The 70-strong protest happened as the council pension committee held a meeting at the town hall yesterday, reports Sebastian Mann, Local Democracy Reporter

The protesters outside Waltham Forest Town Hall yesterday evening (27th June), Credit: LDRS

Around 70 protesters gathered outside Waltham Forest Town Hall last night to continue their campaign for the council to divest funds from companies ‘complicit’ with Israel.

Millions from Waltham Forest Council’s pension fund have been invested into businesses connected to the sales of weapons to Israel or illegal settlements, a Freedom of Information (FOI) request previously revealed.

Scores of activists from Waltham Forest For a Free Palestine (WF4FP), members of the Socialist Party and the general public held an hour-long demonstration ahead of a pension committee meeting on Thursday (27th June).

They held up a lengthy banner in front of the entrance to the town hall, calling for an end to the “slaughter”. The group repeated popular chants, calling for Palestine to be free “from the river to the sea” and for an end to “genocide”.

Israel has been at war with Hamas, the militant governing body of Gaza, since around 1,200 Israelis were killed in an attack last October. Israel’s heavy retaliation, which has polarised western opinion, has left more than 37,000 Gazans dead.

The protest was the second of its kind, following on from a 100-strong demonstration in March.

Tayyaba Kamal, an organiser with WF4FP, said: “We’re here to tell the council we don’t want them to use our money to support Israeli apartheid and the genocide of Palestinian people.

“The people of Waltham Forest don’t want blood on our hands.”

The council does not handle all of its investments directly. The responsibility lies with London Collective Investment Vehicle (LCIV), which oversees the pension funds of all 32 borough councils in London.

But the FOI showed £6.6million of the council’s funds had been passively invested into companies linked with Israel.

A spokesperson for Waltham Forest Council previously said the LCIV handles its equity investments and that none of the funds it directly managed were “invested with companies accused of complicity”.

He said: “Our investors must consider a range of environmental, social, and human rights issues when making investment decisions and these can have an impact on the future performance of the pension fund.”

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Tayabba said the aim of the protest was for the council to divest its funds “immediately” and the group had been “really disappointed” in the council’s response.

She added: “We’ve not had any councillors openly come out and say they agree with the divestment, even if they personally do.”

Shanell Johnson, who is standing to be an independent MP for Leyton and Wanstead, told the crowd: “The whole point of divesting now is exactly that.

“It’s your council tax money that is going towards funding this, so it’s your opportunity to make sure it stops.”

Members of Waltham Forest’s pension board – separate from the committee – called the links to any such companies “troubling” at a meeting on 12th June.

However, chairman Chris Buss said the authority does not need to consider ethical implications in any of its investments.

Any divestment must also not financially harm the council, resource director Rob Manning warned.

Members of WF4FP have said the money should instead go into green companies or those developing sustainable technology.

The matter was briefly debated again during last night’s meeting, as protestors could be heard chanting outside.

Councillor Johar Khan, the chairman of the committee, said it understood people’s concerns and was “exhausting all [its] options” within the legal and financial framework.

It has offered a meeting with WF4FP on 22nd July to specifically discuss the investments. The pro-Palestine group told the LDRS are yet to collectively decide as a group whether to accept the invitation, but said the offer was a “positive sign”.

Tabayya added the turnout showed that people were “passionate” about how the council was “using their pension funds”.

Fellow campaigner Shazia Kauser said the matter had become “urgent”.

The LCIV says it has “assessed” and “disclosed” its involvement with companies that were said to “facilitate” human rights abuses in Israel, following a Human Rights Watch report that detailed “crimes of apartheid and persecution” by the Israeli authorities.

In a general statement, a spokesperson said: “We will continue to monitor all relevant lists and identify emerging issues to ensure our funds are not complicit in any violations of human rights or international law anywhere in the world.”

According to a report put before the committee on Thursday, Waltham Forest is the first partner to formally say it wishes to “outright exclude any issuer whose business is linked to illegal Israeli settlements”.

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