The Trade Union Congress (TUC) has endorsed the Palestinian-led movement for boycotts, divestment and sanctions (BDS), days after foreign secretary Ed Miliband said he “wholeheartedly opposed” the campaign.

TUC Congress – an annual gathering of the UK’s major unions in Brighton representing over five million workers – voted to support the movement to apply diplomatic, economic and cultural pressure to end Israel’s apartheid policies and other crimes against Palestinians.

The motion describes BDS as “an effective strategy to pressure Israel to end its ongoing genocide, system of apartheid, occupation and denial of the right of return for refugees”.

The vote commits the TUC, and its member unions, to actively campaign for the UK to end military cooperation with Israel and support the introduction of broader sanctions against Israel.

It also commits them to supporting “trade unionists, including artists and culture workers, who refuse to handle goods and services linked to violations of international law.”

Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband announced sanctions on illegal settlements in the West Bank last week, accusing Israel of turning a “blind eye to ethnic cleaning” in the territory. But he stopped short of introducing sanctions on Israel as a whole and said he “wholeheartedly opposed” the BDS movement.

“We will continue to support important and valued trade with green line Israel precisely because we support the two state solution, including security and prosperity for Israel,” he told the commons.

Peter Leary, deputy director of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC), said the vote showed “the limited steps announced by the government fall far short of meeting Britain’s legal obligations not to assist Israel’s ongoing genocide, apartheid, illegal occupation and other violations of international law.”

Omar Barghouti, co-founder of the BDS movement, said: “This mass movement of solidarity with the people of Palestine, led by PSC with many trades unions affiliated to it, is the reason why your government was compelled to adopt minor measures in the right direction to end its complicity.”

He added: “We are building massive power across the UK thanks to PSC and thanks to all the unions that have brought us to this point.”

The Israeli government has previously estimated that the BDS movement costs the country’s economy billions of pounds each year, and has made opposing the campaign a diplomatic priority.

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