Conservative peer calls for UK security minister to be sacked over pro-Israel views

Alan Duncan, a British peer and former Conservative foreign minister, has called for Security Minister Tom Tugendhat to be sacked over comments he has previously made about illegal Israeli settlements. 

Speaking to LBC radio on Thursday, Duncan said that it was time to "flush out extremists... some of whom are at the very top of government," who do not condemn settlements and are therefore "not supporters of international law". 

He said Lord Staurt Polak and Lord Eric Pickles, senior figures in Conservative Friends of Israel, should be removed from the House of Lords for "exercising the interests of another country". 

"The Conservative Friends of Israel has been doing the bidding of Netanyahu, bypassing all proper process of government to exercise undue influence at the top of government," Duncan said.

On Tugendhat, he said that the minister condemned the UN Security Council for its official criticism of Israel's building of settlements in occupied Palestine. 

"How can you have a security minister in the British government who does not believe in international law, when all this is going on? I think he should be sacked."