People take part in a demonstration outside the head office of Ultra Precision Control Systems in Cheltenham, October 8, 2025
POLICE forces are not protecting Jews when they target protesters who legitimately oppose Israel’s war crimes, campaigners have warned.
Jewish Voice for Liberation (JVL) has hit out at the Met and Greater Manchester police chiefs, who have said protesters who chant “globalise the intifada” will be arrested.
Defending the peace marches seen across Britain since the start of Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, JVL said the chant is not one regularly heard at the mass London demonstrations.
The group said: “If it is used as a taunt to individuals or groups of Jews it may amount to harassment, but otherwise it should be accepted as what it literally means — a call to make resistance to Israeli crimes global.”
But it said the Jewish Bloc, which proudly proclaims its Jewish identity, has always been prepared to challenge any anti-semitism it has encountered on the demonstrations.
The group insisted that it has very rarely, if ever, encountered anything it needs to respond to.
JVL also took issue with the conflation of pro-Palestine activism and the rise of anti-semitic hate crimes, claiming “legitimate peaceful protest” should not be confused with what is “correctly illegal activity.”
“It unfairly casts doubt on the intent of those, including the substantial Jewish Bloc, expressing their horror at the continuing genocide in Gaza and the complicity of our government in it,” the group added.
Vote Labour for Genocide.Keir Starmer objects to criticism of the IDF. He asks how could anyone object to them starving people to death, forced marches like the Nazis did, bombing Gaza’s hospitals and universities, mass-murdering journalists, healthworkers and starving people queuing for food, killing and raping prisoners and murdering children. He calls for people to stop obstructing his genocide for Israel.Orcas discuss Genocide-supporting and complicit Zionists. Donald Trump, Keith Starmer, David Lammy, Rachel Reeves, Angela Rayner and Wes Streeting are acknowledged as evil genocide-complicit and supporting cnuts.
Ahmed then moved to work with Angela Eagle MP, who would soon challenge Corbyn for leadership of the Labour Party. During this period, Ahmed amplified an allegation that angry Corbynites had smashed Eagle’s window with a brick after she announced her leadership challenge. This incident had been dubbed ‘Brickgate’ in the media. In the midst of the resulting furore, Ahmed released a press statement on behalf of Eagle’s office that included numerous questionable claims for which he was later chastised by independent media. Ahmed’s statement, for example, alleged that a planned event at a Luton hotel where Eagle was slated to appear had been cancelled because the venue received threats.
Alas, the hotel quickly pooh-poohed the story. ‘Brickgate’, an entirely ludicrous affair, would nevertheless bolster the media narrative that left-wing members of the Labour Party who supported Corbyn were intolerant reprobates. It was a narrative that Ahmed and McSweeney would continue to foster, covertly, when they started working together in 2018.
Dogged investigations by independent bloggers and media outlets revealed that Eagle’s office window had not been smashed (it was instead a window on the ground floor in a shared office stairwell); the police had no evidence this incident was linked to Eagle; and there was no evidence the window had been broken by a brick. It eventually emerged that there wasn’t even a brick on the scene – just a stray piece of masonry on the road, which may or may not have played a role in the damage. Nobody knew, in fact, what had broken the window, or who had done it, or why – yet the incident still somehow retains its force as a shorthand for the alleged thuggishness of Corbynism.
Unsubstantiated accusations of homophobia
Brickgate was part of a broader attempt to defend Eagle’s position against the real prospect that her mostly leftwing constituency would organise and vote to deselect her. It coincided with an allegation made by Eagle’s supporters, and then by Eagle herself, that, at a critical meeting where left-wingers won control of the local Constituency Labour Party (CLP), members had engaged in rampant homophobia, including limping their wrists at a young gay man. The claim was never properly substantiated. It was also fiercely disputed by people who, unlike Eagle, were physically present at the meeting.
