The Conservative Party received over £1 million from a big British construction company and its leaders after the United Nations connected it to the damaging of villages in Palestine. The construction company JCB was one of 122 companies mentioned in a UN report four years ago. The report showed pictures of JCB’s machines being used to construct Israeli settlements in the West Bank, an area under Israeli occupation. The company, officially known as JC Bamford Excavators Ltd, was accused of helping with the supply of equipment and materials that made it easier to build these settlements.
According to research done by openDemocracy, after the UN report came out, the Conservative Party has received over £1.3 million from JCB and the Bamford family, who are in charge of the company. This includes nearly £218,000 from JCB-related companies, and £983,000 from Mark Bamford, who is one of the directors of JC Bamford Excavators Ltd. Additionally, £100,000 was donated by Anthony Bamford, who is the chair of the company and holds a position as a Conservative member of the House of Lords.
Key supplier
Recently, J C Bamford Excavators Ltd donated £40,000 to Conservative MP Simon Clarke to support the hiring of a campaign manager. JCB denies allegations that it supports human rights violations in the West Bank. However, both a UK trade watchdog and the director of the UK charity Lawyers for Palestinian Human Rights argue that JCB is not properly checking who purchases and utilizes its equipment.
For many years, JCB has been accused of being connected to settlements in the West Bank. There have been photos since at least 2006 showing the Israeli military using JCB bulldozers to destroy Palestinian homes. Amnesty International describes JCB as a crucial provider of machinery used in these ongoing human rights violations. They criticize the company for not taking sufficient action to address these concerns.
In response to the findings by openDemocracy, Peter Frankental, Amnesty’s UK economic affairs director, warned that any political donations from JCB should be viewed with great caution.
“According to international human rights standards for businesses, JCB has a definite duty to take actions to ensure its products are not involved in human rights abuses. We’ve been emphasizing for years that there should be significant consequences for JCB if it neglects to prevent its products from being misused abroad.
The Conservative Party should promptly reconsider any future donations from JCB until it is demonstrated that the company has taken appropriate measures to prevent its equipment from being unlawfully used to demolish Palestinian homes in the Occupied Territories.”
Due diligence
In 2021, a UK government watchdog discovered that JCB “did not take any measures to carry out human rights due diligence despite being aware of alleged negative human rights effects.” This came after a complaint from Lawyers for Palestinian Human Rights, which accused the company of “not adhering to the OECD guidelines” because its machinery is utilized in the demolition of Palestinian property.
(The OECD is an organization comprised of Western governments overseeing various aspects of trade and economic policy.) The complaint also alleged that JCB was “contributing to negative human rights effects” and “neglecting to explore methods to prevent and alleviate” these impacts.
This complaint was submitted to the UK’s National Contact Point (UK NCP) regulator in December 2019. The UK NCP enforces OECD rules. Interestingly, on the same day, the complaint was filed, then Prime Minister Boris Johnson staged a highly publicized election event at the JCB Cab Manufacturing Centre in Staffordshire. During this event, he drove a Brexit-themed digger through a polystyrene wall while cameras filmed the spectacle.
In its decision, the watchdog stated that JCB had “a definite business connection” with its only supplier in Israel, a company named Comasco and that it was “failing to conduct human rights due diligence in its supply chain.”
The watchdog acknowledged that the utilization of machinery in Israeli settlements “cannot be definitively attributed to JCB” because the company lacked “control” over the entire market, which might encompass suppliers of second-hand machinery. Tareq Shrourou, director of Lawyers for Palestinian Human Rights, emphasized to openDemocracy: “JCB is aware that it needs to promptly put in place robust due diligence measures to prevent and address the documented use of its products in serious human rights violations against Palestinians.”