What to make of the local election results
Throughout the local election period, we have been scrutinising the records of candidates from numerous parties and none. Just in the past week, we have drawn attention to candidates from the Conservatives, Reform UK, Plaid Cymru, Aspire and several independents, in addition to candidates from the Liberal Democrats and Labour whom we have highlighted in the recent past.
But it is the Green Party which presented the electorate more problematic candidates than any other. In at least one case, our expose resulted in an investigation, which is ongoing. In some other cases, the Party took action, for example it suspended Mark Adderley, the conspiracist husband of Loose Women star Nadia Sawalha. She suggested that “dark forces” were at play in his suspension, we told the media that perhaps she is a bit too loose-tongued for Loose Women, and she has been taken off the air for at least two weeks.
But in far too many cases, the Green Party has failed or refused to act, or acted too late, with candidates already on the ballot. Indeed, several concerning Greens, some of whom were under investigation or suspended, have been elected. These include Mr Adderley, but also Saiqa Ali, whose online rhetoric (for which she has apologised) was so egregious that she has been arrested.
The fragmentation of British politics has given rise to considerable discussion about antisemitism within newly ascendent parties.
On the far-left, numerous Green and independent councillors have been elected on a ‘Gaza’ platform, focusing on a conflict far away in which the UK is not directly involved and which has no bearing on local issues. Their choice of platform demonstrates that the degree to which sectarianism has become a core element of our own national politics. This brand of politics invariably involves inflammatory and all too often antisemitic rhetoric and carries divisive implications for community cohesion.
The Jewish community is most immediately affected by this, but it presents a much wider challenge to British identity and national cohesion. It remains to be seen whether the country will realise this before it is too late.
At CAA, we will continue to challenge antisemitism in our politics and sound the alarm about sectarianism and how it will transform this country for the worse.
Prime Minister responds to CAA rally with antisemitism summit
Days after we stood outside Downing Street calling on the Prime Minister to present a plan to tackle antisemitism, he led a summit on the issue.
He delivered some opening remarks, adopting some of our language – including the need to present a plan – and acknowledging that antisemitism comes not just from the far-right but also from the far-left and Islamists.
But most of what he announced is merely a programme of telling the authorities to do the jobs they were supposed to have been doing for years. The police have had the powers to ban marches all along, and it should not have taken a spate of stabbings and arson attacks for the Charity Commission to act against extremist mosques or for the Arts Council to stop funding venues that spread hate.
Moreover, it is absurd that he was still not announcing basic steps. We all know that Iran is a malign influence in this country, so why hasn’t the IRGC been proscribed and its ambassador expelled? The Prime Minister has been in office for almost two years, and it’s been half a year since the Manchester terrorist murders, so why is he merely pointing to ongoing reviews of indeterminate length, without taking obvious action right now, for example banning the Muslim Brotherhood?
We suspect that avoiding these questions is why the Prime Minister did not invite CAA, the UK’s largest antisemitism campaigning charity, to his event at Downing Street.
He probably knows that we would play no part in any choreographed spectacle that puts words before action. Now is not the time to be avoiding uncomfortable truths and hard questions.
You can read more here, or watch his statement here.
As ever, CAA led the media reaction to the summit. Here is a sample of clips from Sky News, GB News, LBC News and Good Morning Britain.
Jewish community rallies outside Downing Street
Yesterday afternoon, political leaders from across parties joined the Jewish community at a rally outside Downing Street.
Kemi Badenoch, Leader of the Conservative Party and the Opposition appeared onstage to considerable applause and said: “I promised that I would do everything that I could to let you know that you are not alone and Britain stands with you. We have to call out hate when we see it. There are many who are afraid to call it what it is. We do need to stand against Islamic extremism. The people that want us to be afraid must not be allowed to win. Antisemitism is the best early warning signal about threats to humanity.”
Pat McFadden, Labour’s Work and Pensions Secretary, was greeted with jeers from the crowd: “Friends, I hear you I am with you I want to fight antisemitism alongside you. No Jewish people should feel that they need to live a smaller life in the United Kingdom. I know that statements of solidarity are not enough. That is why we are going to change the laws.”
Sir Ed Davey, Leader of the Liberal Democrats: “I am here to stand up with you against antisemitism wherever it raises its ugly head. We have seen the awful rise of radical awful antisemitism and the attacks on the Jewish community in the most appalling way. It has to stop. Words are not enough. You’ve heard them too often. We need action from the Government. We need to make sure that the police approach is zero tolerance towards hate and harassment on the Jewish community. Extremism is the enemy of the Jewish people. Extremism is the enemy of our country.”
