Political Audit: Waitrose (John Lewis Partnership)

Audit Phase: Political Subject Entity: Waitrose & Partners, a trading division of John Lewis Partnership plc (Companies House No. 00238937) Registered Address: 1 Drummond Gate, Pimlico, London SW1V 2QQ, United Kingdom Audit Date: June 2026 Evidence Base: Published corporate disclosures and press releases, primary corporate-registry records, NGO and campaign-group materials, UK trade and national press, advertising-regulator and BDS-movement publications, and crowdfunding/legal-claim records. This audit is a forensic evidence inventory only. No scoring, weighting, or interpretive conclusion is drawn here. Produce/settlement sourcing is treated under the Economic audit; only politically-relevant policy stances are recorded here.

Corporate Communications & Public Stance

Official Position on the Israel-Palestine Conflict

No public evidence was identified of a named, dated corporate statement by Waitrose or by John Lewis Partnership plc condemning, expressing solidarity over, or otherwise directly addressing the 7 October 2023 Hamas attack or the subsequent Israeli military operations in Gaza as a geopolitical/humanitarian matter. No such statement was identified in the John Lewis Partnership media centre or annual reporting reviewed in June 2026.¹

By contrast, John Lewis Partnership made a named, dated corporate response to Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. On 2–4 March 2022 the Partnership announced it was removing products made in Russia from Waitrose and John Lewis shelves - naming Russian vodka in Waitrose and Russian-made pizza-oven pellets in John Lewis - and stated it was “working with their suppliers to review products that have components of Russian origin.”²³ The Partnership simultaneously donated £100,000 to the British Red Cross Ukraine Crisis Appeal and pledged to match customer and employee donations up to £150,000; then-Chairman Sharon White said the Partnership was “deeply distressed by the humanitarian crisis unfolding in Ukraine – innocent people losing their lives, their loved ones, their homes, and families being separated.”⁴⁵ No structurally equivalent named corporate statement, product withdrawal, or charitable mobilisation relating to the Israel-Palestine conflict was identified in the public record. This is recorded as a factual contrast in the corporate-communications record, not as an inference.

Reactive Public Statements on Israeli Products

The company’s documented public posture toward Israel-linked controversies has been reactive denial rather than proactive positioning. In May 2010, in response to a War on Want claim that it was misleading customers over settlement-origin products, a Waitrose spokesperson stated: “This claim is completely untrue – our labelling is always honest and transparent,” and the company said it had contacted War on Want to correct what it characterised as factual inaccuracies.⁶ In the c. 2013–2014 period Waitrose publicly denied that boycott actions had impacted sales of its Israeli produce.⁷ These are recorded as documented reactive public statements; the underlying sourcing questions belong to the Economic inventory.

SodaStream Correspondence (2025)

In December 2025, in response to a formal pre-action enquiry by the International Centre of Justice for Palestinians (ICJP) over the sale of SodaStream products (manufactured by an Israeli company that campaigners allege subjects Palestinian workers to segregation and discriminatory conditions), the John Lewis brand issued a substantive corporate position. The retailer said it “respectfully disagreed” that selling SodaStream breached UK, European or international consumer-protection or criminal law, stated that all brands it sells must comply with its responsible-sourcing code of practice “which focuses on working conditions,” and added: “We keep our sourcing under constant review and as circumstances change, we will take the appropriate action.”⁸⁹ The ICJP enquiry was directed at department-store retailers (John Lewis, Argos, Currys and Ryman); John Lewis said it understood it “was the only business to respond.” This exchange concerned the John Lewis department-store brand and SodaStream products; no public evidence was identified that Waitrose was a named respondent in that 2025 correspondence.⁸⁹

Operations in Occupied or Contested Territories

The economic and physical dimensions of Waitrose’s Israel-linked sourcing - produce origins and named supplier relationships - are inventoried in the Economic audit and are not reproduced or scored here.

For the political/governance dimension specifically: no public evidence was identified of a distinct Waitrose or John Lewis Partnership corporate policy stance, public position, or governance instrument expressly addressing the Occupied Palestinian Territories or settlement activity as a political question, beyond the general responsible-sourcing and labelling statements catalogued above and in Economic.⁶⁸ No public evidence was identified of Waitrose or John Lewis Partnership political advocacy for or against settlement trade.

