn’t told what code he had been alleged to have violated and was not provided with a copy of the accusation that he was expected to provide a defence for. Ultimately, it emerged that no formal Complaint had ever been submitted in the first place, but rather, a “political decision by invisible actors”, as Sir Alan remarked in the press conference.
Despite facing significant personal financial cost and reputational damage from the baseless allegation, Sir Alan thanked the panel for their integrity and thoroughness, saying that the three members had behaved impeccably throughout. In his concluding remarks, Sir Alan said antisemitism must be ruthlessly called out where it genuinely exists. He also highlighted the problem of weaponising it, with a defiant tone as he said: “they have tried to threaten me, but I will not be bullied or silenced.”
ENDS
Notes to Editors:
- The International Centre of Justice for Palestinians is an independent organisation of lawyers, politicians and academics who support the rights of Palestinians and aim to protect their rights through the law.
- For more information or to arrange an interview with Sir Alan, please contact the ICJP news desk at press@icjpalestine.com
Annex B: Sir Alan Duncan Press Conference Statement
Over the last 30 years I have vocally supported the rights of Palestinians. I am a defender of international law, the United Nations, and human rights. I have consistently criticised the illegal colonisation, through settlements, of land which does not belong to Israel and which is rightfully Palestinian.
Although this is also the stated policy of the Conservative Party and all British governments, it has made me the target of political attack from those who believe otherwise.
These attacks have come from Israel itself but also, and in some ways more viciously, from UK-based organisations who claim to represent UK Jewish opinion. They tend to transform that presumption into the defence of everything Israel does, however extreme.
In April, Israel’s reprisals in Gaza were at their most intense. The death toll had reached 30,000; a high proportion were women and children; hundreds of thousands were being forcibly displaced; they were being denied food and water; the UN and UNWRA were being derided; international law was being broken; and many across the world were calling for arms sales to Israel to cease.
In what was just the latest of many interventions in which I defended the importance of international law, I was interviewed on April 4th by Nick Ferrari of LBC.
In that interview I called for arms embargo, and also accused some senior Conservative figures of not believing that illegal settlements were indeed illegal. I also accused them of promoting Netanyahu’s extreme policies to the point where some should be sacked from the then Government, or expelled from the House of Lords.
What happened then is a political scandal which discredits the Conservative Party, and which amounts to a McCarthyite witch hunt which is nothing less than despicable.
I was contacted by the press who had been told I was accused of being antisemitic and was to be put into the Party’s complaints procedure under threat of expulsion. Nobody at that stage from the Party had contacted me.
The Party refused to tell me who had complained or what precisely the complaint was. All I had to go one were some comments to the press by the likes of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, and the Campaign Against Antisemitism. They accused me of peddling antisemitic tropes.
This merely followed the regular pattern of comments from such organisations in which anyone who criticises Israel is more often than not viciously accused of being antisemitic.
The Party broke all its own rules by telling the press before telling me; by not saying what clause of their code I was supposed to have violated; and by refusing to give me a copy of the complaint I was required to answer. I nonetheless was required to offer a defence.
Rather than just resign from the Party in disgust, I engaged lawyers at considerable personal expense to see off what I considered were false allegations.
It was therefore hardly surprising that CCHQ withheld their adjudication for a number of weeks until after the General Election.
I have now received the Panel’s findings. Their exact words are as follows:
Quote
The Panel concluded that the complaint could not be upheld for two reasons:
1. the Respondent’s comments did not go beyond political debate, and so were not regulated by the Code,
and/or
2. as a matter of fact in this case, the Respondent’s comments were not antisemitic and could not properly be regarded as such.
Unquote
I have thus been totally exonerated.
It would be heartening to assume – although sadly unrealistic ever to expect – that the same intense press coverage which was given to the accusation in April will now be given to the outcome.
I would like to think that this would be the end of the matter. But what has been revealed in the adjudication has taken this episode from bad to worse.
It turns out that there was no formal complaint. What in fact happened was that in response to the flurry of press activity the Party itself converted public comments into a complaint which the Party itself levelled against me and treated as if it were a formal complaint, even though none such even existed.
The Panel stated in its accompanying note:
Quote
The Panel understood that this was not a matter where any formal complaint had been submitted to the Party so a copy could not have been provided to the Respondent. Rather, it was a matter that had come to the Party’s attention and been taken on by the Party as Complainant.
Quote
So I have been put through a complaints procedure which was potentially highly damaging to my reputation, when there hadn’t ever been a complaint. It was in fact a political decision by invisible actors who have not come forward. It was the product of precisely the sort of corrupt collusion I had identified and criticised.
I commend the Panel for their integrity and thoroughness. The three members on it have behaved impeccably throughout. But certain people in the Party have not, and we need to know who they are. What we have seen is a perfect example of the underhand collusion that has existed for so long between immoderate defenders of Israeli extremism and figures at the top of the Conservative Party, both inside and outside Parliament.
They have tried to threaten me. But I will not be bullied or silenced.
When it comes to accusations of antisemitism, we are not equal under the law. Where the IHRA definition has been adopted as the benchmark for conduct, there is no equivalent benchmark for those who feel wrongly accused, or who consider their attackers to be the real extremists.
Where antisemitism genuinely exists, it should be ruthlessly called out. But it should not be artificially used to divert attention from legitimate comment on Israel.
The attacks on me have been vexatious and unjustified, as the panel concluded clearly.
I consider myself free to repeat everything I said in my evidence to the Party’s complaints process, and I will consider publishing all of it.
At its heart is the perverse – I would argue corrupt – relationship between the Conservative Friends of Israel and the top of the Conservative Party. This has gone on for far too long. Money, improper influence, and the promotion of Israeli interests above our own, have contributed to the destruction of the UK’s independent foreign policy. They have undermined UNWRA, the UN, and international law, and it all comes at the expense of innocent Palestinians.
You need no greater evidence of this than the total silence we saw about Gaza during the election campaign. Likewise, nor was there a squeak about the acceleration of illegal settlement building and repulsive settler violence in the West Bank. The issue has been buried more quickly than Gaza’s 40,000 dead.
The election of a Labour Government has injected some rays of hope into this tragic issue. The appointment of Richard Hermer as Attorney General is highly encouraging, and it is to be hoped that the Prime Minister’s own record as a human rights lawyer will inspire him to be courageous and principled. The few months before the US election offer him a window of opportunity to reassert UK policy on adherence to international law.
If the Conservative Party is to recover, it cannot do so without admitting and addressing this poison in its midst. It must start by clearly answering some crucial questions about its conduct.
– What happened in CCHQ? Who made the decision to shape and adopt this complaint?
– Who instructed press officers to notify the media?
– What contact was there about this between CFI, the then Party Chairman, Oliver Dowden, or any others?
– Will the Party undertake to decouple itself from CFI, and direct its efforts to supporting Jewish people within the UK, separate from defending Israeli excess?
– Will the Party come clean on who paid for Priti Patel’s trip to Israel after which she was sacked as Development Secretary?
– Will the Press put each and every Conservative leadership contender on the spot about their adherence to international law and the illegality of settlements?
These are but a few on the many questions the Press should be asking about this long-running scandal.
In summary, we must all adhere to international law and uphold the activity of its institutions, its courts, and its people.
In doing so, I will not be bullied or silenced, and I hope all decent journalists and public figures will assist in that endeavour.