The British Foreign Secretary has spoken out against the legal case requesting the removal of Hamas from the UK terror list, saying the group’s status is “not for change,” according to a pro-Israel newspaper.
Speaking to the Jewish Chronicle, a pro-Israel newspaper, David Lammy reportedly labelled the group “barbaric” and said it acted with “despicable cruelty,” indicating that the application is unlikely to be well received once it is processed.
“Our position is simply not for changing: Hamas, which committed a barbaric terrorist attack on 7 October, has long been designated a terrorist organisation in the UK.
It continues to hold dozens of hostages and all the while endangers civilians by embedding itself among civilian infrastructure. These are acts of despicable cruelty that show Hamas’ barbaric nature,” Lammy was reported to have said.
5Pillars reached out to Riverway Law, the legal firm behind the application to remove Hamas from the UK’s terror list, for a response to Mr Lammy’s comments.
“Mr Lammy should be aware that as much as it might help his career progression, it is not within the powers or remit of the Foreign Secretary to decide whether or not an organisation should be proscribed.
If ‘acts of despicable cruelty’ are the threshold for proscribing an organisation, there can be no greater example of the same than genocide. For that reason we look forward to Mr Lammy ending Britain’s sponsorship of the Israeli Defence Forces and instead call for their proscription.”
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Additional political reactions
Earlier, the Home Secretary herself, Yvette Cooper, was asked to comment on the news of a legal application for Hamas to be delisted from the terror list.
Speaking to LBC on 10 April, Ms Cooper said: “Hamas is a terrorist organisation. It was a barbaric terrorist attack on 7 October. Hamas has long been a terrorist organisation. We maintain our view about the barbaric nature of this organisation.”
Dame Priti Patel, who outlawed Hamas in its entirety by adding its political wing to the list while serving as Home Secretary in 2021, also commented on the case.
In a statement posted on X, Dame Patel said: “Hamas is an evil Iranian-backed terrorist organisation which kidnaps, tortures, and murders people, including British nationals. They pose an ongoing threat to our security and to peace and stability in the Middle East.”
Those campaigning to end the proscription of Hamas fail to understand the seriousness of the threats this terrorist organisation pose.”
5Pillars reported from the press conference where the announcement of a legal bid to change the status of the Palestinian armed group was first made public.
The 106-page application, submitted by the London-based law firm Riverway Law, has been informed by the expertise of 20 scholars hailing from a range of academic, journalistic, political and cultural backgrounds.
Among the experts is former ad hoc judge of the International Court of Justice (ICJ), Professor John Dugard.
The application attempts to argue that proscription of Hamas “unlawfully infringes fundamental rights, such as a disproportionate impact on freedom of speech and freedom of assembly, as protected by Articles 10 and 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights” including open debate and political expression.
The application also seeks to assert that proscription undermines the possibility of a peaceful settlement and draws historical analogies in that regard with South Africa and Ireland.
Fahad Ansari, Director of Riverway Law, said the legal move offered an opportunity for the UK to change its course on the states historic complicity in settler colonialism.
“The application invites the Secretary of State to change course from Britain’s longstanding complicity in settler colonialism and apartheid dating back to the Balfour Declaration until the present day genocide.”
Hamas was added to the UK’s list of proscribed organisations in its entirety in
November 2021 by then-Home Secretary Priti Patel.
Prior to 2021, only Hamas’s military wing – the al-Qassam Brigades – had been proscribed since 2001.
At the tine of the blacklisting, Home Secretary Patel argued that it was not possible to distinguish between Hamas’s political and military wings, calling Hamas “fundamentally and rabidly anti-Semitic”, adding the proscription was required to protect the Jewish community.
