The majority of people on the Labour Friends of Israel (LFI) board are not Labour party members, it has emerged.

This means the group does not have to tell the Electoral Commission who has donated to the organisation, journalist Solomon Hughes revealed today in the Morning Star .

Campaigner Andrew Feinstein has previously told Declassified that LFI was “very influential in the Labour Party and British politics…Given this influence it is very problematic that their donors remain secret”.

LFI has sent dozens of Labour MPs on trips to Israel, and UK government ministers regularly speak at its events.

Under UK law, organisations that seek to influence Labour policy and are run mostly by party members are classed as “member’s associations”.

They must register all incoming donations above the current threshold of around £12,000 with the commission.

‘Toxic environment’

The Electoral Commission approached LFI in 2024 and 2025 to check if it was a member’s association, according to documents Hughes obtained under freedom of information.

The commission said the group told it that “While some of LFI’s board of directors are members of the Labour party, they do not form a majority on the board. LFI indicated that they monitored directors’ party membership regularly to confirm this.”

This means it does not have to identify its donors. It denies receiving Israeli government funds.

Four out of five of LFI’s board members have public ties to the Labour Party, including ex-MP Louise Ellman.

LFI told Hughes that while the majority of its board are not members of the Labour Party, none of them are “a member, or supporter of, any other political party.”

However, until his death last year, the LFI board included a sixth director – millionaire property developer Sir David Garrard – who donated to two of Labour’s political rivals (the Liberal Democrats and The Independent Group ) in 2019 while on LFI’s board.

LFI indicated that reasons for their non-Labour Party leadership included “many British Jews felt unable to become members of the Labour party due to the toxic antisemitic environment which existed under Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership”.

Garrard quit the Labour party in early 2018 over Corbyn’s leadership, saying he no longer felt “any affinity or connection” with the party, and became a director of LFI at the end of that year.

Once Keir Starmer became Labour’s leader in 2020, Garrard said he would rejoin the party and is known to have sponsored several LFI events over the next few years.

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‘Unconvincing’

In his Morning Star column, Hughes commented: “While antisemitism is a real and significant problem in the UK, including the Labour Party, I do not myself believe Labour had a ‘toxic antisemitic environment’ under Corbyn.

“However, even for those who do believe in this ‘toxic environment’, I find this argument unconvincing because Corbyn stopped being leader in 2020. Many of the five-member LFI Board have clearly been active in, or positive about, the party post-Corbyn.

“As well as Louise Ellman, who publicly rejoined Labour in 2021, the LFI board includes a Labour activist who was elected as a Camden Councillor in 2022.

“They are joined by a lobbyist who is currently described by her company as a ‘former Special Adviser to the Prime Minister Andy Burnham’ and a corporate marketing boss who helped found the ‘Labour Women in Business Network’.

“I find it hard to accept these four people all find themselves unable to join the Labour Party while running Labour Friends of Israel.”

Two-state solution

According to an Electoral Commission document, LFI reported £175,000 worth of donations between 2002 and 2025, however the source of funds was not stated.

The money was used to send Labour politicians on visits to Israel and the West Bank, which have included meeting Israel’s president Isaac Herzog who a UN commission accuses of inciting genocide in Gaza.

LFI says it supports a two-state solution and has promoted Israel’s Democrat party leader Yair Golan ahead of this month’s election against Benjamin Netanyahu.

Despite its opposition to Netanyahu, LFI was critical of steps Labour took to censure Israel’s attacks on Gaza. It opposed the partial arms embargo and recognition of Palestine, and questioned sanctions on trade with illegal settlements.

Hughes said LFI are also “currently campaigning for Labour to ‘bolster’ the ‘defence and security relationship between Israel and the UK’ with military cooperation and ensuring ‘Israel remains a major supplier of arms to the UK’.”

The post Why is Labour Friends of Israel not led by Labour members? appeared first on Declassified UK .