Waitrose was named, in October 2024, in a documented legal-pressure action with a political dimension: the ICJP issued formal notices to eight UK supermarket chains - Asda, Lidl GB, Marks & Spencer, Morrisons, Sainsbury’s, Tesco, Waitrose & Partners, and one further chain - threatening individual director/executive liability under Section 52 of the International Criminal Court Act 2001 and Sections 328–329 of the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 over the sale of Israeli-settlement products, and giving 14 days to clarify which settlement products were sold and what steps were being taken to stop sales.¹⁰ ICJP stated that “directors and executives could be breaking domestic law by selling these Israeli settlement products.” The available source does not record whether Waitrose responded.¹⁰

No public evidence was identified that Waitrose or John Lewis Partnership appears on the OHCHR database of business enterprises involved in activities related to Israeli settlements (UN Human Rights Council resolutions 31/36 and 53/25); the company was not located on that list in the review conducted for this audit.¹¹

Internal Governance, Content & Retail Policies

Employee Relations and Speech

A documented employment-tribunal case concerns the treatment of staff political expression on Israel-Palestine. Colleen Anthony, described as a Waitrose employee of approximately 19 years at the Brent Cross store, is the subject of a CrowdJustice crowdfunding page launched in 2024 to support a tribunal claim for belief and race discrimination against John Lewis plc.¹² According to that public record, she was dismissed following an incident in which she was confronted by a customer over her support for Palestine after wearing a Palestine flag badge and speaking about her family in Palestine; the page records that the dismissing officer concluded she had not made an alleged offensive remark but cited concerns about “politics on the shopfloor” and potential brand damage.¹² The tribunal outcome was not confirmed in the public records reviewed. No direct documented link between any external advocacy body (e.g. UK Lawyers for Israel) and the Anthony/Waitrose matter was identified.

Social-Media Moderation

Campaign-group reporting (c. 2012–2013) documented that Waitrose deleted critical comments and blocked commentators - including a named Palestinian poster, Ayman Abuawwad - from its Facebook page during the “Taste of Israel” controversy, while reportedly leaving pro-Israel posts in place.¹³¹⁴ This is recorded as a press/campaign-documented moderation episode on the company’s own social channels, not as evidence of a formal content-policy stance. Waitrose is a retailer, not a media or technology platform; algorithmic-moderation and editorial-suppression questions typical of technology firms are otherwise not applicable to its business model.

Retail / Sourcing Policy

John Lewis Partnership’s Responsible Sourcing Code of Practice articulates ethical-sourcing standards in general terms and is invoked by the company in its responses to settlement-goods enquiries.⁸ No public evidence was identified of a version of this document that names settlement produce as a distinct, named risk category requiring specific mitigation; that sourcing/labelling question is inventoried in Economic.

Brand Heritage & State Partnerships

Brand Identity

Waitrose’s brand identity is built around premium British food retail, Royal Warrant heritage, and quality/ethical sourcing. It has no military, defence-sector, or state-security founding narrative. It originated within John Spedan Lewis’s early-twentieth-century employee-ownership experiment and operates under the John Lewis Partnership Constitution, which carries no geopolitical mandate (see Corporate Structure below).

”Taste of Israel” Promotional Brochure

The most documented instance of Waitrose brand activity being used in conjunction with Israeli-state promotion is the “Taste of Israel” supplement (c. 2012–2013) - a brochure produced by the Israel Government Tourist Office and distributed inside Waitrose’s in-house “Weekend”/“My Kitchen”-type magazine. Campaign and press reporting recorded that the brochure described the Golan Heights and the whole of Jerusalem as being in Israel and presented Palestinian/Arab dishes as Israeli.¹⁵ The Palestine Solidarity Campaign submitted a complaint to the Advertising Standards Authority and wrote to then–Waitrose Managing Director Mark Price requesting a meeting; the company is reported to have declined to meet.¹⁶¹⁵ The precise scope and named respondents of any ASA adjudication arising specifically from the Waitrose-distributed brochure (as distinct from separate ASA rulings on Israel Government Tourist Office travel advertisements over Jerusalem/Western Wall classification) were not conclusively verified against the original ASA adjudication record in this audit and are treated as partial evidence.

Israeli-State and Brand-Israel Partnerships (Current)

No public evidence was identified of Waitrose or John Lewis Partnership holding any formal partnership, sponsorship, or institutional agreement with Israeli government bodies, Israeli state academic institutions, an Israeli embassy, or any “Brand Israel” / public-diplomacy campaign. The documented “Taste of Israel” episode was a one-off distributed tourist-office supplement, not a standing corporate partnership.¹⁵¹⁶

Lobbying, Advocacy, Financing & Logistics

Political Lobbying

No public evidence was identified, in the UK Register of Consultant Lobbyists or in the press record, of Waitrose or John Lewis Partnership lobbying on Israel-Palestine policy, BDS legislation, settlement-trade rules, or Middle East foreign policy.¹⁷ No public evidence was identified of corporate membership of, or funding for, pro-Israel lobbying organisations (e.g. BICOM).

