LONDON: A former UK minister of state has condemned the Conservative Party leadership hopeful Robert Jenrick, calling him an “extremist” and warning that his position on Israel and Palestine would make him a “disaster” as leader of the party.
Alan Duncan was speaking in a video interview with Palestinian journalist Ahmed Alnaouq, which was published on Thursday by Palestine Deep Dive.
During the interview, Duncan highlighted Jenrick’s controversial statements at the Conservative Party conference earlier this month, where Jenrick vowed to build the British Embassy in Jerusalem if the Foreign Office did not agree to relocate it.
“This man is an extremist. He does not believe in any kind of two-state solution although he says he does, he knows nothing about it. He takes his script entirely from the Conservative Friends of Israel and the Israelis, so he would be a disaster if he were leader of the Conservative Party,” Duncan said.
Duncan, who most recently served as UK minister of state for Europe and the Americas from 2016 to 2019 in the Conservative government of the time, also criticized the influence of lobbying organizations such as Conservative Friends of Israel, accusing them of shaping UK foreign policy on Israel.
He described how donor money and back channels have influenced Conservative Party decisions, saying: “It goes straight into number 10 Downing Street” and “tells the Foreign Office what to do.”
Duncan expressed skepticism about the Conservative government’s commitment to its official stance on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
While the UK’s stated policy views Israeli settlements as illegal and supports the establishment of a Palestinian state, Duncan claimed that senior Conservative officials did not genuinely believe in these policies.
“They didn’t really believe in international law as far as I can see,” he added, accusing them of hypocrisy when it came to Israel.
When asked about Kemi Badenoch, the other Conservative leadership contender, Duncan admitted that he was unsure of her stance on foreign policy. He lamented the lack of experience and understanding of the Middle East among UK politicians.
“I haven’t got a clue what her views are on foreign policy, I simply do not know,” he said. “And it’s one of the problems of all British politics now is that those in Parliament have got no real experience of the region, they haven’t really learned the history and they just have very, very simple attitudes and this is dangerous.”
Duncan’s scathing remarks underscored growing divisions within the Conservative Party over its approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, as leadership hopefuls such as Jenrick adopt increasingly hard-line positions.
He also took aim at former UK government minister Michael Gove.
“Now one thing that was a disgrace was (Michael Gove) when he was minister, who is another completely sold-out sympathizer of Israeli extremism,” he said.
“He passed a law which said that local councils were not allowed to have a policy of boycotting Israeli produce even if they’re illegal, so you end up with one arm of the UK government saying Palestinian settlements are illegal and another arm of British government protecting illegal activity in those Palestinian settlements, and Parliament was pathetic in opposing this piece of legislation.”
Duncan also said that not enough value was placed on Palestinian lives by the British political class.
“I don’t think people in Parliament are sitting there and thinking quite what the devastation of the Gaza Strip actually looks like and means to people in terms of human suffering,” he said.
“They don’t even stop to think about it. Someone like Jenrick says: ‘Oh well, you know Hamas are dreadful, we’ve got to eliminate them,’ as if you can. I mean, he says nothing about the origins of this problem. So, he is a disgrace,” he said.
The former minister also criticized the current Labour government’s lack of a genuine commitment to a two-state solution, dismissing the rhetoric from both major parties as “waffle” and a reflection of ignorance about the situation on the ground.
Duncan’s candid remarks are likely to reignite debate about the UK’s foreign policy direction, particularly as the Conservative Party prepares to select its next leader.
