Labour prime minister Keir Starmer, and other members of his government, have participated in lavish photo ops and delivered lacklustre statements to mark Holocaust Memorial Day—held this year on the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz—promising to “stand against the poison of antisemitism and hatred in all its forms.”
But—not least because of the large and influential Muslim wing of their own party—ministers are unlikely to be receptive to proposals put forward by the Campaign Against Antisemitism (CAA), which has today produced polling suggesting that only one-third of British Jews believe they have a long-term future in the UK.
The organisation’s survey of more than 4,000 Jews living in Britain revealed that half have considered leaving the country over the past year, citing antisemitism (especially since the October 7th terror attacks). The figure rises to 67% among 18-24 year olds.
Not for the first time, London’s Metropolitan Police came under fire for its failure—as many of those polled saw it—to clamp down on anti-Jewish hatred displayed across the many pro-Palestine marches over the past two years. The CAA said in a statement that
We need more arrests, prosecutions, serious sentences and a ban on the anti-Israel marches.
A spokesman for the group also told europeanconservative.com that “there must be an independent investigation into bias at our national broadcaster [the BBC], which clearly has a blindspot when it comes to antisemitism.”
Universities, too, “must finally face the responsibility that they have to Jewish students and commit to reporting antisemitic incidents to the police and adopt the International (IHRA) Definition of Antisemitism in full.”
Reporting the issue is one matter, but the CAA also pointed to the importance of recognising its cause. 95% of those polled said that Islamists were a serious threat, while 91% thought the same of the far-left. A much lower figure, 67%, said they believed the far-right to be a threat.
Antisemitism has got so bad that more than half (58%) of British Jews make attempts to hide their Judaism when going about their daily lives.
Former UK ambassador Edmund Fitton-Brown stressed that the government must “adopt practical, forceful measures against antisemitism that reverse this trend.”
Tory MP Suella Braverman commented that “this should not be happening in 21st century Britain,” while others suggested the figures were dire yet not surprising.
