‘Our best days are ahead,’ Boris Johnson tells Israel-UK supporters
BORIS JOHNSON has told an audience of hundreds of Conservatives that Britain and Israel “must stand and work together”.
The Foreign Secretary addressed around 300 people at the Conservative Friends of Israel’s biggest-ever party conference reception in Birmingham on Tuesday evening.
With the four-day conference clashing with Rosh Hashanah, Jewish involvement in Birmingham was at a lower level than in previous years.
The CFI session was the stand-out event of the week, with Mr Johnson joined by a number of Secretaries of State and ministers, including Business Secretary Greg Clark, International Trade Secretary Liam Fox and Communities Secretary Sajid Javid.
The audience was also addressed by Mark Regev, Israel’s ambassador to Britain, at his first Tory conference.
Mr Johnson told the largely non- Jewish crowd about his experience of attending Shimon Peres’s funeral last week.
He said “the best days” lie ahead in the relationship between Britain and Israel, and quoted Mr Peres, saying: “‘Count your dreams and your achievements. If your dreams are bigger than your achievements then you are young. If your achievements are bigger than your dreams then you are old’.
Mr Johnson added: “I put it to you that Britain and Israel are both countries where our dreams are still bigger than their achievements. Our best days are ahead. We must stand and work together. Britain, Israel and Conservative Friends of Israel can build those dreams together.”
Mr Clark, who in his role as Secretary of State at the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy oversees links with Israel in technological research and innovation, said the relationship was “inspirational and profitable” for both countries.
“I hope that by working together we can continue to forge a very prosperous and effective relationship together,” he added, saying that the Conservative Party counted itself as “very much a friend of Israel”.
Theresa Villiers, the former Northern Ireland Secretary, attacked Labour’s response to antisemitism within its ranks. The MP, whose Chipping Barnet constituency has a large Jewish population, said: “I do not think Labour’s leadership is taking it seriously.”
Sir Eric Pickles, CFI’s parliamentary chairman and the government’ s special envoy for post-Holocaust issues, added: “We need to explain the nature of antisemitism to a new generation. It’s a shocking thing that our fellow citizens should feel fearful on the street, that our fellow citizens should be worried about going to a synagogue.”
Mr Regev said he knew Theresa May was a “great ally” of Israel and the Jewish people.
On the upcoming centenary of the Balfour Declaration in 2017, Mr Regev noted it had been a Conservative Foreign Secretary who “recognised the Jewish people’s right to national self-determination in our historic homeland.”
CFI said it had signed up 100 new members during the conference.
In his main address to the conference on Sunday, Mr Johnson made no mention of Israel or the Palestinians, concentrating instead on the fall-out from the EU referendum and relations with Russia.
‘Our dreams are still bigger than our ambitions’