The BMA has democratic processes which should be respected. We are disappointed to see that the (Junior) Doctors Conference Agenda Committee has censored voices who stand in solidarity with Palestinians, violated their own standing orders and undermined the BMA’s democratic processes.

(Junior) doctors across the UK submitted a wide variety of motions for the (junior) doctors conference through a central submission portal. The rules state that these motions should have regional and UK-wide votes to decide the final agenda for the (junior) doctors conference. https://www.bma.org.uk/media/7056/bma-junior-doctors-conference-programme-2023-270423.pdf

This year several motions which were related to Palestine were undemocratically and secretively removed from the motions pool. These motions included calling for the BMA to:

i) support UK-based doctors who have faced repercussions for standing up for Palestine 

ii) mobilise its large lobbying team in support of Palestine.

We are concerned that the conference agenda committee has:

* removed the ability for (junior) doctors in the UK to have a free and open vote on which issues are most important to them.

* allowed regional junior doctor committees to undemocratically remove other motions, that the members of those committees did not find politically expedient.

* allowed some motions to be submitted after the general deadline, in a haphazard and inexplicable manner.

This censorship of Palestinian motions has been justified by the agenda committee claiming that pan-branch of practice issues cannot be discussed at the (junior) doctors conference. This position is blatantly false and there is nothing in the standing orders preventing pan-branch of practice motions. There are many pan-branch of practice issues which have still been included in the motions vote such as motions on racism, LGBTQ+ issues (J1017), rest facilities (J1019) and BMA committees (J1043).

This amounts to censorship of Palestinian motions and is unacceptable.

We call on the (junior) doctors conference agenda committee to:

1. Re-run the motions vote in accordance with the standing orders of conference, and reinstate all motions which were undemocratically removed

2. Publicly apologise for unjustly censoring motions and denying members the right to freely express their views in motions

3. Release a document including all the motions that were submitted to the central submission portal

4. Desist from future breaches of the BMA's standing orders and act with candour, following the correct procedure for reviewing motions submitted