Bristol Apartheid-Free Zone: The campaign door knocking for a boycott of Israeli produce
Stephen is one of more than a hundred pro-Palestine volunteers in a resident-led campaign that has knocked on every door in the Easton and St Paul’s areas of Bristol, come rain or shine.
“What door knocking can do is shake you from the slumber of any feelings of helplessness that you might have when you see what’s happening in Palestine,” he tells Middle East Eye.
Known as the Bristol Apartheid-Free Zone Campaign, the initiative also appears to enjoy growing community support. Over 1,800 households have so far been persuaded to pledge to not buy Israeli fresh produce, according to campaigners.
It aims to create a mandate that encourages high street businesses to join the boycott.
Nearly 50 shops and businesses stocking fresh produce have joined so far, and the campaign boasts a 50 percent sign-up rate among those who open the door, which the campaigners say is an “unprecedented” rate for door-to-door canvassing.
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“On the doorstep, solidarity with Palestine is the overwhelming norm, so a big part of the campaign has just been trying to make that solidarity public and visible,” Stephen says.
The campaign strategy has been drawn from Bristol’s history of anti-apartheid resistance, being inspired by the success of the St Pauls Apartheid-Free Zone.
In the 1980s, that campaign organised a local boycott of goods linked to South African apartheid that was influential in spurring nationwide boycotts by various retailers.
The campaign also builds on a climate of growing local animosity toward Labour Party policies in Gaza, which former MP Thangham Debbonaire has blamed for the loss of her Bristol Central seat to Green Party Leader Carla Denyer in July 2024.
But the strategy has gained momentum across the UK, with similar Apartheid-Free Zone campaigns beginning in Cardiff, Sheffield, Belfast, Glasgow, Newham and Thanet in Kent.
“Most of the people involved in door knocking aren’t people who have any prior experience doing political canvassing, and many wouldn’t even call themselves particularly political people,” explains Stephen.
“It never fails to amaze me how quickly people pick it up. It’s really just people speaking in a sort of neighbour-to-neighbour capacity.”
Political support
The campaigners are realistic about the prospects of affecting large-scale change through a local boycott alone, but say the campaign is part of a broader effort aimed at changing “local norms”, and making “supporting Palestine the common-sense, natural thing”.
The campaign has received support from prominent local Green Party councillor and community-leader Abdul Malik, and has also won praise from Green Party leader Carla Denyer.
“I’m proud to support the Bristol Apartheid-Free zone,” Denyer told MEE.
“I don’t use the term apartheid lightly, but tragically it is an active reflection of the atrocities being carried out by the Israeli State.”
"The movement to boycott Israeli goods is a global tool for ordinary people to put pressure on the Israeli government, withholding financial support for a state systematically denying Palestinian people their rights,” she continued.
Kerry McCarthy, Labour MP for the Bristol East constituency at the centre of the campaign, didn’t respond to Middle East Eye requests for comment enquiring if she supports the campaign.
The campaign has slowly been gaining momentum since May 2024, following a community meeting where various campaigning strategies aimed at raising awareness on the Palestinian issue were discussed.
“A lot of those ideas were to do with taking action in the workplace, but the nature of my job doing research doesn’t really relate to that kind of action,” says Penny, another campaign volunteer.
“Others involved taking forms of direct action, which have my full respect but didn’t feel like something I could participate in at the time.
“Starting a doorknocking campaign for a community boycott was something everyone could participate in, and I think that’s part of why it’s grown so much.”
The campaigners stress that their methods are aimed at supplementing other forms of protest and are not designed at detracting from other strategies.
For Stephen, the Bristol campaign should not be understood as a strategy that inhibits more radical forms of protest.
“We see what we’re doing as starting the conversations that help people in the community understand why other people think they have to take such radical action.
“We see it as a complementary and crucial part of generating a mass resistance to the genocide.”
Localised boycotts
While the broader Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign lists a broad variety of target businesses, including multinationals such as Coca-Cola and McDonalds, the Bristol Apartheid Free-Zone focuses solely on Israeli fresh produce.
“We chose to focus on Israeli fresh produce because that was something really tangible and winnable and that can include everyone - especially for shopkeepers and restaurants who might sell a lot of products from Coca-Cola and have bigger margins on those,” Penny explains.
“Then after getting businesses on board with that, we’re aiming to facilitate them to start stocking Palestinian alternative products too.”
Not all businesses were immediately keen to join the boycott, however.
'A challenge at first was some businesses being cautious about being the first to stick their head above the parapet by putting posters up'
- Stephen, volunteer, Bristol Apartheid-Free Zone
“A challenge at first was some businesses being cautious about being the first to stick their head above the parapet by putting posters up, even if they were already boycotting Israeli goods privately,” says Stephen.
“So, going back to the community on the doorstep has been able to slowly show them there’s real support for the boycott among their customers, and that they don’t need to be afraid.”
The campaign has been helped along by Bristol’s strong culture of independent high street businesses, who have been more willing to get involved.
A key moment for the campaign was when the prominent local supermarket chain Better Food joined the boycott, Stephen recalls.
“That was really a moment that showed other smaller businesses across the city that it wasn’t going to cost them customers, and that it was becoming new norm really – and not just something that Muslim-owned businesses were doing,” Stephen adds.
The campaign has received support from the community union ACORN, who offered training sessions in “deep canvassing” methods.
“Deep canvassing isn’t about coming in with an instant sell,” Penny says.
“Instead, we approach by asking 'how do you feel about what’s happening in Gaza?' and 'what’s the main issue with for you?' and just giving people an opportunity to speak about it.”
“A lot of the time, what we’ve experienced is that people want to talk but might just have no outlet to express it,” Stephen adds.
Stephen and Penny say that they’ve felt benefits from being involved too. “It gives you that feeling of agency that it’s very easy to not feel,” Stephen says.
“I personally find myself being constantly humbled, inspired and made to feel hopeful by how people you meet at the doorstep articulate what’s going on, are horrified by it and have a real understanding of what’s at stake.”
Bristol went to the polls on 1 May to elect a new Mayor of the West of England Combined Authority (WECA).
Green Party candidate Mary Page, once a front runner, ended up finishing third with 20 percent of the vote, just five electoral points behind Labour’s winning candidate Helen Godwin on 25 percent and Reform’s Arron Banks on 22.
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