Baby’s birth certificate defaced and damaged at Passport Office – father’s birthplace Israel.

This is from the Campaign Against Anti-Semitism, repeated in the Daily Mail who don’t get the story quite straight, which is why I have gone to source. 

Two weeks ago, a member of the public sent off a passport application to @ukhomeoffice  for his six-month-old baby girl. Today, the birth certificate was returned ripped with the word “Israel” scribbled out. 

Israel is the place of birth of both parents; the baby was born last year in London. The parents are understandably very concerned about this incident. We are asking the Home Office to investigate how this happened. The Home Office has responsibility for law enforcement and the security of the Jewish community. Confidence in the authorities is at painfully low levels and must be restored.

James Cleverly the Home Secretary has responded quickly

I have asked my officials to investigate this urgently and will see that appropriate action is taken.

The main Civil Service Union is the PCS (Public and Commercial Services). It was mine for 32 years until 2008 when my job was cut by a Labour government, with union collusion, to facilitate an increase in diversity under the guise of economy. This article from Jewish News last year suggests that the union agenda has deteriorated even more than I feared.  In 1976 when I joined the Civil Service I could not imagine an official defacing a public document because he or she (no silly pronouns in those days) disagreed with the action of another country named on that document. Today I can well believe it. 

As a British citizen who moved back to the country after living in Israel, a policy job in the civil service felt like a soft landing. The public sector makes an effort to connect faith groups in a diverse and inclusive workforce. I’ve never felt as though I had to hide my Jewishness…

Until 7 October.

Last week (December) I received an update on ‘the war in Palestine’ from my union, the Public and Commercial Services union (PCS), with its self declared “proud history of solidarity with the Palestinian people”

The email was sent to thousands of primarily junior civil servants, recommending several actions civil servants could do in their private lives such as joining demonstrations and opposing a new law to outlaw BDS.” Civil servants were encouraged to be vigilant their shopping habits supported BDS, “watch out for those avocados and red peppers at this time of year!”

…the letter asks permanent secretaries to clarify that civil servants who voice disquiet in undertaking ‘tasks in relation to Israel’ will not be disadvantaged.

Sensitive to the distress caused to ‘colleagues who have family or friends in Palestine, or who feel strongly – as I hope we all would – the injustice being meted out against Palestinians’ the correspondence demands that Israeli flags are removed to stop the ‘politicisation’ of the civil service and the causing of “undue distress” to staff.

I am worried, by the complete misinformation that is presented as fact. I am disturbed, by the scaring of civil servants who will be made to think they could be supporting a ‘potential genocide, war crimes and/or other breaches of international humanitarian law’ by just doing their jobs.

Things have got progressively worse and will continue to, I believe, as the war continues. There have been recent reports of a pro-Palestinian PCS rally outside Parliament. When a professional decided to counter protest, holding a banner,  ‘Hamas = Terrorist* *UK Government definition’, he was faced with a barrage of antisemitic abuse.

PCS has abysmally failed to see me and my Jewish colleagues. PCS has made Jewish civil servants, like me, feel unsafe. And when 69% of British Jews have said they are less likely to show visible signs of being Jewish and almost half have thought about leaving the UK – its really the least my union, which I have now quit, could do.

My husband left his union 10 years ago after a particularly virulent opposition to one of the patriotic groups. “I’m not paying £10 a month to hear my wife called a fascist” he said. “If I want her called names I can do that at home for nothing.” I do love him. 

If I hear more about this pasport application I will post again.