Union bosses have told UK civil servants to stop helping Israel with “potential war crimes” in Gaza and demanded the Government give them legal immunity from liability under “international law”. The Telegraph has more.
The Public and Commercial Services (PCS) union, which represents almost 200,000 civil servants across Whitehall, has advised members to “stop all work within the civil service and its related areas which in any way potentially enables acts of genocide”.
It has pledged to support civil servants who refuse to work on Israel and demanded that mandarins be given legal immunity for aiding potential “war crimes”.
Union chiefs want an urgent meeting with the Cabinet Office and have written to officials to “seek assurances that members are protected from legal liability for any acts carried out by the state of Israel”.
The move comes just days after about 300 Foreign Office officials were told to consider resigning after sending a letter to David Lammy, the Foreign Secretary, warning against “complicity” in Israel’s actions.
The letter cited the killing by Israeli forces of 15 aid workers in March and the blockade on aid into Gaza as examples of concerns.
Sir Olly Robbins and Nick Dyer, two of the most senior mandarins in the Foreign Office, suggested that the complainants step down if they disagreed with the Government’s policy.
The response was said to have been met with fury in Whitehall, with one insider telling the BBC that there was a “deep sense of disappointment that the space for challenge is being further shut down”.
In a letter sent on Friday to Cat Little, the Cabinet Permanent Secretary, the PCS union said the Government’s response to the concerns raised this week by civil servants was “dismissive and inadequate”.
It argued that the Government “may be putting UK civil servants at risk of liability for crimes committed by the Israeli state and placing them in a position of conflict given their obligations under the civil service code”.
Fran Heathcote, the General Secretary of the PCS, said the union was “extremely concerned that the Government continues to ignore our members’ concerns that they may be held liable under international law for the war crimes being committed daily by the state of Israel”.
Civil servants really throwing their weight around now.
Worth reading in full.
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