MARCHERS carried banners from Islington Green to Highbury Fields calling on Islington Council to stop banking with Barclays.

Islington has already said it will use its procurement process to challenge providers on ethical responsibilities, but campaigners say the council must switch banks.

Barclays has been accused of providing loans for companies involved in settlements in the West Bank and financing fossil fuel industry.

Lula Besher, from the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC), who was on the march on Saturday, said: “No one wants council tax or rent to be held in a Barclays account because that goes on to be invested elsewhere, in oil and gas companies, in arms companies. Money has power.”

Islington Council’s finance chief, Labour councillor Flora Williamson, said the procurement question “includes, but is not limited to, not being complicit in activities in territories currently under investigation for alleged violations of human rights by the United Nations Human Rights Council, other human rights abuses, and adding to the climate emergency”.

A Barclays spokesperson said: “We provide a range of financial services and products to companies supplying defence products to the UK, NATO and its allies. As NATO, as the EU and UK seek to increase their defence capabilities in response to increasing geopolitical threats, the provision of financial products and services to
the defence sector is becoming increasingly important.

“We are also financing an energy sector in transition, including providing $1trn of Sustainable and Transition Finance by 2030 to build a cleaner and more secure energy system.”