How many Friends of Israel are MPs
Executive summary
Conservative Friends of Israel (CFI) asserts that roughly 80% of Conservative MPs are members or supporters, a figure repeated in reporting and watchdog accounts but not published as an exact headcount by CFI itself [1] [2]. Other parliamentary “Friends of Israel” groups exist across parties — Labour Friends of Israel claims or is reported to have around 75 MP supporters — yet no single source in the provided reporting gives a definitive, up-to-the-minute total number of MPs who are formal members of any Friends of Israel group [3] [4].
1. What the question actually asks and what the sources can show
The user seeks a count: how many “Friends of Israel” are MPs; that could mean (a) how many Conservative MPs belong to Conservative Friends of Israel, (b) the number of MPs across all parties who are members of party-linked Friends of Israel groups, or (c) MPs who have accepted Israel-related hospitality or funding from pro-Israel organisations — the sources most consistently address (a) and hospitality/funding, but none provides a single authoritative roster covering every party and every MP [1] [5] [3].
2. The Conservative claim: “around 80%” of Tory MPs
CFI itself and multiple investigations and profiles report that around 80% of Conservative MPs are members or supporters of Conservative Friends of Israel, a figure that is repeated in mainstream accounts and investigative reports [1] [6] [2]. Historical reporting — including a Channel 4 Dispatches documentary and CFI’s own public statements — has used that 80% figure to describe the group’s reach within the Conservative parliamentary party [1] [6].
3. Labour and other parties: partial totals and variation
Labour Friends of Israel is reported to count “some 75 MPs as supporters or officers” in the investigations cited, and Liberal Democrat and Northern Ireland Friends of Israel also exist and have booked MPs onto trips and events, but the provided sources do not supply a complete cross-party tally of formal members [3] [5] [4]. openDemocracy’s work shows specific numbers of MPs who declared attendance on CFI-funded delegations in given years (24 MPs in one year), which is a different metric from formal membership [4].
4. Hospitality, trips and alternative measures of “friendship”
Independent investigations quantify MPs who have accepted funding or hospitality to visit Israel: Declassified and related reporting document hundreds of funded visits and put numbers on MPs who have been hosted — for example, CFI-funded delegations accounting for dozens of MP visits and tens of thousands of pounds in hospitality — but these figures measure engagement, not formal membership [7] [8] [4]. These trip disclosures provide concrete names and instances that underpin claims about influence, but they do not equate to a neat membership roster [5].
5. Why an exact headcount is elusive
No source in the provided reporting publishes a definitive, current list of every MP who is a formal member of each Friends of Israel group; party rosters, self-declared support, hospitality registers, and investigative lists each capture different slices of the picture and use different definitions of “friend” or “member” [1] [5] [4]. CFI’s public statements give percentages (about 80% of Conservatives) rather than a raw number, Labour Friends reporting is phrased as “some 75,” and investigations track visits and funding which overlap with but are not identical to membership [1] [3] [7].
6. Competing interpretations and agendas
Advocates and CFI emphasise broad support for Israel within the Conservative Party and present delegations as educational; critics and investigative outlets emphasise the volume of hospitality, undisclosed funding links, and the political consequences of concentrated access, framing the numbers as evidence of lobbying power rather than benign friendship [4] [2] [8]. Both perspectives rely on overlapping empirical touchpoints — membership claims, recorded trips, donations — but they diverge on how to interpret influence and intent [6] [7].
7. Bottom line
Based on the available reporting, the clearest and most consistent figure is that Conservative Friends of Israel claims about 80% of Conservative MPs are members or supporters [1] [2]; Labour Friends of Israel is reported to have roughly 75 MP supporters [3]. A single, authoritative count of “how many Friends of Israel are MPs” across all parties is not present in the provided sources, and distinguishing formal membership from instances of hospitality or participation in delegations is essential when using these numbers [5] [4].