The failure to tackle violent pro-Palestine activism is damaging investment and costing jobs in the UK, senior business figures and politicians have told the JC.
Investors are particularly concerned that the attacks on banks, raids on defence factories and extremist marches have been met by a lacklustre response from the authorities.
“What sort of message does it send when activists vandalise with seeming impunity?” asked one investor with long experience of international trade.
The investor, who wished to remain anonymous, said: “I know for a fact that potential investors in the UK have been put off from establishing or buying and investing in businesses in the UK, which would create many highly-skilled and well-paid jobs and help the economy grow, which is the government’s most urgent priority – because of the wild activities of pro-Palestine protesters and the government’s overall attitude.
“They feel like they’re above the law.”
Financial institutions and banks including Barclays, Allianz and JP Morgan have been targeted by pro-Palestine activists since October 7, 2023.
Partly as a result, the trade association for 300 firms in the financial services industry has urged the government to offer increased protection to bank branch staff faced by hostile demonstrators.
In 2024, 20 buildings belonging to Barclays were targeted by activists from the now-proscribed group Palestine Action, who sprayed red paint on walls and smashed windows while demanding the bank “divests from Israel’s weapons trade and fossil fuels”.
Similarly, Allianz’s London HQ was occupied in March last year, and the front doors of a JP Morgan building in London were shattered in May. In both cases activists cited apparent connections to Israeli defence firm Elbit.
The investor’s concerns were reiterated by Grant Shapps, who served as Conservative prime minister Rishi Sunak’s business secretary between 2022-2023. He said: “The repeated actions of pro-Palestinian protest groups – where demonstrations routinely slide into criminal damage, intimidation and the vandalising of banks and businesses – are doing serious and lasting damage to Britain’s reputation overseas and to business confidence at home.
“I have heard this directly from international investors and company leaders.
“They look at images of financial institutions being attacked on the streets of London and draw a simple conclusion: that the UK is failing to enforce the rule of law consistently. That perception alone is enough to deter investment, regardless of how competitive a country’s tax or regulatory regime might otherwise be.”
Lord Spellar, who served as defence minister under Tony Blair, told the JC: “Unions [in the defence industry] need to be more on the front foot in defending their members’ right to work and to protect them from assault and harassment.”
The Labour peer also warned that the tactics employed by groups such as the now-proscribed Palestine Action must not be allowed to be normalised.
“The use of violence to advance a political cause is anti-democratic and indeed through history has been an instrument and precursor to fascism. Companies and individuals are entitled to go about their business subject to the laws of the land that police and the courts should back them up.”
Shapps, who is Jewish, said that only tough sentences would deter pro-Palestine vandals from continued attacks, criticising “wholly inadequate punishments for clear criminal damage.
“From long experience, I can say this without hesitation: radical left-wing campaigners do not moderate their behaviour until there are real consequences.
“When I was dealing with Insulate Britain [an environmental group engaged in direct action protests], it was only after we pushed far harder than government lawyers initially wanted – resulting in custodial sentences, with around a dozen activists spending Christmas in prison – that the disruption stopped”.
Shapps urged the government to “get a grip” and act to make better conditions for international investors.
UK Finance, an industry body representing the 300 firms in the banking and financial services industry, called on the government to extend protections being offered to retail workers as part of the Crime and Policing Bill to bank branch staff.
A spokesperson told the JC: “Banks are targeted by protest action from a range of different groups. Some of these incidents can be large‑scale and violent, putting innocent branch staff and members of the public at real risk of harm. They can also result in unacceptable levels of criminal damage to bank branches.”
They continued: “More broadly, there is a growing issue of bank branch staff facing abuse. That is why we have called on the government to expand the scope of its Crime and Policing Bill to include bank branch staff, alongside retail workers.”
While the defence industry and companies in the defence supply chain are often targeted by Palestine activists, so too are banks and financial services institutions that choose to provide them with services.
In April last year, UK Finance warned at the increased targeting of banks and institutions involved with the defence sector.
“Although critical to our national security, providing finance to the defence sector can provoke protests against financial institutions, which sometimes result in the abuse of customer-facing staff … Protests against banks who lend to defence companies are regularly large and violent, with innocent branch staff or members of the public put at risk of real harm,” the organisation said in its response to a call for evidence on the Crime and Policing Bill.
Despite this, the government has repeatedly stated that it wants to use the defence industry to help drive Britain’s economic growth.
At Prime Minister’s Questions last week, Sir Keir Starmer told MPs that increased spending in defence “must be an engine for growth and jobs in the United Kingdom, which is why we have committed to spending an extra £2.5 billion with small and medium-sized enterprises”.
At last year’s spring statement, the chancellor also said she wanted Britain to become a “defence industrial superpower [...] so that the skills, jobs and opportunities of the future can be found right here in the United Kingdom”.
But despite the government’s rhetoric, a defence industry source told the JC that the government needed to do more.
“A lot of small and medium firms in the defence supply chain feel under threat. Some are targeted by activists and there is increasing pressure on insurance firms not to provide services to them.
They continued: “Rachel Reeves said in the spring statement last year that she wanted defence companies to help generate economic growth. If authorities don’t take the threat posed by pro-Palestine activists seriously then both the defence and financial services industries will be affected.”
Lord Mann, the government’s independent adviser on antisemitism, said it was vital that “political extremists” not be allowed to intimidate workers.
“The targeting of office workers, shop workers and shop floor engineering workers is a full frontal attack on working people trying to earn a living. No worker should be out at risk by political extremists and every attack on workers or action that in any other way endangers their person and their health should meet the full force of the law and the criminal justice system”, the former Labour MP told the JC.
He added: “The notion that middle-class protesters have the right to endanger workers struggling to make a living is the antithesis of social justice.”
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