Cardiff becomes first Welsh council to back Israel divestment motion
Joins growing UK trend as Jewish leaders warn pension fund votes may be legally meaningless
Cardiff has become the first council in Wales to vote in favour of divesting its pension fund from companies linked to Israel, joining a growing number of UK local authorities backing pro-Palestinian demands for disinvestment in the wake of the war in Gaza.
The motion, passed by 57 votes to 7 on 17 July, calls on the Cardiff and Vale Pension Fund and the Wales Pension Partnership to withdraw from firms allegedly “complicit in Israeli war crimes”. It was introduced by Plaid Cymru councillor Andrea Gibson, with an amendment backed by Labour.
Proponents hailed the result as a historic breakthrough – but Jewish communal leaders stated that the decision is largely symbolic – and may have no impact on actual investments.
The Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC), which helped gather more than 1,200 local signatures in support of the motion, said it marked the first time any Welsh local authority had officially endorsed such a move. Cardiff follows similar divestment resolutions passed in councils including Lewisham, Kingston, Waltham Forest, and Wakefield in recent weeks.
According to the PSC, the Cardiff and Vale Pension Fund invests £117 million across 52 companies that it claims are complicit in breaches of international law – including by facilitating genocide and illegal settlement-building in occupied Palestinian territories.
The Cardiff and Vale Pension Fund itself states that just under £3 million – around 0.09 percent of its total portfolio – is invested in Israel-based companies, a figure far lower than the one cited by campaigners.
Speaking to Jewish News, Board of Deputies vice president Andrew Gilbert said: “There are a number of these divestment campaigns. Most recently the Palestine Solidarity Campaign has sort of said, ‘Aren’t we wonderful? We’ve got this through.’”
He cautioned that motions passed by full councils are often disconnected from the financial bodies responsible for managing the pension funds themselves.
“These pension funds are not a pension fund of the political council, but they are of the employees or former employees of the council,” he said. “They’re legally constrained, and there are likely to be more (constraints) in the future.”
Gilbert, who is currently examining Welsh pension fund structures ahead of expected reforms, said he has already spoken with senior figures involved in managing local government pension schemes in Wales.
“I’ve already put quite a bit of work into this… In Wales, these pension funds are about to change their whole structure as well, so whatever goes on now is probably not going to affect the future.”
“All the decisions I’m coming up to are people who are possibly making the decisions where the government will turn around later and question whether the decision made by the trustees was fiduciarily responsible.”
Cardiff Council and the Cardiff Vale Pension Fund were contacted for comment.
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