He also called for action against the IRGC, which the Liberal Democrats have called to be banned.
Richard Tice, Deputy Leader of Reform UK: “It is a tragedy because there has been an absolute absence of courage and absence of leadership in this country and the result is that the scourge of antisemitism has been allowed to flourish in our beloved country. We’re sick and tired of warm words from waffly politicians. An attack on the Jewish community is an attack on British values. And it would be just the beginning. I stand with the Jewish community. We all stand with the Jewish community.”
He called to ban the hate marches, proscribe the IRGC, ban the Muslim Brotherhood, and “take on the failure of leadership in our universities,” proposing penalties for failure to tackle antisemitism on campuses.
Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis: “It is unacceptable that poisonous antisemitism has become normalised in the UK. It is unacceptable that our communities can only function behind high fences and with security guards. It is unacceptable that social media platforms continue to spew out Jew hatred with impunity. It is unacceptable that Iran is inspiring violence against British citizens on British soil.”
He called for the Iranian Ambassador to be expelled and the IRGC to be proscribed.
Gideon Falter, Chief Executive of CAA: “Those who called to “globalise the intifada” have succeeded. And now Britain is in the grip of its own localised intifada. That’s the Britifada. The attacks are coming thick and fast. Because Britain has become radicalised.”
Also addressing the crowd were the leaders of the JLC and Board of Deputies, the President of the United Synagogue and co-Leads of Progressive Judaism, as well as a number of faith leaders and allies. You can read excerpts from the speeches here.
Boy George also sent a recorded message of solidarity, saying: “I don’t want to be thanked for doing what is right. God bless you all.”
It is extraordinary how few celebrities have been willing to stand unequivocally with the Jewish community during this unprecedentedly challenging period.
It is thus even more appreciated that a small number, like Boy George, do so, and are prepared to endure the abuse that they receive from antisemites as a result.
You can watch CAA Chief Executive Gideon Falter’s full speech here.
He also published an op-ed in The Sunday Telegraph on the morning of the rally, explaining how the intifada has not merely been “globalised” but localised here in the UK, and we are now living through the ’Britifada’.
You can read the article here.
As ever, CAA spokespeople appeared across the media to talk about the rally and the scale of the challenge. You could find them on Sky News, LBC and BBC 5 Live.
We also spoke to attendees to ask why you came.
This is what you told us.
Thank you to Mary Rendle for showing her love for her Jewish friends at the rally – and using our merch to do so, as featured on the BBC.
If you want to be like Mary and show your solidarity with British Jews, you can buy your merch at antisemitism.org/shop.
The days in which the Jewish community will be reassured merely by expressions of solidarity from political leaders are passing. Even the politicians speaking onstage themselves accepted that words are not enough.
Under two successive governments, the authorities have inertly watched the ‘intifada’ being not only ‘globalised’ but localised here in Britain. They have appeased the extremists, who have become more and more emboldened on their attacks on Jews.
Drastic action is needed if Britain is really finally to face down the extremists, which is what the crowd that assembled yesterday expect.
Crowdfunding Against Antisemitism
This week, we are holding a crowdfunding campaign to ensure that we have the funds to keep fighting for Jewish rights.
All donations will be doubled at antisemitism.org/FundTheFight.
We will be sending you more information during the course of the week. We can only keep going with your support. Thank you!
Another arson attack, as antisemitic hate crime becomes an epidemic
Last week, there was another suspected arson attack against a Jewish institution, this time targeting a former synagogue on Nelson Street in Tower Hamlets. Fortunately, no injuries have been reported.
These arson attacks are just the most visible of what is now becoming an epidemic of antisemitic hate crime in Britain.
On the streets:
- A Jewish school in north London has informed parents that a group of Jewish pupils were targeted in what is being investigated as an antisemitic traffic incident in Hendon.
- The Met Police arrested a 35-year-old man on suspicion of aggravated criminal damage after rocks were thrown at a Jewish community ambulance while it was transporting a patient in Edgware.
- A man has pleaded guilty to multiple hate crime offences, in relation to an incident in Salford last week in which Jewish people were allegedly targeted with violent threats including “I’m going to take knives and cut your **** throat.”
- Two men have been convicted of an antisemitic hate crime after targeting a member of the Jewish community in Stamford Hill. The 20- and 21-year old, both of Hillingdon, had travelled to the predominantly Jewish area to film antisemitic content for social media.
