On the 31st of March, the Government will be hosting a meeting with major UK supermarkets to present them with new voluntary guidelines on the labelling of goods from West Bank settlements. These will probably ask supermarkets to explicitly label goods from West Bank settlements.

OXFAM, which is calling for these goods to be totally banned, has also been invited to join the meeting.

Goods from Northern Cyprus, Western Sahara and other territories which the British government considers occupied do not have explicit labelling guidance; for example, goods from Northern Cyprus are labelled ‘produce of Turkey’.

Speaking for the Fair Play Campaign Group, Jeremy Newmark, Chief Executive of the Jewish Leadership Council, said:

“This step risks encouraging those working for a wider programme of boycotts, divestment and sanctions against Israel. No meetings have taken place at this level to discuss produce from other territories that the British Government considers occupied. By involving groups which campaign for a boycott and a ban on all settlement goods, the Government is making it harder to believe that this meeting is purely about giving consumers choice.  These plans also risk harming the incomes of over twenty thousand Palestinian workers whose earn their livelihoods in the production of such goods.”