Continuing arms sales to Israel would be a ‘moral crime’, says Labour donor
Labour should ban British arms sales to Israel if elected, one of its biggest donors has said.
Green energy tycoon Dale Vince told The Telegraph that “it would be an obvious step” for Sir Keir Starmer to ban weapons shipments to Israel if he becomes the UK’s next prime minister.
Not doing so would be a “moral crime” he said, in comments that risk fuelling tensions within Labour over Gaza.
Britain exported more than £40m of defence equipment to Israel in 2022, the most recent figures available, and separate analysis by pressure group CAAT suggests goods worth more than half a billion pounds have been sent since 2008.
Asked whether Labour should block arm shipments to Israel, Mr Vince said: “I think it would be an obvious step. Otherwise, the weapons we make here are killing innocent people and we are making money off the back of that. I think that’s a moral crime.”
Mr Vince is one of Labour’s three largest donors, having given £5m to the party since the start of the year. The former Just Stop Oil backer handed Sir Keir Starmer more than £1m the day after Rishi Sunak called the election on May 22.
The entrepreneur said he would “hope” that a Labour government would send a stronger signal on Gaza.
Mr Vince said the West had shown “terrible double standards” in how it had approached the war compared with other conflicts.
He said: “The whole of the Western world has not reacted sufficiently to the atrocities that have been perpetrated by the State of Israel daily in Palestine right now and have been for months. We’ve been too timid.
“Too often people simply repeat the line ‘Israel has the right to defend itself’. Nearly 40,000 civilian deaths is not self-defence. The Israeli army are out of control, the State of Israel is out of control in Palestine.
“Everybody should be saying more and doing more.”
Contrasting the situation in Gaza with the action taken against Russia following its invasion of Ukraine, the green energy entrepreneur added: “We react completely differently to war in Europe on white people to what we do to these atrocities in the Middle East on Arabic people.”
The comments threaten to reignite tensions with the Labour Party over its handling of the Israel-Gaza conflict. Bruising local election results in areas with large Muslim populations were blamed on Sir Keir’s failure to call for an immediate ceasefire after Israel’s incursion into Gaza.
Meanwhile, Jewish supporters of Labour have complained about a rise in anti-Semitism within the party linked to pro-Palestinian factions.
The tension between Muslim and Jewish Labour supporters has left Sir Keir struggling to balance the two constituencies.
Mr Vince said Sir Keir “should join the European countries that are recognising the state of Palestine”.
Sir Keir has said he wants to recognise Palestine but has said he would only do so at the appropriate time during a peace process.
Mr Vince, who founded renewable energy supplier Ecotricity, has continued to back Sir Keir despite Labour’s decision to ditch a £28bn green investment pledge earlier this year.
He said: “I wouldn’t mind more boldness, but arguably, he’s doing a very good job.”
