Some British MPs and councillors have a fixation unrelated to local issues

Clive Lewis, Labour MP for Norwich South, recently warned that the Government risked adding “the stain of the climate crisis” to its political record “alongside its handling of Gaza”. It’s as if he, among many political representatives, is using Israel as his own personal marketing campaign to promote himself and deflect away from his core responsibility. That being a responsibility to all their constituents, and not just to a select few who might help ensure their re-election at voting time!

But why only Gaza? Why, if quoting a prolonged humanitarian catastrophe deserving of Britain’s political attention, did Mr Lewis once again choose Israel and the Palestinians? I can find no comparable public record of Mr Lewis campaigning with anything like the same passion about the plight of Nigeria’s Christians. In fact, I can find no record at all.

It is not that Gaza should be ignored. Of course, civilian suffering there deserves scrutiny and concern. The question is one of consistency. Mr Lewis himself has argued that humanitarian principles should apply to everyone, or to no one. If that is genuinely his position, surely those principles should extend equally to Christians being murdered, abducted and displaced in Nigeria. Surely, as an MP in a Christian country, this would be a far more appropriate allegory?

As noted elsewhere, Norwich has been identified among the most financially stressed cities in England. Rising inflation, high rental burdens, private renters frequently spending over 40% of their income on housing, and a high volume of council tax collection and debt-relief actions place heavy strain on households, and 30% of children in Norwich live in poverty after housing costs.

So perhaps Mr Lewis could explain why Israel and Gaza repeatedly become his chosen moral comparison, while the prolonged suffering of Christians in Nigeria apparently does not merit any attention. And how, precisely, his partisan support for Gaza reflects on his constituents in Norwich South, who face stark socioeconomic challenges, with much localised economic inactivity, high living costs, and deep health inequalities, the issues they elected Mr Lewis to address.

He is not alone. The recently elected Green MP for Gorton and Denton, a constituency in England’s Greater Manchester, didn’t mention the environment once in her maiden speech to the UK Parliament. In March 2025, Bedford’s Labour MP Mohammad Yasin backed a campaign alongside 19 other cross-party members of parliament to build an airport in Pakistani-controlled Kashmir, yet over half of those MPs voted against an expansion of Heathrow Airport.

The “Your Party” MP for Coventry South, Zarah Sultana, also representing a constituency with deep socioeconomic problems, devotes a considerable portion of her time and energy to supporting not only Gaza but also the proscribed “Palestine Action” group, and is a fierce anti-Zionist, very anti-UK Monarchy and parrots “genocide” and “apartheid” at every opportunity despite never providing accredited proof for any of her claims. This is very much the same manner as the leader of the Green Party, Zack Polanski, who, although he is not a member of parliament, states his “Jewishness” at every opportunity while parroting “genocide” and “apartheid”, again, offering no proof.

For the past 17 years, Christians in Nigeria have endured killings, kidnappings, and attacks on churches; some 10,000 churches destroyed seems to be a reliable, but very sad, quoted figure, and the destruction of entire communities. Yes, the statistics are disputed and should be treated cautiously, but even conservative estimates demonstrate a horrifying and sustained crisis. Open Doors, for example, has recorded thousands of Christians killed, while other organisations claim far higher cumulative totals since 2009.

British MPs and councillors who take an interest in serious international human rights abuses should do so regardless of whether they fit a “fashionable”, if somewhat of a bandwagon, political narrative.

And regarding the “genocide” trope in particular, these people trot it out with almost total abandon. Those living in the UK may have noted that an increasing number of advertisers in the broadcast and written media have started adding “We believe” when describing their products or services. This is because the UK’s advertising and standards watchdogs will not allow them to claim something as true that they cannot prove as being true. It is taken to be their opinion, which advertising rules allow them to state.

Yet UK MPs and councillors seem to be allowed to claim what they like, irrespective of the truth or facts, and the two regulatory bodies, the Parliamentary Standards Commissioner and the local authorities under rules established by the Localism Act 2011, rarely, if ever, take action. In fact, when it comes to alleged “hate speech”, the Parliamentary Standards Commission, in essence Parliament’s HR division governing its MPs, does nothing, and expects complainants to approach the police.

Is humanitarian concern supposed to be universal, or only universal when the cause happens to involve Israel?