Anger as boycott of Israeli goods to becomes a criminal offense

So you supportive of a move towards authoritarianism, totalitarianism and dictatorship?

That was very enlightening.

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position.

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enfranchisement

ting author?

The reasons given for the ban on boycotts are extremely weak:

"Senior government sources said they were cracking down on town-hall boycotts because they “undermined good community relations, poisoned and polarised debate and fuelled anti-Semitism"

How can a local boycott of an arms company undermine good community relations? In what manner does it poison or polarise debate if our local representatives decide to boycott a corporation it regards something as unethical?

(1) It is absolutely fair to hold local authorities, universities etc to the law; that is, you can't discriminate based on national origin. It seems that people are quite wiling to countenance discrimination if it's against Jews (I say Jews because, notably, the only state they protest against is the world's only Jewish state)

(2) It is fair for the government to say that it is not for local authorities to make their own foreign policy. Foreign policy is an area reasonably within the purview of the executive, it's ludicrous for jumped up local councillors to make their "nuclear free zones" in Slough or to declare they are sanctioning a country.

Is the BDS movement even legal under the Equality Act 2010?

Why would it not be?

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The reasons given for the ban on boycotts are extremely weak:

"Senior government sources said they were cracking down on town-hall boycotts because they “undermined good community relations, poisoned and polarised debate and fuelled anti-Semitism"

How can a local boycott of an arms company undermine good community relations? In what manner does it poison or polarise debate if our local representatives decide to boycott a corporation it regards something as unethical?

Our Councillors are our representatives, not Cameron's appointees who have gone rogue. If we don't like how they operate, then we vote them out.

Because nationality is one of the protected characteristics.

But it doesn't apply to institutions and products.

Posted from TSR Mobile

But it does apply to individuals and the BDS movement have explicitly sanctioned boycotting academics.

On the basis of which institutions they work at associate with, not their nationality.

Posted from TSR Mobile

I wonder how this will be enforced. Can't public bodies simply not buy goods from the illegal settlements or fossil fuel companies without stating their true reasons?

Interesting that the EU is boycotting goods from the illegal Israeli settlements, yet local councils and universities cannot.

"To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize."

This policy is going to be announced in Israel, so it's obviously about Israel and suppressing criticism of the world's biggest terrorist state, regardless of what this scheming government claims. Well, I'll continue to watch out for goods from their illegal settlements. I suppose this will simply make individuals more determined to do so.

Interesting that the EU is boycotting goods from the illegal Israeli settlements

...

No, it isn't.

Local councils are elected and this constitutes an attack on local democracy.

We can have a debate on Israel-Palestine elsewhere, but I'll not respond to it here.

The fact they are elected doesn't matter. Being elected doesn't give you a broad mandate to do whatever you want. Councils have a specific remit and foreign policy does not fall into that area. The same way a Crime Commissioner can't arbritarily decide to raise a paramilitary army and invade Zimbabwe to topple Mugabe simply because they were elected and have a strong 'moral' stance on the issue.

You raised the matter with your inflammatory statement but hey ho. Answer me just this though, do you honestly seriously consider Israel to be the world's biggest terrorist state, in a world that includes the likes of Syria, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey, Iran, North Korea, Pakistan and Sudan?

The set of institutions being defined on the basis of nationality. The whole flaw with the BDS movement is that targets institutions based on an assumed responsibility for simply existing in a certain geographical area, rather than a direct contribution to human rights violations. Because of this there's no leeway to claim that the institutions are not being targeted on the basis of nationality. It's also, I dare say, possible to target institutions without explicitly forbidding the dealing with individuals in an unofficial as well as official capacity. Since you've implied this is not the case it's obvious the problem you have is with the individuals as much as the institutions. It's a bit like if a bad bank caused a financial crisis and you decided to imprison every single employee of the bank for malpractice.