Divest for Palestine.
The Divestment campaign (the ‘D’ in ‘BDS’) operates on the understanding that Israel can only carry out its devastating assaults on Palestinians due to support provided by complicit corporations and financial institutions. The campaign urges banks, local government pension schemes and universities to withdraw investments from companies that help sustain Israel’s genocide and apartheid.
Palestinians have called on people worldwide to launch divestment campaigns as an effective way of showing solidarity with their struggle for freedom.
The background
As noted above, key targets of the divestment campaign include banks, universities and local government pension schemes (LGPS). For more information on our Boycott Barclays campaign, check out this page.
PSC research meanwhile has uncovered that British universities invest over £420m in companies complicit in Israeli apartheid. Many student groups are running divestment campaigns to end this complicity.
The research also revealed that LGPS funds, administered by councils across Britain, collectively invest over £12bn in companies complicit in Israel’s oppression of Palestinians.
This includes companies that:
- Supply weapons and military technology to Israel
- Provide infrastructure, like roads or transport lines, for Israel’s illegal military occupation of Palestinian land
- Conduct business activity in, or with, Israel’s illegal settlement enterprise, contributing to Israel’s colonisation of Palestinian land.
Our campaign
BHPSC (alongside sister branches in Eastbourne and Hastings & District and local solidarity group Lewes4Palestine), has campaigned for a number of years to pressure East Sussex County Council’s Pension Fund (ESPF) to divest from companies complicit in apartheid and genocide. The campaign bore fruit in 2021, when ESPF announced it had divested from Israeli arms manufacturer Elbit Systems on ‘human rights and international law’ grounds.
Divestment in Brighton & Hove
More recently, BHPSC has focussed our efforts on pressuring Brighton & Hove City Council (BHCC) to divest from Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza.
We seemed to be pushing at an open door when we read a 23 September 2025 op-ed in the Argus, written by Brighton & Hove Council Leader, Bella Sankey.
In the article, Sankey noted that she had recently written to the ESPF Committee Chair (ESPF administers BHCC pensions), asking for clarity on ESPF’s holdings. Sankey claimed her letter followed Brighton & Hove resident concerns about exposure to companies linked to Israel’s actions in Palestine.
A few weeks later, at a full council meeting on 13 October 2025 (and with a lively rally outside, above) BHCC took the first vital step towards divestment. To howls of indignation from local Zionists in the public gallery, councillors overwhelmingly voted (36 in favour, 5 against) for a motion recognising BHCC’s legal obligation not to contribute to Israel’s violations of international law.
The motion commits BHCC to conduct a review of its investments in companies complicit in Israel’s genocide, military occupation and apartheid in Palestine. It also commits the Council to demand that ESPF carry out a similar review of its ‘exposure to complicity’. BHCC committed to calling upon other local councils within the ESPF to join them in this demand.
The motion follows the publication of a major legal opinion, commissioned by PSC, which concluded that all UK local councils must take immediate action to divest from companies enabling or profiting from Israel’s crimes.
Councils must also put in place policies to ensure no future investments can be made in these companies. You can read the full opinion paper here.
In 2026, we’ll keep pushing to ensure that the momentum towards divestment continues. Watch this space for updates!