British Jewish groups lobby Burnham over ‘perverse consequences’ of settlement trade ban

Jewish communal organisations have lobbied Prime Minister Andy Burnham over his government’s planned ban on trade with Israeli settlements, warning of the “potentially perverse consequences” of announcing the measures while Israel is in the middle of a general election.

In a joint statement published by the Board of Deputies of British Jews following a meeting with Burnham and the Communities Secretary, Angela Rayner, yesterday, the organisations said they had “conveyed significant concerns about the unintended consequences of policies the government is considering in relation to settlements.”

Today, Jewish communal and key partner organisations met Prime Minister .@andyburnham and Communities Secretary @AngelaRayner at 10 Downing Street to convey concerns facing the UK Jewish community, and seek the Government’s commitment to addressing them. pic.twitter.com/0MJlu7S4kV

— Board of Deputies of British Jews (@BoardofDeputies) September 3, 2026

The government is reported to be preparing a ban on trade with Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, which the International Court of Justice ruled in July 2024 are unlawful under international law, within weeks of parliament returning. Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband has said Britain will unveil “comprehensive” measures against the settlements.

The organisations argued that “broad, untargeted measures may also give legitimacy to a wider boycott movement that marginalises and stigmatises British Jews”, and said any measures should avoid “a profound strain on the Jewish people’s deep connection to places of great religious and cultural significance, including the Western Wall, Judaism’s holiest site” – a reference to Jerusalem’s Old City rather than the occupied West Bank settlements the planned ban is intended to target.

They pressed Burnham to “carefully consider the potentially perverse consequences of announcing such measures during an already heated Israeli election” and called for “domestic political considerations” in London and Jerusalem not to “stand in the way of the positive policy outcomes that the Middle East so desperately needs.”

The intervention follows warnings from the Board of Deputies president, Phil Rosenberg, who said on 1 September that “irreversible steps” on settlements could damage UK-Israel relations and “encourage a wider boycott movement that rejects Israel’s very existence.” The Chief Rabbi, Sir Ephraim Mirvis, and a group of MPs, including the shadow foreign office minister Wendy Morton, have separately urged Burnham to abandon the plan, arguing it amounted to a “blanket boycott” of Israel.

The framing was rejected within hours by supporters of the ban. Writing in Middle East Eye on the same day, Ben Jamal, director of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, said “the usual cast of pro-Israel groups and individuals in the UK” were “rolling out familiar arguments in an attempt to prevent any meaningful sanctions.” Their claim that the ban would harm British Jews, he wrote, rested on “the shameful allegation that such a step would constitute a hostile act against British Jews, thus falsely conflating a measure to hold Israel accountable with hatred of the Jewish people.”

The criticism echoes a provision of the highly controversial International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) working definition of anti-Semitism, which the Board of Deputies has for years urged British institutions, including universities and political parties, to adopt.

Among the IHRA’s own eleven illustrative examples of anti-Semitism is “holding Jews collectively responsible for actions of the state of Israel,” the same conflation critics say the Board made in warning that a ban on trade with Israeli settlements would itself harm British Jews.

The Board does not speak for all British Jews on the question. In June 2025, it suspended five of its own elected representatives for two years after they signed a letter in the Financial Times criticising Israel’s conduct in the Gaza war, ruling that they had brought the organisation into disrepute. The suspended members said their “Jewish values compel [them] to stand up and to speak out” against the war.