Nearly one in ten motions relate to Israel’s conflict with Gaza despite the union’s members currently bringing the UK’s second city to a standstill
April 16, 2025 13:59
The annual conference of Britain’s second largest trade union, currently crippling Birmingham through a bin collection strike, is set to be dominated by anti-Israel motions, it has been revealed.
At the Unite union’s policy conference, set to take place in Brighton in July this year, 16 of the 176 motions propose concern the Israel-Palestine conflict, representing nearly one in ten of the total motions submitted to the conference.
The anti-Israel motions dominate the “Global Solidarity, International & Europe” section where they amount to 57 per cent of the total motions submitted. These include motions on “solidarity with Palestine”, “building solidarity with Palestine”, “solidarity with the Palestinian people” and four separate motions on “solidarity with Palestinian trade unions”.
By contrast, when it comes to other country-specific motions, there are three on Ukraine, two on Kurdistan and one on the Congo and Colombia respectively.
Some of the language in the motions, submitted by individual union branches for discussion by delegates at the conference, has also been criticised as divisive.
None of the 16 motions call for a two-state solution between Israelis and Palestinians; many express support for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement and call Israel an apartheid state.
One motion, entitled “People’s Arms embargo”, calls on the union to “heed the call from Palestinian trade unions by encouraging and supporting members to refuse to build, handle or transport weapons destined for Israel, as well as making a public statement in support of such embargo”.
The motion, which does not mention Hamas’s atrocities on October 7, 2023, also asserts that Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza amounts to a “genocide”.
It claims that Israel has “killed at least 46,000 Palestinians”, making no apparent distinction between Palestinians terrorists killed in combat with Israel’s military and civilians.
The text also laments that “The West” is “deeply complicit in this genocide and continues to give military and diplomatic support to Israel” and appears to describe the country as a “settler-colonial project”.
It continues: “Palestinians have demonstrated a steadfast resistance to this project for over 75 years and awoken the world to the necessity of a long-term struggle against Zionism, colonisation and oppression.”
Another motion, which also calls for a ban on arms sales to Israel, says it is “seriously alarmed at the ongoing and advancing genocide and apartheid rule in Gaza and the West Bank by the Israeli State”.
The motion, “Gaza – Demands on UK Government”, not only calls for sanctions on Israel’s economy but demands “the seizure of Israeli state assets held in the UK”.
Additional demands include “An effective and enforceable regime of sanctions against Israeli traded goods, including raw materials, components and finished goods” and “action to stop the institutions of the City of London being used as a global money laundering hub for the wealthy, and the seizure of UK held or traded assets, including housing and corporate holdings, of targeted supporters of the Netanyahu regime”.
Steve Scott, director of Britain Israel Trade Union Dialogue condemned the one-sided nature of many of the motions submitted.
"This is just a blatant attack on Israel with no reference to the reason why there is a war in Gaza. Of course, we want to end this conflict and see a resolution for peace and ultimately a two-state solution.”
He added: “These motions only serve to divide workers in Israel and Palestine, rather than seeking a solution to conflict and a peaceful and prosperous region."
The fact that anti-Israel motions are dominating union time, as they have at the recent National Education Union’s conference, was something a former Unite official who spoke to the JC lamented: “Unfortunately this is only too typical of what is going on in too many unions today”.
They said that the motions planned for Unite’s conference were “another indicator that while their members are facing real workplace issues, the ultra-left factions which now dominate Unite, and a number of other unions, are focused on their obsession against Israel and other way-out issues”.
“It is time for union members to take back control of what was once a great union … Unions need to get back to representing their members’ interests and not indulging the fantasies of ultra-left conspirators”, they added.
It comes as Unite remains locked in a dispute with Birmingham City Council over the pay and conditions of refuse collectors that has run for more than a month.
At the end of March, Birmingham declared a major incident over the 17,000 tonnes of waste lying in the streets of the second city.
Despite the government’s urging, there has been no agreement reached between the union and the council and earlier this week the union rejected an offer from the council.
Union general secretary Sharon Graham told radio station LBC that the strikes could expand to other cities across the UK: “If other councils decide to make low-paid workers pay for bad decisions that they did not make, workers paying the price yet again, then absolutely, of course, we all have to take action in those other areas”.
A spokesperson for Unite the Union told the JC: “Unite’s longstanding policy is to work for peace, for the respect of international law and to support a two-state solution between the Israelis and Palestinians.”
Shortly after October 7, the union issued a statement condemning the attacks and expressing “revulsion at the recent appalling acts of violence by Hamas against innocent civilians in Israel”, while also attacking “the subsequent suffering and loss of life being endured by civilians in Gaza arising from the actions of the Israeli government”.