UK
Co-op joins growing list of brands boycotting Israel
The decision follows an earlier move in to stop selling Russian products after the invasion of Ukraine.
The Co-op has officially joined a number of global brands boycotting Israel, following a vote by its members calling for the supermarket to demonstrate “moral courage and leadership” by removing Israeli goods from its shelves. The Co-op Group board approved a policy banning the sourcing of products from 15 countries, including Israel, Iran, Russia, Syria, Myanmar, Afghanistan, and Belarus, nations it says are responsible for “internationally recognised” human rights violations and breaches of international law.
This decision follows a move in March 2022 to stop selling Russian products after the invasion of Ukraine.
Known for its commitment to ethical business practices, including supporting Fairtrade and local community initiatives, the Co-op stated that the new policy will apply both to whole products and to ingredients used in its own-brand lines. The financial impact is expected to be minimal, as the vast majority of the Co-op’s supply chain is based in Western Europe.
Debbie White, chair of the Co-op Group board, described the move as “a clear demonstration of our co-operative values in action, where the voices of our members have been listened to and then acted upon.”
“We are committed, where we can, to removing products and ingredients from our shelves which are sourced from those countries where the international consensus demonstrates there is not alignment with what happens in those countries and our co-operative values and principles,” she said.
Other major brands taking similar action
The Co-op joins a growing number of global brands distancing themselves from Israel over its treatment of Palestinians and the ongoing conflict.
Orange
In 2015, French telecom giant Orange cut ties with Partner, its Israeli licensee, after concerns over its presence in illegal settlements. Partner had installed more than 100 telecommunications antennas on confiscated Palestinian land and operated stores within Israeli settlements.
Veolia
Also in 2015, French utilities company Veolia divested from all Israeli operations, including the controversial Jerusalem Light Rail (JLR), which facilitates the expansion of settlements in occupied East Jerusalem. Veolia sold its stake in the JLR and exited the Israeli market entirely.
Itochu Corporation
In February 2024, Japan’s Itochu Corporation ended its strategic partnership with Israeli defense firm Elbit Systems. The move followed the ruling by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ordering Israel to take measures to prevent acts of genocide in Gaza and better protect civilians.
Shein
In May 2024, the Chinese fast fashion retailer Shein displayed a Palestinian flag on its website in a gesture of solidarity. The move sparked backlash in Israel, leading to a boycott of the platform and the subsequent suspension of free shipping to the country.
BDS movement gains momentum
Meanwhile, the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, which was launched in 2005 by over 170 Palestinian civil society organisations, continues to gain momentum. It calls for economic and cultural pressure on Israel to end what it describes as apartheid, military occupation, and settler-colonialism.
In the UK, the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) runs the ‘Boycott Barclays’ campaign, which calls on customers to close their accounts in protest of the bank’s investments in arms companies supplying weapons to Israel.
Another initiative, ‘Don’t Buy Apartheid,’ urges consumers, businesses, cafés, and restaurants to avoid purchasing Israeli produce and to boycott companies like Coca-Cola, which BDS claims are linked to the occupation.
The movement also targets several multinational corporations for their alleged complicity. These include Hewlett-Packard (HP), which provides technology services to Israeli prisons accused of detaining Palestinians in inhumane conditions; AXA, an insurance company with financial ties to Israeli banks involved in illegal settlement construction; AHAVA, a cosmetics brand operating from an Israeli settlement in the occupied West Bank; Sabra, a food company partially owned by an Israeli firm that supports the Israeli military; and McDonald’s, whose Israeli franchise has reportedly provided free meals to Israeli soldiers.
One hundred years of the Woodcraft Folk Co-op
JUNE 28, 2025
By Sally Hobbs
This year is the 100th anniversary of the Woodcraft Folk (WCF) and the Co-op have just published a special edition of their newsletter with articles about its history and ethos and the experiences of young people who have been members. So, writing this piece is by way of personal recollections about the learning and experiences I have had and some reflections on it…
My children grew up in the 1990s, in an area denuded of all resources by years of Tory government with struggling schools and services. The inner city area where I live in Manchester has always been one with a wide mixture of people, at one time with the highest proportion of Irish people in any ward outside two in London. Now it has a high proportion of Muslims with Pakistani/Bangladeshi and Middle Eastern heritages, refugees, students and workers from around the world. Many students like me, rented, then settled here when we could buy houses cheaply.
