WMP Chief Constable allowed to retire after PCC refuses to fire him
The West Midlands Police scandal reached a zenith over the past week.
After the car crash appearance of Chief Constable Craig Guildford and other local police leaders at the Home Affairs Select Committee, more information about this fiasco at the nation’s second largest police force continued to emerge.
More details surfaced about a pre-planned plot by anti-Israel activists to spy on and impede the Maccabi Tel Aviv football players from attending their match against Aston Villa.
Then, after we had demanded to know whether the police had investigated this conspiracy, the Government’s independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, Jonathan Hall KC, also said that it could have been investigated as an offence of stirring up racial hatred under the Public Order Act.
The Chief Constable also had to write a letter to the Home Affairs Committee to admit that the police did in fact use AI tools to conjure up a fictitious match between West Ham and Maccabi Tel Aviv, contrary to what he had testified to the Committee.
Then, His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary provided its preliminary report to the Home Secretary on the West Midlands Police decision not to permit Maccabi Tel Aviv supporters to attend the Aston Villa match last November.
The report confirmed what we have all known: West Midlands Police chiefs victim-blamed Jews, lied repeatedly and then attempted a cover up.
They relied on an AI hallucination, which they insisted they had not done before admitting that they did.
They overstated the number of Dutch police officers deployed at the Ajax match by orders of magnitude.
They made up links between fans and the IDF.
They lied about Maccabi fans throwing locals into the river: it was a Maccabi fan who was thrown into a canal.
Victim-blaming by the police – egged on by Islamist propagandists and campaigners in Birmingham – has been central to this entire fiasco.
You can read extracts from the report here.
The police force’s story unravelled and we reiterated that clearly the Chief Constable and also other police chiefs in the force must be fired if they do not resign. This is an institutional problem, not a crisis about one man.
As for Mr Guildford himself, we noted that he may have committed the offence of Misconduct in Public Office, and that this report should be passed to the Crown Prosecution Service for expedited consideration.
The Home Secretary announced that the Chief Constable had lost her confidence.
Since the Home Secretary claimed that she could not dismiss the Chief Constable, that duty fell to Simon Foster, the West Midlands Police and Crime Commissioner, whom we called on to delay no further.
Disappointingly, Mr Foster, an official whose position is locally elected in Birmingham, said that he would delay making a decision until later in the month when he convened a meeting of his board. Clearly he did not appreciate the gravity of the situation or, more likely, was beholden to similar local interests that have been behind this saga from the very beginning.
We sent our van to West Midlands Police headquarters to bring the message home, and it was covered in national news.
Finally, the pressure became too much to bear, and Mr Guildford’s departure was announced.
But this was not a sacking: he was allowed simply to retire.
His retirement, after the pitiful failure of Police and Crime Commissioner Simon Foster to sack him, should result in the resignation of Mr Foster as well, as we have told the BBC.
In any case, Mr Guildford’s must not be the last departure from among the force’s leadership, and obviously he cannot be replaced by another senior figure implicated in the same scandal.
Throughout the past several days, our spokespeople have been on the air to explain the scandal and why it matters, including the BBC, GB News and LBC News.
This is just the tip of the iceberg of a wider problem.
This particular scandal has received so much attention that it has obscured the background of surging antisemitic hate crime in the region under the watch of Chief Constable Craig Guildford and his senior colleagues.
There are also reports concerning West Midlands Police of other incidents relating to antisemitism.
Police timidity and cowardice in the face of Islamist intimidation is only half the story.
Focus must now turn to the Islamists themselves: which individuals, groups and radical mosques participated in this campaign?
What influence have they amassed over the local authority, safety advisory group and police?
What action, if any, has the Charity Commission taken against religious organisations with charitable status hosting extremist preachers?
What action if any have the police taken against those conspiring to commit violence against Jewish fans and Israeli players?
What has happened in Birmingham is a test case for the British state. It is no exaggeration to say that what happens next could well determine the future health of British society if we do not stand up to blatant radicalism like this.
Campaign Against Antisemitism Chief Executive Gideon Falter wrote on this topic in The Sunday Telegraph.
“There is an attempt by some to draw a line under the West Midlands Police scandal as disgraced Chief Constable Craig Guildford retires, but he is just a symptom, not the disease,” he wrote.
You can read the full article here.
Miznon Notting Hill: the thugs’ latest target
Miznon, Notting Hill, a restaurant owned by an Israeli celebrity chef, is the latest target of the anti-Israel mob.
The police are out in force, but too little is being done.
