On Wednesday, the Tower Hamlets council pledged to remove corporations involved in Israel's genocide from its pension fund. After the councils of Waltham Forest, Islington, and Lewisham, it is now the fourth in London to pledge to divest.

A coalition of Tower Hamlets PSC, Tower Hamlets Unison, and the Tower Hamlets Trades Council conducted months of agitation and action before the historic triumph. The move was opposed by only one council member, a Tory.

Sybil Cock, chair of Tower Hamlets PSC, told Socialist Worker, “It’s a highly significant victory, and the movement is gaining a lot of momentum. So this is a warning shot to Israel and also the government, which has been Starmer and Lammy covering up for Israel’s genocide.”

The campaign, which started in the autumn, began with “a petition for people in the borough, with the aim of getting the council to have a debate about investments”.

Tower Hamlets council is run by Aspire, a local party. Sybil said, “The political direction of Aspire in Tower Hamlets is good. It’s left of Labour—it’s essentially behaving like a left Labour council.

 “We decided to approach the mayor directly—he and his advisors said yes almost immediately.”

Kambiz Boomla, treasurer of the Trades Council in Tower Hamlets, told Socialist Worker that this is “a major step forwards. It’s a fantastic victory that shows what could be achieved elsewhere—in London, there’s huge diversity so there’s huge potential for support.”

Kambiz argued that the significance of divestment victories is ideological. “Divestment won’t necessarily stop the flow of arms.

“But what it will do—the publicity—is further undermine the legitimacy of the Israeli Zionist state. These victories get beamed out, and it affects the wider view of Israel. The argument that anti-Zionism is antisemitism gets undercut as more and more people oppose the Zionist state.

Kambiz said that when people in Palestine see these victories it “builds up their morale”. “If you look at the sheer persistence of people in Gaza, that would be harder if they felt like they were ignored.

“If you focus the campaigning, as we did in Tower Hamlets, it helps win a victory, and that’s a victory you can promote and trumpet, which wins the ideological battle against the state.

“It’s a concentrated effort that increases the likelihood of victory—and when we promote our victories, that puts an ideological dagger into the heart of Zionism.”

PSC is taking the campaign to target London Civ, which manages the local government pension schemes. Sybil said that getting local councils to divest is crucial as it puts pressure on London Civ to divest from companies complicit in genocide.

“We intend to carry on the pressure,” Sybil added. “The council said it will report to the pensions committee with proposed divestments, so we aren’t going to stop.”

Tower Hamlets’ victory, and others’, shows how concentrated efforts that utilise pressure from below can force councils to divest. It’s another huge victory for the movement, and should be an inspiration for local Palestine divestment campaigns.