Emma Runswick, the self-identified ‘queer’ daughter of the CLP meeting’s chair Kathy Runswick, wrote in the New Statesman of how unimaginable it would be that her loving, accepting mother would ever tolerate such gross and blatant homophobia. In fact, the day after the meeting at which Kathy was said to have allowed homophobia to run amok (and at which she was elected chair of the CLP), she attended her daughter’s wedding – to another woman. Unsurprisingly, despite years of investigations and alarmist reporting, not a single individual was ever sanctioned or found guilty of homophobia in this case.
Nevertheless, Eagle’s supporters flooded the bureaucracy with complaints alleging that homophobia at the meeting, alongside a generalised air of left-wing menace, meant it was no longer safe or appropriate for the CLP to convene meetings. Of course, if the party agreed, the newly elected left-wing leadership of the CLP would be unable to move motions that could censure Eagle – or seek to replace her as an MP. Emails show that at this time, Labour Party bureaucrats opposed to the Corbyn leadership were working with Eagle to ensure her CLP remained suspended in order to prevent her deselection.
People take part in the Resist Racism Scotland rally in George Square, Glasgow, organised by Stand Up To Racism and the STUC, March 18, 2023
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You will not find Gove, or Sunak, or for that matter Keir Starmer, on this weekend’s anti-racist marches. For them racism is an accusation to be deployed cynically for factional advantage, not an evil to be confronted through standing in solidarity with its victims.
So Starmer can condemn the Tories for permitting racist abuse of Diane Abbott, while ignoring a leaked report into Labour officials’ racism including multiple instances directed at her, and blandly brief that “disciplinary processes take time” when challenged over her ongoing suspension as a Labour MP — though 10 months in, we know the party hasn’t even spoken to her. Some investigation.
So Sunak can retort with another attack on the left — repeating the lie that Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour leadership tolerated anti-semitism — a jibe eagerly accepted by Starmer.
These people cannot be trusted to oppose racism. Even their performative anti-racism is often racist (as in the insinuation that Muslims are a threat to Jews, or Labour’s disproportionate crackdown on Jewish anti-zionists).
They are the “forces at home trying to tear us apart.” They do so because nothing scares them more than people power: than a mass movement for peace that challenges British imperialism, today, as for centuries, one of the main drivers of racism.
Former home secretary Suella Braverman at a ‘Stand With Israel’ rally in London’s Trafalgar Square in January 2024. Braverman’s Home Office sent a letter to police chiefs warning of a potential rise in antisemitic hate crimes in the wake of Hamas’s 7 October attacks on Israel but did not even consider sending a similar letter about rising Islamophobia, new documents reveal. Both communities experienced significant rises in hate crime as the conflict in the Middle East escalated | Chris J Ratcliffe/Getty Images
Government spoke about threat of antisemitism but did not consider making equivalent warning about anti-Muslim hate
The Home Office appears to have given no consideration to the threat of Islamophobic hate crime in the wake of Hamas’s attacks on Israel, despite warning chief constables about the “obvious risk” of rising antisemitism, openDemocracy can reveal.
It comes as the government is embroiled in a row about its perceived unequal treatment of antisemitism and Islamophobia. Incidents of both have soared since 7 October.
Oxford councillor Shaista Aziz said Muslim women were particularly at risk from rising hate crime, and told openDemocracy that the Home Office’s lack of action was “outrageous, yes, horrific, yes, but not surprising”.
On 10 October, then home secretary Suella Braverman wrote to police chiefs in England and Wales urging them to watch for rising antisemitism, particularly on pro-Palestinian marches.
The letter asked police to consider whether holding a Palestinian flag on a march or singing “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” could be considered a terrorist offence.
But requests made by openDemocracy under the Freedom of Information Act found that the Home Office held no evidence of any meetings, phone calls, emails or briefing papers from the same period of time regarding the possibility of publishing a similar letter about hate towards Muslim and pro-Palestinian groups.
Aziz said: “It sends a very clear message to British Muslims that ‘you’re not a priority for us,’ as opposed to: ‘You are facing a sustained rise in violence and extremism, and it’s our job as a government to put things in place to ensure that people are protected.’”
