Hastings MP ducks national lobby on UK’s role in Gaza genocide

On Wednesday (14 May) the Palestine Solidarity Campaign organised a national lobby of Parliament about the UK’s complicity with Israel’s policies of genocide and apartheid. Gabriel Carlyle reports on his attempt to speak to Hastings MP Helena Dollimore.

Wednesday began with the BBC reporting on UN Relief Chief Tom Fletcher’s plea for the UN Security Council to ‘act – decisively – to prevent [Israel’s] genocide [in Gaza] … Demand this ends. Stop arming it. Insist on accountability.’

Noting that ‘for more than 10 weeks, nothing has entered Gaza – no food, no medicine, water or tents’, because of ‘inhumane conditions’ imposed by Israel, he said that one-in-five Gazans now faced starvation.

Green card

At least four local residents had attempted to schedule a meeting with Hastings’ strangely-elusive MP, Helena Dollimore, in advance of Wednesday’s national lobby. But by Tuesday evening, her failure to respond positively meant that I was the only one still committed to going.

Having taken the day off work and made the 90 minute journey up to London, there was over an hour’s worth of queuing to be done before I finally reached Parliament’s iconic Westminster Hall.

At 2.25pm, I was finally able to send a so-called ‘green card’ to Helena Dollimore’s office, informing her that I would be in the Hall until 5pm and wanted to speak to her about the UK’s arms sales to Israel.

Enabling war crimes

In September, the government suspended a small number of arms export licences to Israel. However, it has continued to supply Israel with crucial components for the F35 fighter aircraft – the single largest and most important part of the UK arms trade with Israel – through third countries.

In July 2024, an F-35 was used to drop three 2000lb bombs in an attack on a so-called ‘safe zone’ on Al-Mawasi in Khan Younis – an area with long-standing links to Hastings – killing 90 people. This attack almost certainly violated International Humanitarian Law and may well have been a war crime.

Moreover without the continuous supply of spare parts from the UK, as well as other producer countries, it would be impossible for Israel to keep using F-35 fighter jets to bomb Gaza.

As Campaign Against Arms Trade has noted: ‘[T]he government’s claim that it is impossible to stop the indirect supply of F-35 components to Israel without disrupting the supply chain for all countries involved is highly questionable … The reality is that the UK is placing its relations with the US and the profits of the arms industry above international law and the lives of Palestinian people.’

Dollimore’s silence

The UK government has admitted that there is a ‘clear risk’ that F35 components sent to Israel – whether directly or indirectly – could be used to commit or facilitate serious violations of International Humanitarian Law, which makes such exports illegal under UK law. Arms sales to Israel are also prohibited under the Arms Trade Treaty, to which the UK is a party.

Helena Dollimore is not known to have made any public statement about UK arms sales to Israel since her election victory last July. Nor is she known to have made any public statement acknowledging that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.

In particular she is not one of the 64 MPs who have signed Early Day Motion 58, calling on the UK government ‘to cease the export of UK arms to Israel’.

Though I’ve sent numerous emails to Helena Dollimore since July, I’ve not received a substantive response (i.e. beyond an automated message acknowledging that I’d sent my message) to any of them.

Dollimore no show

I travelled up to London because I wanted to look her in the eye and ask her if she would publicly call on her government to abide by UK and international law and stop supplying F35 components to Israel, either directly or indirectly.

Over the two-and-half hours after I’d submitted my green card, scores of MPs came down to speak with their constituents. Some were familiar names (Diane Abbott, James Cleverly, Wes Streeting), others less so (Sir Desmond Swayne).

But of Helena Dollimore there was so sign.

Iain Duncan-Smith sent a message that he wasn’t coming down to meet his constituents.

Helena Dollimore didn’t even do that.

At 5pm I left to catch the train back to St Leonards. I’d put my email address on the green card. I checked it when I got back to St Leonards. Nothing.

Stop arming genocide

I also learned that Helena Dollimore had spoken about Gaza in a Parliamentary debate that afternoon. A soft-ball question to the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs. Hamish Falconer, ‘welcom[ing]’ the fact that ‘the UK, with our international allies, [had] call[ed] an urgent briefing on the situation at the UN Security Council’.

She referred to Fletcher’s ‘warning about the dire consequences of the situation continuing’, but not his calls to ‘prevent genocide’ by ‘stop[ping] arming it’.

On the UK’s ongoing role in enabling Israel’s crimes she was completely silent.

You can send a polite message to Helena Dollimore MP urging her to publicly support an end to UK arms sales to Israel using https://www.writetothem.com/ and your postcode.

Campaign Against Arms Trade: https://caat.org.uk/

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