A proposed BDS policy at the University of Manchester Students’ Union (UMSU) has been withdrawn following legal advice.
The policy proposal contained a litany of anti-Israel allegations and supported BDS against Israel. The Friends of Israel Society at Manchester University, assisted by UK Lawyers for Israel (UKLFI), wrote to UMSU, setting out why the proposal and UMSU’s procedure for considering it were unlawful. The following points were made:
- UMSU’s procedure did not allow opponents of the policy a fair opportunity to counter its many false and one-sided allegations by a communication circulated to students before they would vote on it.
- The proposed policy promoted a BDS campaign by calling on the University to cut all ties with Israel, including exchange programmes with the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and joint research programmes with Tel Aviv University. It also endorsed earlier, unlawful BDS motions, implying that they were lawful, even though UMSU had accepted that it would be unlawful to put the earlier motions into effect. Boycott campaigns are outside a student union’s charitable objects and academic boycotts contravene the Equality Act.
- The proposed policy provided for UMSU to fund amplifying the voices of Palestinians. This would constitute unlawful discrimination against students with ethnicities other than Palestinian in breach of the Equality Act 2010. It would also result in unfair allocations of funding to different societies in breach of section 22 of the Education Act 1994.
The vote on the BDS policy had already been postponed on 26 March 2025, pending legal advice, as previously reported.
On 2 May 2025 the legal advice was discussed by the Union Assembly Committee. According to the statement of UMSU’s Executive Officer Team, the legal advice contained 6 recommendations. The Committee voted to approve 4 of theme and an additional proposal from a committee member to mitigate the 2 that were not approved.
After this information and the amended policy were shared with the policy’s proposers, they decided to withdraw the proposal.
The Students’ Union apologised to the proposers for the length of the process and said “we will be reviewing our democratic processes as a result.”
The Students’ Union Executive Officer Team made a statement criticising charity law, which they said prevented Students’ Unions from taking “principled positions and resourcing campaigns on the most pressing issues of our day”.
They added “There can be no “freedom of speech” until there is the freedom to oppose imperialism, in all its manifestations, without qualification”
Jonathan Turner, chief executive of UKLFI commented: “We are very pleased with this outcome, which clearly results from drawing attention to the student union’s legal obligations. Student unions must conduct political debates fairly, must not discriminate against Jewish or Israeli students, and must not engage in political campaigns outside their charitable objects. We congratulate Naomi Brookarsh, President of the Israel Society at Manchester University, on her work resisting this attempt to misuse the student union to intimidate Jewish students and other students who support Israel.”
The outcome is posted at https://manchesterstudentsunion.com/news/article/students-union-union-assembly-solidarity-with-palestine-policy-withdrawal