Figures like Shai Mosat, filmed plotting against MPs, know the foreign minister’s views and Middle East links are influential

Sir Alan Duncan, the senior Foreign Office minister revealed as the target of an Israeli embassy official’s desire to “take down” British MPs, is responsible on paper for Europe and the Americas, worrying primarily about the Falklands and Cyprus.

But figures like Shai Mosat, the Israeli embassy staffer filmed plotting against MPs, know his views and business connections in the Middle East are strong enough to wield a significant influence across the Foreign Office and Conservative party.

Indeed, when offered a surprise berth in the Foreign Office in the Theresa May reshuffle, there were reports that he might take the Middle East brief. But in the end his oil industry connections and repeated denunciations of Israeli policy on settlements, made him a controversial choice for Downing street.

In an era of bland politicians, Duncan, 59, speaks his mind, takes risks and displays a self-confidence few replicate. He was one of the Tories’ early social modernisers, becoming the first Tory MP to reveal he was gay, a revelation that blazed a path that others have followed with greater ease.

In that willingness to be different, there is a touch of Lord Mandelson about him. Waspish, a devastating mimic and shrewd assessor of the daily Westminster scene, he makes enemies as well as allies. His detractors accuse him of hedging his bets, pointing to his preparedness to back either side in the referendum campaign.

Above all, he simply refuses to accept Israel’s policy in the Middle East is defensible. In a landmark speech in 2014 at the Royal United Services Institute he pushed the anti-settlement policy further than any Tory politician, likening the Israeli attitude towards Palestinians to apartheid in South Africa.

He said: “Those that supported settlement policy should be put on a par with racism sexism and xenophobia and antisemitism. Indeed just as we rightly judge someone as unfit for public office if they refuse to recognise Israel, so we should shun anyone who refuses to recognise settlements are illegal.

“No settlement endorsers should be regarded as fit to stand for public office, remain a member of a mainstream political party or sit in a parliament. How can we accept lawmakers in our country or any other country when they support lawbreakers in another? They are extremists and should be treated as such.”

He returned to the theme last summer, a backbencher once again after a period in the Cameron government. In a Conservative Middle East Council (CMEC) pamphlet he argued the settlement crisis had got worse, and the prospects of a just peace only slipped further away.

“In Britain there remains a collective failure to think through not just the words of our policy regarding settlement expansion and a two-state solution, but the consequences of our failure to take a clear and unequivocal moral stance,” he wrote.

“There is a diplomatic vacuum that simply has to be filled if we are going to preserve any sort of process that delivers peace.”

Since he wrote those words, Duncan has joined the Foreign Office; the UN has passed a resolution denouncing the Israeli settlements, John Kerry, the outgoing US secretary of state, has challenged the rightward drift of Israeli policy; and France, without the cooperation of Israel, will convene a Middle East conference in Paris later this month.

Meanwhile, inside the Conservative party, the CMEC has become an increasingly influential voice.

Who knows? All that might unnerve the more extreme Israeli diplomats and make them even believe figures like Duncan need “taking down”. But the reality is that European, let alone British policy, to Israel is not dependent on one or two voluble British ministers. America still calls the shots in Israel.

Duncan, like many others in the Foreign Office, knows Donald Trump is set on reversing the recent direction of American policy. Already Congress has rejected the Obama administration decision to let the UN criticism of Israel to go ahead.

On that estimate Duncan will remain a lonely and largely muzzled voice in the UK government. Theresa May has no intention of running a policy on Israel independent of the US.