At that time, after-school clubs, activities and organisations for children were non-existent. More affluent areas ran Brownies, Guides and Scout groups; in our area there was the Army Cadets. Talking to other parents locally we found an organisation we thought could help: one with its roots in cooperation, anti- imperialism and socialism. It was one we would have to set up and learn to run ourselves as parents and volunteers, but with an opportunity to get funding for basics like room hire from the Co-op.
With the help of leaders from more experienced groups in Manchester, Levenshulme Woodcraft Folk group started with a dozen or so parents and children from the local primary, aged six or more in 1990. We organised trips to small hostels and campsites in the summer, and my six-year old daughter and two smaller children went with us to our first International camp in the New Forest in 1993.
With very young children, I found it too large to enjoy but the way quite young teenagers and older ones were so much part of the running, decision making and leadership was obvious and powerful. On that camp, some Manchester techs spent the week working with young Woodcrafters in 100 degree-plus with a new phenomenon – the internet – excited by its world-shrinking potential for equalising world communications between ordinary people. At the nightly ‘news’ session, presented to all the kids on the camp by older WCF teenagers (the District Fellows, 16-20 year olds), one item was shown from Blue Peter, presenting that they had just received ‘a new message called an email’ from the Woodcraft Folk camp.
From small beginnings, Levenshulme group grew to over 70 children and young people with helpers and parents running weekly group nights, and we organised annual camps of 100-plus. With the cost and problems of time off work, these trips became a regular feature of my annual holidays with our children, and enabled us all to spend time with adult friends when we were not running activities and our kids had activities, friendships and freedoms many didn’t experience in daily life.
Internationalism was always at the heart of our perspective and Woodcraft enabled our older children and young adults to become organisers, activists, to travel and advocate for others. In 1995, our local group hosted a group of about 20 Western Saharan children with two leaders from the refugee camps in the desert of Algeria, driven out of their homeland when Morocco invaded it in the 1970s and still living in camps in the harshest environment imaginable. They lived with us, featured in local newspapers swimming at the baths and meeting Gerald Kaufmann MP, who pledged his support for their cause and we went on our annual camp to Anglesey with them.
For our children, such close ties became a window on the lives of others and in particular on injustice and the fight for rights. Levenshulme WCF hosted Saharawi again twice in 1998 and 2000. Continuing the contact, through founding the Western Sahara Support Group locally has led to even greater connections. One of those Saharawi girls who came as a child is now grown up with two children of her own and has led an incredible project, creating sustainable vegetable growing in the Sahara desert camps. The early links with her and our long association has led to the foundation of a charitable trust in Levenshulme and more widely: Grow Hope Saharawi, with funds raised going to planting trees and infrastructure projects to support further development of food production.
Woodcraft Folk groups and the national organisation continue to have and have always had differences in political philosophies as a socialist organisation which can be quite fundamental. It has roots in close ties to the Communist Party, and some groups were more tightly controlled by adults in their approach to the ethos of the group. We have shared our village on international camps with Lithuanians and Austrian Red Falcons, and others have camped in quite luxurious camp grounds in former Eastern bloc European countries.
Local democracy and autonomy, though, is always substantial and it is hard to contain and marshall the views and attitudes of the hundreds of young leaders who are passionate about world change. Activists in WCF from young teenagers to the District Fellows who are the backbone of youth -ed democracy and who organise camps, national and international activities, ensure that campaigns such as the Free Tibet movement, together with support for Ukraine and against the actions of Israel are central.
The ethos of WCF as a socialist, democratic and egalitarian organisation gave us enough latitude to do things the way we wanted to locally – and nationally it is the leadership of youth which enables it to continue to be a learning and dynamic organisation.
For more on this, catch up with these articles, emailed to me via a local WCF leader, from Dr Anita Mangan, Editor of the Journal of Co-operative Studies. The Special Issue has just gone live: the Journal of Co-operative Studies | UK Society for Co-operative Studies takes you to the main landing page which has a blurb about the issue. The Journal of Co-operative Studies, Vol 58 No 1 | UK Society for Co-operative Studies takes you to the issue itself.
Sally Hobbs is a Palestine supporter and activist in Manchester.
Image: https://www.flickr.com/photos/eisfrei/6059557436/ Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial 2.0 Generic CC BY-NC 2.0 Deed
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