One documented personnel pathway is recorded for completeness: Mark Price, Waitrose Managing Director (2007–2016) and Deputy Chairman of John Lewis Partnership (2013–2016), was made a life peer (Lord Price) in February 2016 and served as the UK Government’s Minister of State for Trade and Investment (4 April 2016 – 28 September 2017).¹⁸¹⁹ That ministerial trade-promotion role was a government function undertaken after he left the Partnership and does not constitute corporate lobbying by Waitrose/JLP; the reviewed source records no specific Israel-trade brief.¹⁸

Political Donations / Financial Contributions

No public evidence was identified of Waitrose or John Lewis Partnership making corporate donations to Israeli parastatal bodies, settlement organisations, or military-welfare funds (e.g. Friends of the IDF, Jewish National Fund). Source classes reviewed include JLP annual reporting and trade/national press.

Crisis Asset Mobilisation

John Lewis Partnership made a documented corporate crisis donation - £100,000 to the British Red Cross - for the Ukraine Crisis Appeal in March 2022, with matched giving up to £150,000.⁴⁵ No equivalent corporate resource mobilisation (donation, product appeal, or logistics support) directed toward humanitarian relief in Gaza was identified for the post-October 2023 period. No reporting was found of Waitrose/JLP directing corporate logistics, infrastructure, free services, or physical assets to Israeli state, military, or state-aligned efforts. Waitrose is a physical retailer with no dual-use infrastructure (cloud computing, satellite, AI) relevant to military logistics.

Corporate Structure & Primary Mission

John Lewis Partnership plc is registered at Companies House (No. 00238937), incorporated on 23 April 1929, with the legal company type recorded as a public limited company and status “active”; its registered office is 1 Drummond Gate, Pimlico, London SW1V 2QQ.²⁰ Notwithstanding the PLC registration, the Partnership is held in trust for the benefit of its employees (“Partners”) and is not listed on any stock exchange; it operates under a written Partnership Constitution whose stated first principle is the happiness of Partners through co-ownership, with secondary purposes of commercial success and community contribution.²¹ No state-held shares, golden share, sovereign-wealth stake, charter provision, or governance mechanism tying the corporate mission to the Israeli state or to any state’s foreign-policy objectives was identified. There is no private controlling shareholder or billionaire-founder figure with documented geopolitical philanthropy. Its primary mission is civilian retail (food via Waitrose; general merchandise via John Lewis).

Waitrose’s documented strategic focus is domestic: in August 2024 it announced a £1 billion investment to open up to 100 new convenience shops across England, Wales and Scotland and refurbish existing stores through 2029.²²

Executive & Leadership Footprint

Current Leadership - Donations and Affiliations

Jason Tarry (Chairman, John Lewis Partnership, from September 2024): Formerly CEO of Tesco UK & Ireland; appointed the Partnership’s seventh Chairman, succeeding Sharon White.²³ No public statements on the Israel-Palestine conflict in his JLP capacity were identified, and no public evidence of personal donations to FIDF, JNF, settlement bodies, or Israeli state-aligned organisations, nor of any board or leadership role in pro-Israel advocacy bodies, was identified.

Sharon White, Baroness White of Tufnell Park (Chairman, 2020–2024): Made values-based public statements during the Ukraine crisis (“deeply distressed by the humanitarian crisis unfolding in Ukraine”)⁴ and led the corporate Russia product-removal response;²³ no equivalent public statement on Gaza was identified. No Israel-specific institutional affiliation or advocacy by her was identified.

James Bailey (Executive Director, Waitrose): No publicly documented statements on the Israel-Palestine conflict and no documented affiliation with Israel-related, pro-Israel advocacy, or Israeli state-aligned organisations were identified.

No public statements, op-eds, signed letters, or social-media activity by any current named Waitrose/JLP executive on the Israel-Palestine conflict were identified, and no public evidence was identified of any current named board member or executive making personal donations to, or holding leadership roles in, Israeli military-welfare, settlement, or pro-Israel advocacy organisations. The absence of evidence in this sub-category is recorded as searched-and-not-found and should not be read as conclusive confirmation of absence; claims about named individuals are reported only where sourced.

Former Leadership

Mark Price (Lord Price CVO), Waitrose Managing Director (2007–2016): Subsequently UK Minister of State for Trade and Investment (2016–2017) - a government function, not a corporate role (see Lobbying above).¹⁸¹⁹ No Israeli state honour or settlement-linked personal philanthropy was identified in the reviewed record.

Personal Philanthropy

No public evidence was identified of any current or recent JLP/Waitrose senior executive or Partnership board member making personal donations to FIDF, JNF-UK, or equivalent Israeli military-welfare or settlement organisations. The Partnership’s employee-ownership structure means there is no controlling private shareholder whose personal financial activities would be directly relevant in the way they are for a founder-controlled company.

End Notes