The independent councillor, who quit Labour in October in protest at Keir Starmer’s apparent suggestion that Israel’s attacks on Gaza were justified, also called out Labour’s own record on Islamophobia. She pointed to the fact no one had faced consequences for briefing a deeply offensive line to the press that Muslim councillors quitting the party meant Labour was “shaking off the fleas”.
Labour MP Clive Lewis told openDemocracy the “hierarchy of racism” in the government and society at large benefited only the far right. “This doesn’t help the Muslim community and it sure as hell doesn’t help the Jewish community,” he said. “This divide and rule policy is not just wrong – it’s dangerous.”
Lee Anderson, the Tories’ former deputy chair, was suspended from the Conservative Party this weekend after claiming in an appearance on GB News that “Islamists” had “got control” of the mayor of London, Sadiq Khan.
Conservative ministers have been reluctant to criticise Anderson, who has not apologised. Deputy prime minister Oliver Dowden yesterday refused to say whether his claims were Islamophobic in interviews with both the BBC and ITV, and transport secretary Mark Harper this morning again declined to call them racist – instead telling both the BBC and Sky News that they were simply “wrong”.
Anderson’s comments had echoed a column Braverman wrote in The Telegraph last week, in which she claimed that “Islamists” were “in charge” of Britain.
Braverman was forced out of office in November after she accused the police of left-leaning bias, helping incite a far-right mob to storm the Cenotaph on Remembrance Day. She is yet to face repercussions from the Conservative Party for the latest column.
Alba Kapoor, head of policy at the anti-racist Runnymede Trust charity, said: “This latest revelation shows what we have sadly already suspected: that this government has a flagrant disregard for its duty to protect Muslim communities.
“As instances of Islamophobia continue to skyrocket following last October, Muslim communities face persistent racist attacks. But instead of taking any action to challenge that, senior Conservative politicians and former cabinet members are busy stoking Islamophobic sentiment, and building divisive narratives.
“That the prime minister refuses to even call these instances out as racism is a clear sign of a government that is disgracefully failing Muslims across the country. This woeful situation will continue to cause profound harm unless meaningful action is taken to protect Muslim people at this time.”
The government stumped up funding to tackle both Islamophobia and antisemitism last year. It has committed £29.4m a year to providing security for mosques and Muslim schools, and £18m a year for equivalent safety measures for synagogues and Jewish schools, until 2025.
But it has had no independent adviser on Islamophobia for 20 months. Imam Qari Asim was dismissed from the role in June 2022, after being accused of backing a ban on a film that was said to exacerbate sectarian tensions between Muslims. Asim said the government’s claim that he acted to “limit free speech” was “inaccurate”.
A government spokesperson said: “There is no place for hate in our society and we condemn the recent rise in reported anti-Muslim and antisemitic hatred.
“We expect the police to fully investigate all hate crimes and work with the Crown Prosecution Service to make sure the cowards who commit these abhorrent offences feel the full force of the law.
“Following recent events, we have also made further funding available to Muslim and Jewish communities, to provide additional security at places of worship and faith schools.”
Labour Party leader Keir Starmer speaking during the Labour and Civil Society Summit at St John’s church in Waterloo, south London, January 22, 2024
… KEIR STARMER was accused of hypocrisy yesterday as he vowed to defend civic institutions from “Tory McCarthyism.”
The Labour leader criticised the Conservatives for targeting organisations such as the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) and the National Trust as part of their “war on woke.”
Jewish Voice for Labour’s Mike Cushman, however, said that Sir Keir is an expert when it comes to McCarthyism — named after the infamous US senator responsible for spreading fears and persecuted leftwingers in the postwar “red scare.”
He told the Morning Star: “We welcome Starmer’s recognition of the Tories’ McCarthyism: freedom of action by civic groups is important to protect, but we would wish he would recognise the McCarthyism within the Labour Party, which attempts to police legitimate discussion of Palestine and Israel by falsely labelling it as anti-semitism, in a clear McCarthyite attempt to shut down needed discussion.”
People take part in a demonstration outside the head office of Ultra Precision Control Systems in Cheltenham, October 8, 2025
