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Foreign Office Met Pro-Israel Lobbyist To Discuss Arms Exports
Exclusive: Pro-Israel lobbyist Trevor Chinn offered top diplomat 'recommendations' on Middle East policy.
By John McEvoy | June 3, 2025
Britain's Foreign Office met privately with a pro-Israel lobbyist to discuss arms exports to Tel Aviv, documents obtained by Declassified reveal.
The meeting took place in October 2024 and was attended by Christian Turner, the political director at the Foreign Office, and Sir Trevor Chinn, a pro-Israel businessman from Britain.
Chinn, who made a fortune from the motor industry, has donated significant sums to Keir Starmer and foreign secretary David Lammy.
Transparency data published by the UK government initially said the purpose of the meeting was "to discuss geopolitics with [a] businessman".
But documents obtained by Declassified under the Freedom of Information Act reveal that the discussion instead concentrated on Britain’s arms exports to Israel.
Foreign Office emails show that a key focus of the conversation was “the 2 September IHL decision”, referring to the Labour government's suspension of some arms export licences to Israel amid concerns over violations of international humanitarian law (IHL).
Chinn even offered "recommendations" on the issue, with Turner enquiring whether other British diplomats might also try "reaching out" to him and "hearing" his views.
A Foreign Office spokesperson told Declassified: "It is the political director’s job to engage with a range of voices across multiple issues to ensure informed policy making".
The department is refusing to release any more details about the meeting. It said to do so would prejudice "the effective conduct of our bilateral relationship with Israel" which "depends upon maintaining trust and confidence between governments".
Declassified has asked the Foreign Office to review this decision, and sought clarity on how a private discussion with a British businessman could impact Britain’s diplomatic relations with Israel.
Chinn did not respond to requests for comment Declassified sent to three different organisations he is affiliated with.
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Sir Trevor Chinn is a British multi-millionaire who has spent decades working in the motor industry, chairing such organisations as the AA, the RAC, and Kwikfit.
He is also a longstanding pro-Israel lobbyist.
Since the 1980s, Chinn has funded Labour Friends of Israel and Conservative Friends of Israel, and played a leading role in Britain Israel Communications and Research Centre (BICOM), previously described by the Guardian as "Britain's most active pro-Israel lobbying organisation".
Recently declassified files show how Chinn repeatedly lobbied John Major’s Conservative government regarding its policy towards Israel during the early 1990s.
“He can be quite a tough protagonist of the Israeli cause and is by no means a dove”, one Foreign Office official wrote about Chinn in November 1991.
"My own feeling is that he is not very subtly tuned into the Israeli political scene, although he meets a number of leaders through his fund-raising activities", the diplomat continued.
Trevor Chinn's father, Rosser Chinn, was the president of the Jewish National Fund (JNF) in Britain.
The JNF is a quasi-governmental organisation which has supported illegal Israeli settlements in Palestine, and was described by historian Ilan Pappé as a "colonialist agency of ethnic cleansing".
Please go to DeclassifiedUK to continue reading.
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