- A man has been charged with five offences, including racially or religiously aggravated assault, in relation to an incident in Enfield when he is alleged to have threatened and assaulted two men and a woman, all Jewish, who each sustained minor injuries.
- A man allegedly assaulted several Orthodox Jewish women by striking them with his belt and spewing abusive language towards them. He was arrested and charged with five offences.
- A woman was arrested on suspicion of racially aggravated assault after allegedly punching a Jewish schoolboy and shouting abusive antisemitic language towards him.
- A man has been arrested outside a synagogue on Brent Street in Hendon. Reports say that he was acting suspiciously, and armed police intervened.
- A third arrest has been made in connection with the attempted arson attack on Finchley Reform Synagogue last month, and two people have been arrested on suspicion of arson of a memorial wall in Golders Green.
- A man has been charged over death threats that he left on voicemail for Robert Jenrick MP, which allegedly alluded to his wife’s Jewish heritage.
It is reassuring to see that the police are acting much more swiftly now than they have done previously. But it is also infuriating, because it shows that they could have started doing this over two years ago.
Instead, two Jews had to die, another two had to be stabbed, millions of pounds of property damage had to be wrought and a wave of antisemitism that has radicalised our country had to happen first.
In prisons: A convert to Islam serving a life sentence for murder allegedly broke the jaw of a visiting Jewish prison chaplain, after which he allegedly covered his cell walls in graffiti with the phrases “Free Palestine“ and “Death to the IDF”.
In the courts: The re-trial of four Palestine activists who previously benefitted from a miscarriage of justice has now concluded with guilty verdicts. A police officer was gravely injured with a sledgehammer in the incident, yet the now-convicted criminals walked free after the collapse of the first trial. You can read more here.
In the professions: A solicitor who was referred to a disciplinary tribunal over alleged antisemitic social media posts has been granted a one-year suspension from practising – which has been suspended for two years. In other words, effectively no sanction.
In cultural spaces:
- Two Jewish women sat in the audience of a comedy show in Tunbridge Wells Assembly Rooms theatre, when the comedian, Jen Brister, reportedly began to lead chants of “f*** Israel” and “Free Palestine”. According to the women, they felt so uncomfortable that they had to leave the theatre before the show ended.
- Acclaimed actress Dame Maureen Lipman has been subjected to antisemitic abuse online in relation to an upcoming performance. Discrimination against Jewish people has become normalised in the arts: it’s now simply part of doing business as a Jewish creative in modern Britain.
This is an epidemic of criminal hatred against Jewish people.
Can police and prosecutors keep up?
Police leaders are reportedly complaining to the Home Office that they lack the funding to sustain this level of protection for Jewish communities.
But of course one way to reduce the cost of protecting British Jews would be to focus on actually tackling the threat against them. It’s been two and a half years of failure to heed our warnings or accept our recommendations. Until the Met – and other authorities – confronts the threat in earnest, the cost will just continue to spiral.
Turning to prosecution, you can read more here, but it has been clear for some time that there is two-tier justice in this country.
Following the Prime Minister’s antisemitism summit, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) has pledged to fast-track antisemitic hate crime prosecutions, with the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) noting that this worked well during the Southport riots two summers ago.
Are we being gaslit?
For two years we have been urging the authorities to apply precisely the same vigour to unprecedented levels of antisemitic hate crime as they did after Southport. Those calls fell on deaf ears, and two-tier policing and prosecution persisted and Jewish people were violently attacked.
Only now, after two London Jews have been stabbed – not, notably, after two Manchester Jews were murdered – have the Prime Minister and the DPP woken up to the scale of the problem and finally promised action.
Why does it take heinous attacks on Jewish people for the authorities to just start to listen to our recommendations?
A sceptical Jewish community waits to see whether real change on prosecutions is coming.
We drove through the streets with a simple message on the IRGC
Several speakers at the rally yesterday – from the Chief Rabbi to the Leader of the Liberal Democrats – called for the proscription of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
You can add your voice to this campaign by signing our petition at antisemitism.org/BanTheIRGC.
We recently drove through the streets with one simple message: Britain must ban the IRGC now!
Watch what happened here.
Fund the Fight
From the Prime Minister’s antisemitism summit and yet more arson and antisemitic hate crimes, through concerning local elections and the Jewish community rally outside Downing Street, this past week at CAA we have been as busy as ever.
We are fighting antisemitism on all fronts. But we need you to fund the fight.
This week, we will be asking you to contribute to our crowdfunding campaign at antisemitism.org/FundTheFight, where you can double your donation.
It is only with your support that we can continue. Thank you!
