In some ways, Oliver Dowden MP is an unlikely figure to be at the vanguard of the fight for Israel’s legitimacy.
The Conservative Party Chairman represents a leafy Hertfordshire constituency. He loves country walks, good pub lunches and holidays in Wales with his wife, two children and the pet dog, a “mad” setter called Betsy.
But this is the quintessential Englishman who succeeded in getting a pledge to ban the anti-Israel BDS movement into the 2019 Conservative manifesto.
This week, the Government delivered what Mr Dowden called a “down payment” on that manifesto promise. And he vowed to the JC that it would “make good” on a blanket ban on BDS across the public sector, including universities, where the movement has taken hold.
So what was his motivation? For Mr Dowden, this was not an abstract argument about how taxpayers’ money should be used. It hit closer to home.
Since 2015, Mr Dowden has represented the edge-of-London constituency of Hertsmere, home to the largest Jewish community outside the capital.
While he has no Jewish heritage, Mr Dowden says he feels a “cultural affinity” with the Jewish community. His wife Blythe jokes that he spends more time in synagogues than in the family home.
He shares Friday night dinners with friends, attends every Jewish community event he can and as a result has seen — first hand — the impact of Jeremy Corbyn’s toxic leadership of the Labour Party and the surge in antisemitism during the 2021 Gaza conflict.
“I think many people who are not engaged with the Jewish community don’t realise how sadly relevant some of these issues like antisemitism remain,” he told the JC. “When there is an antisemitic attack, you feel it in a more personal way because it is something that affects your friends and you talk to them about it.
"When you see things like those terrible antisemitic scenes in north London last year, I talked about it with Jewish mums and grandmothers who were worried about their families.
“It is not an abstract issue. It’s parents and grandparents worried about their children and grandchildren.”
In his maiden speech in Parliament, Mr Dowden vowed to defend the Jewish community and stand up to the “scourge of antisemitism”.
He has twice been elected chairman of the All Party Parliamentary Group on British Jews and was a vocal critic of the hatred that gripped Labour under Mr Corbyn’s leadership. As Culture Secretary, he hauled social media giants in to deliver a stark warning about stamping out antisemitism or face a crackdown in the Online Safety Bill.
And during a recent visit to America, he spoke out against “woke” culture, which is widely criticised for failing to recognise antisemitism as a form of racism.
Rabbi Feldman, of Mr Dowden’s constituency synagogue, Bushey United, in Hertsmere, said: “Oliver has been a good friend to myself, our shul and our community.
“When there have been difficulties in Israel and tensions around antisemitism here, he has been very supportive. I attend a number of communal events for the Jewish community. Only a very small number of MPs will make an effort to come. Oliver is always there.”
Mr Dowden studied law at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, but says he found the profession dull and tried his hand at “various random jobs” before finding a home in the Conservative Research Department in 2004.
He was part of Mr Cameron’s inner circle and worked in Downing Street as deputy to Chief of Staff Ed Llewellyn before being elected MP for Hertsmere in 2015.
Within three years, he had been ap pointed Cabinet Office minister by Theresa May and was one of the few “remainer” ministers to survive Boris Johnson’s ascendancy, becoming culture secretary in February, 2020.
An old friend said: “He’s a proper Conservative, not some right wing iconoclast or pugilist. His is the Conservative Party that values hard work and aspiration, but his instinct in promoting these values is towards moderation rather than zeal. He is not the sort of person who will cross the road to start a culture war, but he will hold the line for it.”
