• THE government’s bill to ban certain boycotts and divestment by public authorities has been wrongly maligned in letters you have published and commentary elsewhere.

In the first place it is not a fundamental shift of policy as some have suggested. Local authorities have been prohibited for years from taking into account territorial considerations in public procurement.

In addition all public authorities have been required by legislation implementing European Union Directives to base procurement decisions exclusively on technical and commercial considerations, with only limited exceptions.

The United Kingdom’s World Trade Organisation commitments also require it to ensure that procurements by most of its public authorities do not discriminate against companies or products of other WTO members.

There are lots of reasons to boycott different countries all round the world, but if we boycott them all we will all be poorer. And if we boycott only some of them, who should decide which?

If we leave it to a multiplicity of different local authorities, there will be differing decisions and they will be ineffective. Boycotts only work if they have clout, which requires coordinated national or even international action.

Unless, of course, everyone decides to pick on Israel, ignoring Iran where they hang gay people in public and poison schoolgirls; China, engaged in genocide of the Uighurs; Nigeria, where tens of thousands of Christians have been murdered; Syria, where half a million have been killed and 12 million displaced; Turkey and Morocco which have organised extensive settlement of their nationals in territories they occupy, etc, etc.

Picking on Israel, especially when there is so much real evil elsewhere, is racist and promotes racism against Jews.

Research at US universities has found that “the best statistical predictor of anti-Jewish hostility, as measured by actions that directly target Jewish students for harm, is the amount of BDS [boycott, divestment, sanctions] activity”.

This accords with the historical experience that boycotts of Jews lead to hostility and violent attacks on them.

People who are against racism should back the bill.

JONATHAN TURNER, NW3