Sir Alan Duncan: Time To ‘Flush Out Extremists’ In Government ‘Doing The Bidding’ Of Israel
Former Conservative State Secretary Sir Alan Duncan advocated for a gutting of “extremists” in government and the House of Lords Thursday in a brutal takedown of politicians with membership of the Conservative Friends of Israel (CFI) parliamentary action group, saying the politicians were “doing the bidding” of “another country.”
Duncan named, among others, MP Priti Patel, recommending she be reinvestigated over her “secret trip” to Israel in 2017 when International Development Secretary, when she held an undisclosed meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and called for Security Minister Tom Tugendhat to be “sacked” because he “does not believe in International Law” in his support of Israeli settlements in the West Bank.
Duncan also accused Lord Stuart Polack and Lord Eric Pickles of “exercising the interests of another country” as members of the CFI and to be “removed from the [House of] Lords.”
The scathing criticism came during an interview on LBC, speaking to host Nick Ferrari. Duncan accused the CFI of “doing the bidding of Netanyahu.”
Duncan began: “There are a lot of people at the top of our own politics who refuse to condemn settlements and therefore are not supporters of international law. And I think the time has come to flush out those extremists in our own parliamentary politics and around it, some of whom are at the very top of government or have been, and they have never been called to account by journalists in the press to say, well, do you agree with your own party’s policy? Do you condemn illegal settlements?”
The former cabinet minister then began by calling out members of the CFI, who he accused of “bypassing all proper processes of government to exercise undue influence at the top of government” on behalf of Netanyahu’s government.
Duncan said: “So what you have is a lot of people now sitting around [Prime Minister] Rishi Sunak, who are giving him appalling advice. Let’s start with the head of CFI, or has been for many years, Lord Polack. In my view, I think he should be removed from the laws because he is exercising the interests of another country, not that of the parliament in which he sits. Joined, I have to say, by Lord Pickles. They’re the sort of Laurel and Hardy who should be pushed out together.”
He continued: “But at the top, I mean, slightly improved by the removal of [former Housing Secretary] Robert Jenrick and [former Home Secretary] Suella Braverman, although even today she is still supporting Israel and the bombing and the annihilation of people in Gaza. And she does not believe that settlements are wrong. Nor, I suspect, do [Levelling Up Secretary] Michael Gove, [Deputy Prime Minister] Oliver Dowden… [MP] Priti Patel, by the way, should be reinvestigated for her visit. 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.”
Rounding on Tugendhat, Duncan added: “He condemned the United Nations Security Council for its official criticism of Israel’s building settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories. Now, that may have been some years ago, but he’s never removed that, he’s never changed his view. How can you have a security minister in the British government who does not believe in international law? When all this is going on, I think he should be sacked.”
