Starmer has snubbed Emily Thornberry by appointing human rights lawyer Richard Hermer KC, of Matrix Chambers, as his Attorney General. Hermer is close to Starmer – he’s spoken at Labour Conference, offered tours of the Royal Court of Justice to Camden Labour members, and donated £5,000 to the Labour leader’s campaign. Like Starmer, Hermer has certainly picked a direction in his legal focus…

Eyebrows were raised very high when Hermer began to advise Labour on the government’s BDS bill last Summer. Hermer has co-authored a chapter in a book called “Corporate Complicity in Israel’s Occupation: Evidence from the London Session of the Russell Tribunal on Palestine” co-edited by Asa Winstanley and Frank Barat. The book says it has the intention of “examining the involvement of corporations in the illegal occupation of Palestinian land by Israel”…

Co-author Asa, the notorious anti-Israel activist and crank, happens to also be the associate editor of the “Electronic Intifada” blog and wrote an article claiming “most members of the UK’s Labour Party support the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement and consider Israel to be an apartheid state“. Some of her other tomes include “WEAPONISING ANTI-SEMITISM: How the Israel Lobby Brought Down Jeremy Corbyn“. Hermer’s other co-author has tweeted endorsing the idea that “Israel’s policies amount to Apartheid“…

Meanwhile, the co-authors of Hermer’s specific chapter have links to the BDS campaign itself – one of them served as lawyer for Hassan Diab, who was convicted (in absentia) and sentenced to life in prison for a terror attack outside a synagogue in Paris in 1980 that killed four and wounded 46. Interesting bedfellows…

Hermer himself has pushed for the ICJ to consider whether Israel is an “apartheid state” and has spoken at events for Lawyers for Palestinian Human Rights, which is itself allegedly running a BDS campaign against construction firm JCB. This year he has spent his time representing Gerry Adams. This is now the government’s top chief legal adviser.