{"id":172689,"date":"2025-06-10T10:23:09","date_gmt":"2025-06-10T10:23:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/172689\/"},"modified":"2025-06-10T10:23:09","modified_gmt":"2025-06-10T10:23:09","slug":"uk-officials-say-civil-servants-concerned-about-british-support-for-israel-can-resign-politico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/172689\/","title":{"rendered":"UK officials say civil servants concerned about British support for Israel can resign \u2013 POLITICO"},"content":{"rendered":"

The U.K. suspended free trade agreement negotiations<\/a> with Israel last month due to its block on aid and imposed sanctions on individuals and businesses perpetuating violence against Palestinians in the West Bank. <\/p>\n

Last year, it suspended some export licences<\/a> over concerns they might be used in violation of international humanitarian law. <\/p>\n

However, it has rejected calling Israel\u2019s assault a genocide, stating that is for the courts<\/a> to decide, and has not recognized a Palestinian state.<\/p>\n

The Public and Commercial Services Union\u2019s General Secretary Fran Heathcote, who represents many U.K. government workers, said Robbins and Dyer\u2019s response was \u201cconsistent with the attitude displayed by civil service management all along, in that it is hopelessly inadequate.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cThere has been little effort to address our members\u2019 concerns and no effort to justify the U.K. government\u2019s interactions with the government of Israel, despite our genuine concerns over its potential failure to comply with its obligations under international and domestic law,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Heathcote added: \u201cAs for the suggestion that civil servants may wish to resign if they are uncomfortable with what they are being asked to do \u2014 this is simply reprehensible. It is a dereliction of duty and a startling ignorance of the provisions of the civil service code, which require all civil servants to act in accordance with the law, including international law. \u201d <\/p>\n

A Foreign Office spokesperson said: \u201cSince day one, this government has rigorously applied international law in relation to the war in Gaza.\u201d<\/p>\n

The spokesperson added:\u201cIt is the job of civil servants to deliver on the policies of the government of the day and to provide professional, impartial advice as set out in the Civil Service code. There are systems in place which allow them to raise concerns if they have them.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The U.K. suspended free trade agreement negotiations with Israel last month due to its block on aid and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":172690,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[748,1193,6217,393,4884,837,1815,7163,839,1144,712,16,15,1764,1202],"class_list":{"0":"post-172689","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uk","8":"category-united-kingdom","9":"tag-britain","10":"tag-british-politics","11":"tag-david-lammy","12":"tag-england","13":"tag-great-britain","14":"tag-israel","15":"tag-israel-hamas-war","16":"tag-israeli-palestinian-conflict","17":"tag-middle-east","18":"tag-northern-ireland","19":"tag-scotland","20":"tag-uk","21":"tag-united-kingdom","22":"tag-wales","23":"tag-westminster-bubble"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114658581091214108","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172689","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=172689"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172689\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/172690"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=172689"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=172689"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=172689"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}