Nandy faces resignation demands after ‘secret’ meeting with racist Israel ambassador

Keir Starmer’s culture secretary, Lisa Nandy, is facing demands for her resignation over her refusal to disclose information about a ‘secret’ meeting she had with Israel’s fascist UK ambassador Tzipi Hotovely.

Nandy’s department claimed it would ‘prejudice’ relations with Israel to answer questions about what she discussed with Hotovely. The meeting took place as a concocted media storm blew up over due Bob Vylan‘s ‘Death to the IDF’ chant during a Glastonbury performance. Nandy subsequently attacked the chant, which was enthusiastically echoed by the crowd, as ‘antisemitic’ — ignoring that it was calling for death to a genocidal army, not to Jewish people. Nandy also attacked the BBC for broadcasting the documentary Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone.

Lisa Nandy: admits releasing the notes would serve the public interest, but refuses to

Campaigners sent Freedom of Information Act (FOI) requests to Nandy’s department for the notes on the pair’s discussions, but Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) admitted that releasing the notes would serve the public interest but refused the requests claiming it was more important to protect Britain’s relationship with Israel:

The department considers that the release of this information would likely prejudice the relations as covered by the exemption. The factors we considered in conducting the public interest test are set out below. It is clear that there is a general, inherent, public interest in governmental transparency. Transparency makes the government accountable to the electorate and this increases trust.

Furthermore, we have considered the heightened public interest in the Secretary of State meeting with the Israeli ambassador at the present time. While considering the above arguments, the department has considered the stronger, more specific public interest in protecting relations between the United Kingdom and Israel.

Gary Spedding, one of the campaigners who submitted the FOI request, described the decision as “outrageous”, adding:

It is absurd that the Department for Culture, Media and Sport considers that the ‘stronger’ and ‘more specific’ public interest is in protecting relations between the United Kingdom and the State of Israel.

Every single poll that has been conducted regarding UK policy towards Israel tells us that the interest of the public rests squarely in a demand that our government take urgent action against Israel to prevent further atrocities against the Palestinians and it seems obvious to me that transparency and accountability when it comes to our government’s ministers dealings with Israeli officials would be the absolute priority and very much the stronger public interest in this case.

It is disturbing and quite apparent that Lisa Nandy does not want the public to know precisely what information, briefings and correspondence led her to make the statements and provide the assurances that she did to Israel’s then ambassador to the United Kingdom, Tzipi Hotovely, but what is for certain is that she is willingly complicit in the extremely harmful weaponisation of antisemitism and our Jewish communities as a shield for Israeli apartheid.

Nandy was caught lying to Parliament last week – or, in parliamentary language, ‘misleading’ – during a debate on Starmer’s demands for West Midlands Police to overturn a ban on racist, violent Israeli thugs attending Maccabi Tel Aviv’s match at Aston Villa in Birmingham next month. Nandy claimed that the ban was imposed to protect Israeli ‘fans’ when in fact police and safety officials concluded that the Israel thugs are a danger to the public, based on their racist rampages through Amsterdam and other cities. Nandy’s comments coincided with a mass Israeli lie campaign to hide reality. She also equated Jewish people with a racist hate-mob, a grossly antisemitic conflation.

Anti-genocide and government transparency campaigners are now demanding Nandy’s resignation even more loudly than they already were last week.

Featured image via the Canary