At the height of the British Empire, sugar was one of the most lucrative products traded. Sweet but soaked in blood. Millions of enslaved Africans were forced to work under unimaginable brutality to meet Europe’s appetite for sugar.
In the late 18th century, prompted by parliamentary inaction, a small group of British abolitionists launched a radical idea: that ordinary citizens could help dismantle the transatlantic slave trade not by holding office, but by refusing to consume the products it profited from – particularly sugar from the Caribbean.
Women’s groups led boycotts of sugar bowls; since they typically managed household consumption, they were best placed to influence shopping habits. Shopkeepers soon began stocking “free produce,” and posters declared: “If you buy slave-grown sugar, you are supporting slavery.”
Even children played an active role choosing to forego sweets as a ‘slave product’, often applying more restraint than adults!
By 1792, around 300,000 Britons were estimated to be boycotting slave-grown sugar. The movement helped shift public opinion – a necessary precondition to the 1807 Slave Trade Act and, eventually, the 1833 Slavery Abolition Act.
In museums like the V&A you can still find rare blue glass sugar bowls from the 1820s inscribed with “EAST INDIA SUGAR not made by SLAVES”.
Today, over 200 years on, we face a similar moral question: should our weekly grocery shop fund the oppression, starvation, and killing of a people?
UNICEF reports that “more than half a million people in Gaza are trapped in famine, marked by widespread starvation, destitution and preventable deaths.” Many won’t survive. Those who do will carry the scars – physical and emotional – for life. It is not just a humanitarian crisis; it’s a test of our shared humanity.
While we can’t all be Greta Thunberg, those of us who are sickened at the mass starvation of civilians can do something. Boycotting brands that are complicit in Palestinian land grabs or human rights violations is a powerful form of consumer activism.
The BDS Movement
The Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) campaign is a Palestinian-led, global movement launched in 2005 to pressure Israel to end its system of occupation, apartheid, and settler colonialism. It calls for non-violent economic, cultural, and academic boycotts of institutions complicit in Israel’s violations of international law.
Inspired by the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa, the BDS campaign is rooted in three core demands:
- End the occupation of all Arab lands and dismantle the wall.
- Recognize the rights of Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality.
- Respect the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes, as per UN Resolution 194.
BDS co-founder Omar Barghouti has repeatedly emphasized that BDS is not about targeting Jewish individuals or Israeli citizens personally—it is about challenging institutions and policies that oppress Palestinians.
One area of focus is the Israeli agricultural export companies which operate farms and packing houses in illegal settlements – territories considered ‘occupied’ under international law, which include the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights.
In 2019 the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) ruled that products made in Israeli settlements must be labelled as such to avoid misleading consumers. However, businesses can easily obscure products from the settlements by simply labelling them “Made in Israel.”
This misleads consumers into thinking the product comes from within Israel’s internationally recognized borders instead of on stolen Palestinian land.
Tricks of the trade
In order to make goods appear as domestic Israeli products, settlement businesses often register their companies with an Israeli address. Some goods (like olives or dates) are grown in settlements but processed and packaged inside Israel proper.
Products such as olive oil or wine are sometimes blended from both Israeli and settlement sources or sold to large Israeli companies which export them under their own brand. While regulatory frameworks like the EU’s help impose transparency, enforcement remains patchy and it’s almost impossible to trace how much of a product is from a settlement.
Pressured by its own members, the Co-op supermarket announced in June that Co-op branded products will not use ingredients from Israel neither will the Coop sell whole products from Israel. However, without consumer pressure, it’s business as usual for other UK supermarkets. To help, Friends of Al Aqsa have produced this ‘check the label’ guide on what to look for on a label when shopping.
Ethical alternatives
Supporting BDS is a form of peaceful resistance and a moral response to a system of injustice. Just as global solidarity helped dismantle apartheid in South Africa, BDS gives people worldwide a way to act in solidarity with Palestinians without endorsing violence.
The Ethical Consumer has produced a useful guide to alternatives which includes a number of food brands. You can support ethical products which help Palestinians such as Zaytoun, Hadeel, the FOA Shop, Sunbula and the PSC shop. Retailers who stock Palestinian products can be found here.
Can BDS really help?
The BDS movement is not a quick solution. While it cannot immediately stop bombs or open borders, it is a long-term strategy designed to shift global opinion and erode international complicity in an apartheid system.
BDS has helped to put Palestinian rights into the global human rights framework, forced companies and institutions to divest from settlement businesses and initiated discussions about sanctions and international criminal accountability.
We have much to learn from the 18th Century abolitionists. As William Fox, the radical abolitionist pamphleteer wrote: “If we purchase the commodity, we participate in the crime.”
Other ways we can support Palestinians
There are many other ways to support Palestinians.
Donate money to trusted humanitarian aid organisations that have a track record in Gaza:
- UN World Food Programme
- Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP)
- UNRWA
- Islamic Relief
- Doctors Without Borders (MSF)
- Gaza Soup Kitchen
Write to your MP and ask them to:
- Support an immediate and permanent ceasefire in Gaza and the West Bank
- Demand that Israel allow unrestricted humanitarian access to Gaza and increase UK humanitarian aid
- Push the UK government to stop all arms sales and military cooperation with Israel,
- Support full cooperation with the International Criminal Court (ICC) and other bodies investigating potential war crimes in Gaza and Israel.
Support or organise peaceful protests, vigils, and public demonstrations. Protests in London and major UK cities have drawn hundreds of thousands – these build momentum.
Join campaigns such as:
- Oxfam’s Red Line for Gaza where you can download and display a ceasefire poster from Oxfam.
- Palestine Solidarity Campaign
- Amnesty International UK
- Friends of Al-Aqsa
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