Parliament watchdog accused of bias over treatment of pro-Israel politicians

The parliamentary standards commissioner has been accused of bias after dismissing a complaint against dozens of pro-Israel MPs.

Declassified can reveal how Daniel Greenberg – who is meant to be impartial – voiced support for Israel’s assault on Gaza after being appointed to his role in 2023.

He also once implied that any Israeli who refused to serve in the IDF was “a coward and a parasite”.

The comments have raised questions over his refusal last year to investigate whether MPs should formally declare their roles in Labour Friends of Israel (LFI), which just last month sent a delegation to meet the country’s president.

In October, Greenberg twice rejected a complaint about the MPs, suggesting there was no need for them to be transparent about their involvement with LFI because their roles were not sufficiently “significant and formal”. This is despite some holding “vice-chair” positions.

LFI is funded by anonymous donors and was described as a “lobbying organisation” by one of its former directors. A full list of its supporters, which included Keir Starmer and David Lammy, was deleted from the group’s website shortly before the election last year.

None of the MPs have declared their roles in parliament’s register of interests.

As standards commissioner, Greenberg is responsible for conducting “impartial” investigations to enforce transparency in the register of interests.

But two former members of parliament’s standards committee have now questioned his judgement, with one saying he “ought to recuse himself” over complaints relating to Israel.

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In 2012, Greenberg wrote a blog post about military service in Israel, criticising “boys hiding behind their religous [sic] books in order to evade army service”.

He said that his son had recently emigrated to Israel and had been signed up for military service.

Greenberg wrote: “….he could have avoided it pretty much forever had he chosen to… But my son prefers to be able to look himself in the face in the morning than to avoid army service.”

“If you live in a country where the borders need guarding, then you take your turn in guarding them: otherwise, what are you but a coward and a parasite, living off the efforts of others?”

Greenberg continued to publicly voice opinions about Israel even after he was appointed to his role as standards commissioner in January 2023.

In November of that year, he described Israel’s assault on Gaza as a “a war for its survival” that “we have to fight”. He later added that innocent civilians in Gaza are “living a hell on earth that I cannot even properly imagine”.

And last year he accused certain Orthodox Jews who “shirk responsibility” towards Israel’s military of “cowardly self-delusion”. The commissioner added that those who join the army find themselves in “good company on the battlefield”.

Transparency

In October, Greenberg’s office responded to the complaint against LFI-affiliated MPs, claiming “it is for [MPs] to decide” whether an outside interest is relevant and should be declared. But his office later appeared to back-track on this, admitting that adherence to the rules was “not discretionary”.

However, Greenberg’s office still refused to launch an investigation, implying they had not seen any evidence that the MPs’ roles at LFI were “significant and formal”.

In reality, parliamentary rules state that MPs should not only declare “significant, formal unpaid roles” – they should also declare “any other interest” if it “might reasonably be thought by others to influence a member’s actions or words as a member in the same way as a financial interest”.

This rule is one that Greenberg himself has previously considered in other cases. For instance, in 2023 he formally considered whether a Conservative MP’s unpaid role at an organisation might be “capable of influencing” his actions (ultimately ruling that it would not). He pursued this line of enquiry even despite acknowledging that the role was not significant or formal.

As parliamentary standards commissioner, Greenberg is supposed to be “independent, fair, thorough and impartial”. And in 2023, he personally reminded MPs to register any unpaid miscellaneous interests, saying they should be guided by the “principle of openness”.

Greenberg did not respond to questions from Declassified, but a House of Commons spokesperson said: “The Commissioner’s decision not to conduct a formal investigation is final and cannot be appealed. However, if additional evidence comes to light, the allegation can be resubmitted, and the Commissioner will consider it afresh.”

‘Compromised’

Responding to Declassified’s findings, two former members of the House of Commons standards committee said that Greenberg’s online comments raised questions about the perception of impartiality.

Former SNP MP Tommy Sheppard said that Greenberg “ought to recuse himself” over complaints relating to Israel. He said it “sounds like the commissioner is letting his views cloud his judgement and compromising the process”.

