Unite members at the cinema announced an agreement with the board earlier this month
Scotland's charity regulator has dismissed a complaint about a charity-run cinema in Glasgow over a decision to boycott goods and brands linked to Israel.
Earlier this month Unite Hospitality members working at the Glasgow Film Theatre (GFT) reached an agreement with management to remove goods for sale at the cinema listed under Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign.
Coca-Cola products will no longer be sold, and a wider review of the GFT’s relationship with other goods and organisations will be reviewed.
A spokesperson for the GFT said at the time: “The GFT has also confirmed that the wider question of the adoption of the BDS movement is still under review by the board, in line with their legal and charitable obligations.
“At this stage our Board of Trustees had started but not completed a review of the Unite staff requests. The goal of the review is to ensure that any decisions made do not infringe our legal and charitable obligations and that all staff can have their voice heard.”
Unite Hospitality hope the GFT remove Barclays advertising at the venue and endorse the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI), implementing a wider BDS support campaign at the venue.
Unite members added: “As Unite members at the GFT, we celebrate this decision and will continue to encourage the cinema in this positive direction.
“We believe that the removal of Coca-Cola sends a clear message to those companies that continue to profit from genocide and we hope this act will encourage similar venues to take a stand in solidarity with the people of Gaza.”
UK Lawyers for Israel (UKLFI) wrote a letter to OSCR, the independent regulator for charities in Scotland, alleging breaches of sections seven and eight of the Charities and Trustee Investment (Scotland) Act 2005 (the Act), claiming support for boycotts like BDS are outside GFT’s charitable purposes and therefore illegal.
UKLFI claimed the GFT was also in breach of section 66 of the Act in relation to the breaches of duties by the GFT’s Trustees, the Equality Act 2010 and its Memorandum and Articles of Association.
Caroline Turner, director of UKLFI, said: “The political activism undertaken by the GFT by boycotting Coca-Cola products is clearly not in line with the GFT’s legal and charitable obligations, and brings the reputation of the GFT into disrepute, both as a business and a charity.
“We urge the Board of Trustees to reconsider their position and stop the boycott.“
However, OSCR confirmed the complaint will not be taken forward.
An OSCR spokesperson said: "We have assessed the concerns raised and concluded that they do not present a regulatory issue. The matter is for the charity to decide, and therefore, OSCR will not be taking any further action."
Unsurprisingly, the truth is the exact opposite of UKLFI's claims. It would be the *continued* sale of Coca Cola products, and the implicit endorsement of genocide, that would bring GFT into disrepute.
Furthermore, from the OSCR's website, GFT's charitable purposes are "the advancement of, arts, heritage, culture, or science". Therefore, it is surely obliged (morally if not legally) to oppose to the cultural erasure to which Israel is subjecting Palestine.