The Government’s independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, Jonathan Hall KC, observed more generally in recent days that “the current targeting of Jews for murder coincides with two years-worth of public calls for death, if those calls are read literally,” concluding that “if sectarian calls to violence are normalised, then the risk to national security is too great and the first precautionary principle of national security comes into play.”
“My perception,” he said, ”is that if you don’t deal with anti-Israeli hatred, you leave wiggle room for those who indulge in antisemitism but formally disavow it.”
Protests outside Miznon in recent days have received considerable attention in the Jewish community. But the protests have been happening for weeks.
Mark Birbeck, the founder of Our Fight UK and one of the staunchest allies of the Jewish community over the past two years, was present to counter-protest in December.
When he stood up to the pro-Palestine thugs outside the restaurant, he was brutally attacked and left with a broken nose and a severe gash under his eye.
He spoke to us about it and why he refuses to back down against a mob that continues to harass the restaurant’s owners and customers. You can watch the full video here.
Scrutiny on diversity co-ordinator at school that turned away Jewish MP
It has emerged that a diversity and inclusion co-ordinator at the school which cancelled a visit from Jewish MP Damien Egan appeared to support the 7th October attack on Israel.
Last week it was reported that the scheduled visit by Mr Egan, a Labour MP, to Bristol Brunel Academy in September was cancelled in case “his presence inflames teachers.” Teachers were allegedly planning on wearing keffiyehs to the school in protest.
Saima Aktar, who sits on the board of the Cabot Learning Foundation (CLF), the trust that runs the school, has reportedly posted content from her Facebook account since October 2023 which appears to support the depraved attack which left thousands massacred and injured.
One post from her account, said to have been posted in the days following Hamas’ attack, allegedly reads: “This is an oppressed people standing up and fighting back.” Another appears to say that they are “heroes fighting for justice”.
The CLF has responded to these allegations and have said they have “immediately launched a full and comprehensive investigation“. They have also “commissioned an external review of our existing training and development for staff, to further raise awareness of discrimination of any kind”.
These alleged posts are deeply concerning, and the fact that they have reportedly been posted by someone trusted with furthering the development of children should worry us all.
As CAA Director of Investigations and Enforcement Stephen Silverman told Times Radio, “The ‘strength of feeling’ at the school is part of the problem. It’s a ‘strength of feeling’ that’s been whipped up on basically anti-Israel and anti-Jewish propaganda, and that’s been the feature of the last two years.”
Ofsted also took the unusual step of enhancing an ongoing inspection that was already taking place when the news broke, and the Education Secretary has also demanded a “thorough and robust” investigation into the CLF.
We will be paying close attention to the outcome of these investigations and our lawyers are looking at other actions that can be taken.
Fewer and fewer schools commemorating Holocaust Memorial Day
Over the past two years, there has reportedly been a 60% reduction in the number of secondary schools commemorating Holocaust Memorial Day.
Holocaust Memorial Day (HMD) is not a Jewish occasion as such – the Jewish community has its own day in the Hebrew calendar to commemorate the horror of the Holocaust and the bravery of those who fought back. Rather, HMD was established by the international community as a day for the world to mark the systematic annihilation of one third of the Jewish people.
So why are British schools reportedly abandoning this commemoration of the darkest chapter in modern human history?
There are suggestions that it may be because of concerns about “a backlash from parents” and “local community tensions”.
If so, then this speaks not merely to the cowardice of school administrations but to a much deeper political, cultural and potentially sectarian malaise in our country, where an ever-growing number of people – or an increasingly influential minority – cannot bring themselves to acknowledge and remember Jewish suffering.
This is an appalling trend, and does not represent the best of Britain.
It is particularly saddening given how few Holocaust survivors remain to tell the story firsthand.
In recent days, we were saddened to hear of the death of Holocaust survivor and one of the Windermere Boys, Harry (Chaim) Olmer, who has passed away at the age of 98.
You can read more about Harry here. May his memory be a blessing.
Join CAA and help fight antisemitism in schools and universities
What happened at Bristol Brunel Academy and the decreasing readiness to commemorate Holocaust Memorial Day demonstrate how urgent the fight against antisemitism in the education sector is right now.
You or a recent graduate you know can be part of that fight, as our next Campus and Schools Educator.
You can read more about the role and apply at antisemitism.org/get-involved/jobs/campus-and-school-educator.
Dr Asif Munaf, you’re fired.
Dr Asif Munaf, a former contestant on The Apprentice, has been struck off by the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service (MTPS) for social media posts that have been described as “objectively antisemitic” by the General Medical Council (GMC).
The verdict came after a misconduct hearing with the MPTS, which Dr Munaf chose not to attend. 36 counts of content were deemed objectively hateful and motivated by racial or religious hostility or prejudice.
