Protesters outside the Town Hall urged councillors to pass a motion calling for a ceasefire

• IN 1994, after decades of resistance led by my former boss Nelson Mandela, South Africa’s repressive and racist regime was finally brought down and South Africa enjoyed its first free elections; at which I was proud to be elected as an ANC MP.

After my election, I introduced the first ever motion on the Holocaust in South African parliamentary history. It stated that previous suffering – by Afrikaners at the hands of the British colonisers, or of Jews by the Nazis – in no way justified the brutal oppression of black South Africans or of Palestinians.

In 2001 I quit the ANC over the government’s failure to investigate large scale corruption, and moved to London to work as an investigative author and film-maker.

For me, the fight against apartheid did not end in 1994, and it will not end until the people of Palestine realise their dream of liberation and self-determination.

On December 7 1983 Camden Council adopted a declaration expressing its unqualified opposition to Apartheid in South Africa. That declaration not only unreservedly condemned Apartheid; it committed the council to action.

It precluded the council from investing in South Africa, from purchasing goods and services from South Africa, to absent itself from events at which the South African government was represented, prevented the use of any council facilities by those associated with the Apartheid regime, and promised aid and concessionary use of council facilities for those involved in the anti-Apartheid struggle.

In the five months since the horrific and indefensible Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, Israel has waged an unprecedented campaign of genocide against the people of Gaza.

In the face of this, what has Camden Council done? Where is the condemnation, the solidarity, and the action needed to bring about peace and justice in the Middle East.

Unlike in South Africa and more recently Ukraine, Camden Council has refused for five months even to debate a motion on the most elementary first step, an immediate ceasefire.

All our questions about the extent of Camden’s investment in companies complicit in the illegal occupation of Palestine have been stonewalled or ignored.

I, as a Camden resident, along with two Labour councillors from neighbouring Islington (who did pass a ceasefire motion in December), applied for a deputation to address the council meeting about these issues. Camden’s response to that request was two-fold.

First, it refused to hear our deputation, saying Camden has “no influence or control” over the matter, and that their agenda for March 4 was a busy one, as they had to agree next year’s budget.

That is a shamefully dishonest response. The council has absolute “influence and control” over the companies in which it invests.

More fundamentally, it represents the total abandonment of Camden Council’s important role as the democratic voice of the people of Camden.

Second, for the first time in its long history, it closed its public galleries. Democracy is about engagement, about listening. Sometimes, it is unpleasant and loud and disruptive. But that is a sign of health in a democracy.

These Labour councillors work for us, and it is their job to engage with us even when we are angry. I am ashamed that these people are running this borough.

I am ashamed that my council has not only lost its voice, it has lost its conscience. I’m afraid they don’t speak for me, and they don’t speak for the majority of the people of Camden.

They must either represent the many of us, or go now.

ANDREW FEINSTEIN
Address supplied