No to Barclays Buying Tesco Bank

Barclays has announced it is planning to buy the retail banking arm of Tesco Bank. Under the deal, Barclays will use the Tesco brand to offer products to consumers.

This could deceive the public, denying them the ability to avoid using Barclays. The public deserves the ability to make ethical choices about who they bank with. The deal must not go ahead.

Write to Tesco Bank to formally object to the sale. Tesco Bank must share your concerns with the High Court, who must approve the sale in October before it can go ahead.

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Dear Tesco Bank,
I am writing to urge you to reverse plans to sell Tesco Bank’s operations to Barclays, due to the bank’s grave complicity in Israel’s genocidal assault on Palestinians. Please treat this letter as a formal objection to the Petition to Transfer Business (CR-2024-002018), and accordingly share my representation with the High Court. 
<a href="https://palestinecampaign.org/wp-content/uploads/Barclays-report-May-2024-v3-FINAL.pdf">Research </a>released in May 2024 by Palestine Solidarity Campaign, War on Want and Campaign Against Arms Trade identified that Barclays has increased its financial ties to companies supplying Israel with weapons and military technology used in its attacks on Palestinians. It now holds £2billion in shares, and provides financial services worth £6.1billion to nine companies supplying weapons and military technology to Israel, which are used in its devastating attacks on Palestinians.
Israel’s ongoing bombardment and ground invasion of the besieged Gaza Strip has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians, a sizable proportion of whom are children. 90% of Gaza’s population has been displaced, most of whom multiple times. Nowhere in Gaza is safe; entire residential neighbourhoods have been levelled, UN schools sheltering the displaced, and hospitals treating the wounded, have been repeatedly targeted. 
By blocking humanitarian aid, targeting life-sustaining infrastructure, as well as humanitarian convoys, Israel is using starvation as a weapon of war. Palestinians in Gaza are now facing famine. In July, UN experts <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2024/07/un-experts-declare-famine-has-spread-throughout-gaza-strip">declared</a> that “Israel’s intentional and targeted starvation campaign against the Palestinian people is a form of genocidal violence and has resulted in famine across all of Gaza.”
The International Court of Justice, the world’s supreme inter-statal court, has ruled it plausible that Israel is committing genocidal acts in its assault on Palestinians in Gaza. Israel has refused to abide by the binding interim measures issued by the Court.
The UN Human Rights Council, the highest human rights body of the UN, has <a href="https://news.un.org/en/story/2024/04/1148261">demanded</a> that all states impose an arms embargo on Israel, as called for by Palestinian civil society. This call is echoed by <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2024/01/more-than-250-humanitarian-and-human-rights-organisations-call-to-stop-arms-transfers-to-israel-palestinian-armed-groups/">hundreds</a> of human rights organisations, including Save the Children and and Amnesty International.
In June, UN experts <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2024/06/states-and-companies-must-end-arms-transfers-israel-immediately-or-risk">issued a statement</a> outlining that all states and companies must end arms transfers to Israel. Further, they warned financial institutions with ties to companies arming Israel that “[F]ailure to prevent or mitigate their business relationships with these arms manufacturers transferring arms to Israel could move from being directly linked to human rights abuses to contributing to them, with repercussions for complicity in potential atrocity crimes.”
Tens of thousands of people of conscience across Britain have joined a boycott of Barclays as a way of forcing the bank stop enabling grave violations of international law. Barclays has faced a sustained campaign by human rights activists. It was forced to end its sponsorship of all festivals this summer as hundreds of bands and artists refused to perform at Barclays sponsored events.
Given the above, I am asking that Tesco Bank to withdraw from the proposed sale. Barclays should not be granted permission to operate under the Tesco Bank brand. This could deceive the public, denying them the ability to avoid using Barclays services. The public deserves the ability to make ethical choices about who they bank with.
If Tesco Bank proceeds, I call on the High Court to refuse permission for the sale, given it may adversely impact those who are choosing to boycott Barclays services as a means of preventing further violations of Palestinian human rights.
If the transfer goes ahead, I pledge to close all Tesco Bank accounts I hold, and to boycott all Tesco Bank’s services.
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No to Barclays Buying Tesco Bank