“By sending our demands to candidates and making clear to them that their responses will affect how people vote, we are taking the issue of justice for the Palestinian people right to the heart of this general election.”
Ben Jamal, Palestine Solidarity Campaign Director
Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) has published the first set of responses from political candidates to its “Vote Palestine 2024” initiative for the UK General Election.
PSC drafted 6 questions for all Parliamentary candidates that constituents can send electronically to their local prospective candidates, as a set of concrete actions to commit to if elected. They cover an immediate ceasefire, restoration of funding to UNRWA, an arms embargo, support for the ICJ and ICC to uphold international humanitarian law, suspending trade agreements with Israel and protecting the right to protest, boycott and divest from companies that are complicit in violations of international law.
Thousands of people have written to their local candidates to demand responses to these points and hundreds of them have responded. Their answers are published on the PSC website and are searchable by postcode.
This General Election has been called at a moment when Palestinians are confronting the darkest moment in their struggle for liberation. Over 37,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israel, including approximately 16,000 children, in what the International Court of Justice (ICJ) has accepted as a plausible case of genocide. The prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) is seeking arrest warrants for Israel’s Prime Minister and Defence Minister alongside Hamas leaders, for crimes against humanity, with the charges against Israeli leaders including using starvation as a weapon of war.
This current genocide is built on the foundations of decades of violations of Palestinian rights by Israel in which successive British governments have been complicit. These realities have made the issue of justice for Palestinians a core electoral issue for constituents across Britain.
Ben Jamal, PSC Director, said:
“In this election we won’t let politicians carry on as if Palestinian lives don’t matter. Our support for Palestinian rights is based on a progressive set of values that we want to help shape voters’ choices in the polling booth. We need to see politicians elected who embrace those values and will stand up for them in Parliament. By sending our demands to candidates and making clear to them that their responses will affect how people vote, we are taking the issue of justice for the Palestinian people right to the heart of this general election.”
- You can view candidates’ published answers to the Palestine Solidarity Campaign “Vote Palestine 2024” lobby here.
- You can find out more about the “Vote Palestine 2024” initiative here.
- You can follow the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) on Facebook, Twitter/X and Instagram.
- This article was originally published as a PSC press release on 25th June 2024.
