Sir Alan Duncan is being investigated by the UK Conservative Party after he accused several fellow Tories of acting as agents on behalf of Israel Thrusday on the Leading Britain’s Conversation radio station.
In the LBC interview, Duncan said that member of parliament and then-Secretary of State for International Development Priti Patel should be investigated for a 2017 Israel trip.
"We still don't know who paid for her trip, when she came back and tried to change government policy as a result of going on a secret trip without actually telling her officials or even the local ambassador," he said.
Duncan said that former Conservative Friends of Israel head Lord Stuart Polak should be removed from the House of Lords because "he is exercising the interests of another country."
“The Conservative Friends of Israel has been doing the bidding of [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu, bypassing all proper processes of government to exercise undue influence at the top of government,” said Duncan.
Duncan also called for the party to flush out “extremists” from politics for not condemning Israeli settlements, mentioning Lord Eric Pickles, MP Robert Jenrick, Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Michael Gove, Deputy Prime Minister Oliver Dowden, MP Suella Braverman, and Security Minister Tom Tugendhat.
“How can you have a security minister in the British government who does not believe in international law?” the former minister asked. “I think he [Tugendhat] should be sacked.”
Duncan said there's not as much support for Israel
The situation had improved since the recent removal of Jenrick and Braverman from cabinet positions, said Duncan, but he noted that Braverman “is still supporting Israel and the bombing and the annihilation of people in Gaza.”The Board of Deputies of British Jews on Thursday welcomed an investigation into Duncan’s comments, saying that it was disgraceful to “accuse two peers, one of whom is Jewish, of dual loyalties.”The Campaign Against Antisemitism said that suggesting his peers are working for Israel invoked “classic antisemitic tropes of Jewish power and disloyalty.”“This is not the first time that he has made accusations of parliamentarians being controlled by Israel,” CAA said.“But it should be the last time that he does so as a member of [the] Conservative Party. He must be expelled from the party.”The Jewish Leadership Council said Thursday that it had raised the use of antisemitic tropes with the Conservative Party.