A pro-Palestine activist is taking Greenwich Council to court over its £60 million in pension fund investments in companies with interests in Israel.
Lubna Speitan, a founding member of Greenwich Palestine Alliance, began the legal challenge after the council conceded that a clause in its pension fund investment strategy was unlawful.
According to the Public Interest Law Centre, which has taken on the case, Greenwich Council has conceded the clause was unlawful in claiming that it “cannot exclude investments in order to pursue boycotts, divestment and sanctions against foreign nations and UK defence industries”.
Speitan, a British-Palestinian artist and activist, said: “For decades, I have watched helplessly as my Palestinian family and people have been subjected to constant attack, displacement, torture, and slaughter. It is sustained by the brutal Israeli apartheid state, a system funded in part by investments from our own local council through the Local Government Pension Scheme.
“By maintaining these investments, Greenwich has been a participant in the genocide of our people and family. The council’s concession that its policy was unlawful confirms what we have long argued: it always had the power to divest.”
Speitan added: “Communities secretary Steve Reed recently claimed that councils could be at risk of being sued by suppliers who lose money, and could face paying substantial damages. He said that ‘councils should stay out of foreign conflicts and get on with the job of delivering local services’. It is a profound irony and distortion of truth.
“Divesting from genocide is not foreign policy, it is a fundamental duty to uphold law and basic morality for the communities you serve, rather than investing in injustice abroad.
“Councils across the UK once rightly divested from apartheid South Africa. We are simply demanding Greenwich apply those same principles to apartheid and genocidal Israel. Our case has proven they can.”
Israel has regularly denied that its actions in Gaza amount to genocide and says it is justified as a means of self-defence against Hamas, a group deemed to be a terrorist organisation by the UK. However, a United Nations commission determined in September last year that Israel has committed genocide in Gaza.
The Public Interest Law Centre’s legal director, Helen Mowatt, said: “For years, councils have wrongly claimed they lack the legal power to divest. Greenwich Council itself has operated this unlawful policy since at least 2020, without informing scheme members or the public that it knew the position was wrong until this legal challenge.
“Legally, councils can implement divestment, and this error in understanding must be widely disseminated – a point vital not only for investment panel members but also for community groups, grassroots campaigns, and activists.”
Speitan and Greenwich Palestine Alliance have been campaigning for Greenwich Council to make an immediate, full and permanent divestment from Israel since 2023. According to data from the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, Greenwich’s pension fund has invested more than £61.8 million in companies with Israeli interests.
The council’s responsible investment policy does not make any reference to human rights, but in December 2024 its pension panel agreed to re-examine the policy following lobbying from residents and campaigners.
In September last year, the pension panel voted to put to scheme members an updated policy that contains a new section on human rights. Greenwich Palestine Alliance said the planned policy failed to take into account its demands for a full divestment from Israel and had been “substantially watered down” from the commitment it made before.
Speitan argues that Greenwich failed to act in accordance with its constitution, its compliance Statement and the Local Government Pension Scheme (Management and Investment of Funds) Regulations 2016.
She also argues that the council failed to conduct a lawful consultation or consider alternatives to its draft policy. It also challenged Greenwich Council’s reliance on an investment strategy statement containing an unlawful instruction, which stated that its fund “cannot exclude investments to pursue boycotts, divestment, and sanctions against foreign nations and UK defence industries”.
A High Court judge will now decide whether to allow a judicial review of the council’s decisions on the matter.
Greenwich Council conceded its investment strategy unlawfully stated that it could not pursue divestment from a foreign nation. However, the council also denied that this had any impact on its decision not to divest from Israel.
Pro-Palestine campaigners have strongly rejected this, calling it “disingenuous” and arguing that the council clearly relied on unlawful information which prevented it from pursuing full divestment from Israel. This reliance, they argue, undermined all other divestment demands.
The council is currently consulting council employees on its draft responsible investment policy. Greenwich Palestine Alliance is encouraging employees to take part and “take a firm stance”.
In response to the legal challenge, a Greenwich Council spokesperson said: “We continue to share the deep concern about the ongoing situation in Gaza and Israel, where the devastating loss of life has been unimaginable. We are unable to comment any further due to ongoing legal proceedings, of which we await the outcome.”
Cameron Blackshaw is the Local Democracy Reporter for Greenwich and Bexley. The Greenwich Wire is a partner in the Local Democracy Reporting Service, which is a BBC-funded initiative to ensure councils are covered properly in local media. The story has been edited for length.
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