Demonstration outside the Wirral Pensions Committee. The next meeting is Monday 22 June, be there for 5pm.
The Merseyside Pension Fund (MPF) implements the Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS) in our area. It provides pensions for council staff and others. Members of the Scheme contribute to the Fund, and draw a pension when they retire. Local authorities also contribute to the Fund. In 2024 Liverpool City Council spent 21.6% of its Council Tax revenues on contributions to the MPF.
The MPF is administered by the Pensions Committee of Wirral Council, on behalf of all Merseyside Local Authorities.
The Fund invests £billions from these contributions to finance the pensions. A small percentage, around £140m, is invested in 36 firms supplying the Israeli military either directly or via the US. Around £1.8m is invested in four Israeli banks supplying the illegal settlements on the occupied West Bank. Some of the arms firms also supply the Saudi regime. These investments contribute directly to the slaughter of civilians in Gaza, Yemen and Lebanon. Some firms also supply the US and UK nuclear weapons programmes.
As at the end of December 2025 the MPF had, among its investments (listed HERE)::
● At least £140.8m invested in 36 firms supplying the Israeli military
● £295k invested in Israel’s largest arms firm Elbit Systems
● £11.3m invested in Amazon, supplying AWS cloud storage to the IDF
● £78k invested in Palantir Technologies, which supplies the IDF and, with AWS, runs Project Maven (an AI system used by the US to identifiy targets in Iran)
● £1.8m invested in 4 Israeli banks servicing the illegal settlements
● At least 30 firms implicated in the current genocidal attacks on Gaza
● 23 firms supply at least 99 components to F-35 jets which bomb Gaza
● Firms had 468 UK military export licences for Israel since 2014
● At least 13 firms supply the Saudi military
● At least 11 firms supply nuclear weapons programmes.
Most of these investments have increased between September and December 2025.
THE CAMPAIGN TO DISINVEST
Our campaign demands that the MPF divest from the identified arms firms and banks. We say that workers and Council Tax payers have every right to demand that their deferred wages and taxes are not used to slaughter civilians, prop up illegal colonies on occupied land, or supply weapons of mass destruction. The MPF could easily divest from these firms with minimal impact on the total Fund.
So far, Wirral Pensions Committee has never asked the members of the pension scheme for their views on these deadly investments. No Merseyside local authority has yet demanded that their residents must have a say on how the MPF spends their money.
This campaign for divestment is not an attack on workers pensions, the MPF or the contributions of Scheme members or local authorities to the Fund. It is aimed at the investment decisions taken by the Wirral Council Pensions Committee on behalf of all Merseyside local authorities. We have demonstrated outside Birkenhead Town Hall and Wallasey Town Hall, questioned the Pensions Committee and the Wirral Full Council AGM, and given information to Councillors. We need a massive campaign to win. One tactic is an online letter to the Pensions Committee: you can access it HERE and amend when sending.
The campaign is national. In September 2025 the Palestine Solidarity Campaign circulated THIS BRIEFING to every council in England & Wales administering a Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS) fund, outlining that they must take steps to divest from companies that enable and profit from Israel’s genocide, military occupation and apartheid against Palestinians. (A shorter summary of the document is HERE).