Tory MPs have criticised a government bill which would ban public bodies from boycotting Israel as a “violation of freedom of speech” and “draconian”.
Mr Malthouse told MPs: “In carving out Israel, the West Bank and the occupied Golan Heights in the legislation, the secretary of state is, I’m afraid, playing into the antisemitism that we’ve seen rise in this country over the last few weeks.”
Senior Jewish Labour MP Dame Margaret Hodge also expressed a fear that the bill would strengthen polarisation at a time when the Israel-Gaza war had already heightened community tensions.
She told MPs: “To bring this wrong-headed, poorly-drafted politically-motivated bill back in the midst of these horrors we are seeing every day… is an act of complete irresponsibility and unbelievable foolishness.”
Mr Gove robustly defended his bill, insisting it would not undermine free speech or prevent local authorities from taking into account human rights considerations when making decisions.
The bill was also backed by Conservative MP Theresa Villiers who said local authorities should be focused on “delivering services not conducting their own foreign policy”.
The original article contains 633 words, the summary contains 179 words. Saved 72%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Tory MPs have criticised a government bill which would ban public bodies from boycotting Israel as a “violation of freedom of speech” and “draconian”.
Mr Malthouse told MPs: “In carving out Israel, the West Bank and the occupied Golan Heights in the legislation, the secretary of state is, I’m afraid, playing into the antisemitism that we’ve seen rise in this country over the last few weeks.”
Senior Jewish Labour MP Dame Margaret Hodge also expressed a fear that the bill would strengthen polarisation at a time when the Israel-Gaza war had already heightened community tensions.
She told MPs: “To bring this wrong-headed, poorly-drafted politically-motivated bill back in the midst of these horrors we are seeing every day… is an act of complete irresponsibility and unbelievable foolishness.”
Mr Gove robustly defended his bill, insisting it would not undermine free speech or prevent local authorities from taking into account human rights considerations when making decisions.
The bill was also backed by Conservative MP Theresa Villiers who said local authorities should be focused on “delivering services not conducting their own foreign policy”.
The original article contains 633 words, the summary contains 179 words. Saved 72%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!