“Desperate attempt” to challenge Portsmouth-Birzeit friendship link fails

In November this year, Portsmouth City Council authorised a friendship link with the small West Bank town, located north of Ramallah, the administrative capital.

The decision was approved by the council’s cabinet, following a motion passed by full council in December 2023. The link aims to strike a balance with Portsmouth’s long-standing sister city relationship with Haifa, Israel, which has been in place since 1963.

A call-in is a process that allows councillors to request reconsideration of a decision made by cabinet, it was submitted by councillors George Madgwick and Spencer Gardner, who spoke in the scrutiny management panel.

Introducing the call-in, Councillor Gardner said it was “not about debating international politics” or expressing support or opposition “to any community here or abroad”, but rather about whether the decision had been made on an accurate and complete basis.

Grounds

Five grounds for the call-in were submitted, on the basis that Cllrs Madgwick and Gardner believed the decision may have relied on inaccurate or inadequate information.

The first ground alleged a material omission from the decision-making process, namely the “repeated electoral successes of student blocs aligned with Hamas (a proscribed terrorist organisation under UK law)” at Birzeit University.

In response, Cllr Atwell clarified that the friendship link is “with the town not the student council in the university”.

Cllr Graham Heaney echoed this, adding that student blocs do not represent the university’s governing body. He said that, even if the information had been available at the time, he doubted it have altered the decision.

Responding to another point raised in the call-in, that the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office advises against all but essential travel to the area, he stated that “we’re not travelling to the area”.

The second ground argued that the decision relied on, and was aided by, a single partisan source: the Britain Palestine Friendship and Twinning Network.

The call-in stated that BPFTN has a “clear political advocacy agenda”, with a mission of building “solidarity with the Palestinian people”, and claimed that “contrasting perspectives or independent evidence” had not been included.

Cllr Suzy Horton expressed confusion in response, asking why Portsmouth would pursue a friendship link with “anyone that we weren’t wanting to build solidarity with”.

Cllr Heaney questioned what an alternative perspective would be and noted that similar considerations were not applied when Portsmouth proposed twinning with Valletta, Malta. He dismissed the ground as “opinion”.

The third ground questioned the lack of consultation. Cllr Madgwick asked why Portsmouth’s Muslim, Jewish and LGBTQ+ communities were not consulted, given the political sensitivity of the issue.

Cllr Atwell responded: “that’s not how we do twinning”, explaining that the public has never been consulted on friendship links, sister city relationships or twinning arrangements. Instead, “we use elected members of the twinning advisory group”.

The fourth ground raised concerns about finances, stating that residents had expressed unease about the council pursuing the link during a period of financial pressure.

It was confirmed that work relating to Birzeit is being absorbed into an existing officer’s workload, with no change to hours or salary and no additional cost to the council.

Cllr Atwell agreed, adding that councils increasingly expect “fewer people to do more work all the time”.

The fifth ground challenged the stated population of Birzeit. An officer’s report cited a figure of around 7,800, while the call-in noted that the 2017 census recorded a population of 5,878 and that the higher figure appeared to come from an unverified tourism source.

Cllr Heaney pointed out that, with the last census conducted eight years ago, there was no way to fully substantiate the current population. He also questioned whether the discrepancy would have led the cabinet to make a different decision.

Process

Further concerns were raised about the decision-making process. Cllr Simon Bosher argued that the original notice of motion intended for the decision to return to full council, rather than being taken by cabinet.

The council’s solicitor rejected this, stating that while the wording of the motion was unclear, the executive was entitled to make the decision and was not required to escalate it to full council.

Cllr Gardner then questioned why a subsequent cabinet report recommended that the matter be reported back to cabinet, asking: “where has that come from, it’s either inaccurate or unclear”.

Cllr Heaney dismissed the challenge as a “desperate attempt to create a house of cards that is going to blow down at the first soft breeze, good try but I don’t think it’s going to work.”

The city solicitor noted that the cabinet report clearly stated it was not a full council decision, indicated by a “yes” or “no” at the top of the document.

He acknowledged confusion or inaccuracies in parts of the officer’s report but said this did not “take away from changing the executive functions and reserved full council function in this authority or at law.”

In closing, Cllr Simon Bosher said part of the problem lay in clarity around process and officer reporting.

The call-in was not upheld, with six votes in favour of no action.