Dr Munaf’s posts and reposts between 2023 and 2025 included referring to 9/11 as “a Jewish job”, remarks about an “inherent Jewish supremacy”, and claiming that Jews “are sick in the head”.
Another post, questioning the number of Jews murdered during the Holocaust, read: “Does the obsession with baking and ovens explain the uncontested and unproven claims of 6 million Jews and 40 beheaded babies in ovens?”
The tribunal stated that he “posed a current and ongoing risk to the health, safety and wellbeing of the public”. He has reportedly been removed from the medical register.
We welcome this verdict, which we have been waiting for since we first submitted our complaint to the GMC about Dr Munaf back in 2024.
His dismissal sends a critical message that hate speech and extremism will not be tolerated within the medical profession.
Why is Sally Nabil still at the BBC?
It has emerged that Sally Nabil, a BBC Arabic correspondent based in the Middle East who allegedly has a history of liking social media posts justifying and praising the events of 7th October, was sent to report on a meeting in her capacity as a BBC Arabic journalist between US President Donald Trump and the Israeli Prime Minister a few weeks ago.
In 2023, Ms Nabil reportedly liked a post that described 7th October as a “morning of victory” and, on the day of the 7th October massacre itself, apparently referred to Hamas as “the resistance”.
Why is she still allowed to continue as a journalist for the BBC?
Ms Nabil is just one of the swathes of reporters into whom the BBC has opened an investigation but, bafflingly, has been allowed to continue to report on events relating to the world’s only Jewish state.
It has not just been the reporters who have come under fire. It is alleged that multiple guest contributors on BBC Arabic have worrying social media histories, which the BBC failed to adequately research before welcoming them onto their programmes.
One particular guest’s tweet from 2011 is reported to have read: “My message to the Zionist Jews: We are going to take our land back, we love death for Allah’s sake the same way you love life. We shall burn you as Hitler did, but this time we won’t have a single one of you left.”
Complaints have also surfaced about the double standards of BBC Arabic’s reporting after they dismissed reports of Palestinian journalist Anas al-Sharif’s links to Hamas. BBC Arabic was said to have framed the links as being a contested claim and an allegation from Israel that Al Jazeera – Mr al-Sharif’s employer at the time of his death – had “strongly denied”. However, an English-speaking BBC report had confirmed that the journalist had previously worked for Hamas.
We are no longer surprised that the BBC has failed to uphold its duty as a national institution of non-biased, impartial reporting. When will they take real accountability?
It’s time to suspend the licence fee pending an investigation. Add your name to the tens of thousands at suspendthelicencefee.com.
Whatever happens in Iran, the IRGC must be proscribed here
Thousands have signed our petition calling on the British Government to keep its promise to proscribe Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) under the Terrorism Act 2000.
The Iranian people are trying to throw off the yoke of oppression.
Parliament’s Security and Intelligence Committee says that the IRGC is planning to kill and kidnap in Britain, targeting Jews and Iranian dissidents.
How can Britain’s response be to do nothing to stop the IRGC operating on our soil?
Before the election, the Labour Party was unequivocal. In early 2023, David Lammy told Parliament that Labour would proscribe the IRGC. Months later, Yvette Cooper reiterated that a Labour Government would apply a full ban. They rightly criticised the previous Conservative Government for not having already banned the IRGC.
Yet now, in 2026, Business Secretary Peter Kyle says that following a review of terror laws, the Government has already gone “as far as it can” with sanctions.
At a time of heightened threats and rising extremism, this backtracking is unconscionable. The IRGC is not just a threat to Jews; it is a threat to Britain itself.
The Government must keep its word. Ban the IRGC now.
Add your name now at antisemitism.org/BanTheIRGC.
Join CAA’s Communications team!
Do you want to use your communications skills to raise awareness of antisemitism? If so, this may be the job for you.
For more information about the Senior Communications and Research Officer role or to apply, please visit antisemitism.org/get-involved/jobs/senior-communications-and-research-officer.
A Guildford synagogue constructed in the twelfth century that is believed to be one of the oldest and best preserved in Britain and which was only discovered thirty years ago, is back in the news following renovations to a retailer built above it. It served a community that was later expelled from England in the following century.
You can read more about it here.
This Guildford synagogue represents the rich but vulnerable history of Jews in Britain. Another Guildford – Craig Guildford – represents the new vulnerability of the Jews who returned to Britain in recent centuries, a vulnerability due to feckless authorities beholden to local sectarian interests.
We will continue to fight to expose and confront the Islamists who are determined to minimise Jewish life in this country. This past week has seen an important success in that endeavour. With your support, we will work tirelessly to secure more such successes over the coming year.