Sheppard added: “Of course non-financial interests should be declared – they always were in the past. The public deserves to know their representatives’ involvement, especially when it comes to support for foreign governments.”

Another former SNP MP and member of the standards committee, Douglas Chapman, said: “On the basis of these allegations it would appear that the commissioner’s integrity may have been compromised should some of these allegations have substance.”

He continued: “In this case, I cannot see why the commissioner doesn’t appreciate how his actions might be perceived and why any MP who is a LFI member has not been advised to register their involvement.”

Greenberg’s decision not to investigate LFI members was also criticised by Andrew Feinstein, executive director of Shadow World Investigations.

He told Declassified: “To have a standards commissioner who is making what, by all accounts, is an absurd ruling on what is a very basic matter of transparency, and who has significant conflicts of interests…creates a massive ethical problem for parliament and the country.”

Feinstein added: “Being a member of an organisation whose entire existence is about support for a country who – according to the highest court in the world – might be committing a genocide, and an organisation which is lobbying at the highest levels, is a real and significant threat to Britain’s democracy. If we are to maintain even a semblance of democracy, it goes without saying that this ought to be a public matter.”

Membership

LFI says it aims to “support parliamentarians in debates, discussions and events” and has secured extraordinary access to the Labour Party.

Until last year, a number of senior Labour MPs were listed as “vice-chairs” on LFI’s website. Dozens more were listed as “parliamentary supporters”, although it is unclear exactly what this label means in practice.

The list was deleted ahead of July’s general election, when it was being used by pro-Gaza candidates to discredit incumbent Labour MPs. However an archived copy from February 2024 includes 63 MPs who retained their seats. Among them are chancellor Rachel Reeves, who was named as one of LFI’s vice-chairs, and Starmer, who was listed as a parliamentary supporter.

Other vice-chairs included Jonathan Reynolds, now the business and trade secretary, and Peter Kyle, the secretary of state for science, innovation and technology, and Pat McFadden, who is the chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster.

In the past, some MPs have declared these roles in parliament’s register of interests, but it appears that none of the MPs listed have done so at any point in the last year.

LFI has previously claimed that the list was deleted because the organisation was “in the process of reforming our officers group”.

Declassified understands that some government ministers dropped their affiliations with LFI upon entering government, while other MPs have left in protest over Israel’s actions in Gaza.

Reeves, Reynolds, Kyle, and McFadden all stepped down from their roles as vice-chairs when they became ministers. But again, there is no mention of this in their official register of interests.

Declassified contacted all current Labour MPs who had been listed on the LFI website as supporters.

London MP Florence Eshalomi responded: “As soon as the unacceptable actions of the Israeli government became clear, I contacted LFI and asked for my name to be removed as one of their listed supporters. Shortly after this, they removed the list from their website.”

Other MPs including Liam Byrne, Catherine West, Chris Bryant, Fleur Anderson and Dan Jarvis confirmed that they no longer held any positions within the group.

‘Lobbying organisation’

LFI has provided MPs with briefings and policy research, even drafting speeches and parliamentary questions – as well as regularly taking Labour politicians on delegations to Israel and Palestine.

At an event organised by the group in October 2023, Starmer described it as an “invaluable source of energy and ideas for me and my team”, while former staff have boasted about “securing” political support over a range of controversial issues.

Although LFI does not describe itself as a lobbying group, its former director David Mencer, who led the group between 1998 and 2004, has been explicit about its aims, writing on his LinkedIn page that the group is a “lobbying organisation”.

Mencer, who is now a “communications specialist” for Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, added that he “lobbied in Parliament and Brussels using all political tools” while head of LFI.

As a group, LFI has openly associated itself with some of the most extreme elements of Israeli politics – and is still taking MPs on trips to the country.

Just last month, an LFI delegation was pictured with the Israeli president, Isaac Herzog, who has previously claimed there are no innocent civilians in Gaza, saying: “It’s an entire nation out there that is responsible.” They also met deputy foreign minister, Sharren Haskel, who has repeatedly dismissed widespread reports of a famine in Gaza as “complete lies”.

LFI did not respond to a request for comment from Declassified.