Law and order: antisemitism

By Richard North - May 3, 2026

All of a sudden, three strands of media interest have emerged, each with their distinct characteristics but all of them inter-related. These are the rise of antisemitism in this country, proposals to ban some pro-Palestinian marches, and the role of Iran in sponsoring terror in the UK and Europe.

The linkage is relatively easily defined as in some way or another, Iran (specifically the IRGC) is involved in all three, although the other common theme that ties them together is antisemitism.

Obviously, by no means all aspects of antisemitism can be laid at the door of Iran: the breadth of this evil is much wider. Thus, it is useful to have a tour de table from the Telegraph which offers a portmanteau report by Leaf Arbuthnot under the heading “How anti-Semitism was allowed to take hold of Britain”.

This places the rise in antisemitism in the aftermath of the Hamas attack on 7 October 2023, with the murder of some 1,200 Jews in southern Israel. Within hours of that attack, celebrations on the streets of London began. A video circulated on social media of euphoric men waving Palestine flags and cars honking in jubilation.

A week later, footage emerged of women at a pro-Palestine march wearing pictures of paragliders taped to their tops in evident support of Hamas, whose militants had notoriously used paragliders in the attack.

In the first of what would become fortnightly marches through London, on 14 October, hundreds of protesters chanted: “From the river to the sea, Palestine must be free”.

A small but vocal group of youths were heard chanting in Arabic the cry of “Patience, patience, Jews, the army of Muhammad will return”. And then there were the placards, which would become a regular feature of the marches: “Stop doing what Hitler did to you”, “Jews know Genocide”, and “Zionists control the media”.

Amid rising concern among British Jews, Arbuthnot writes, then prime minister Sunak publicly insisted that there was “no place in our society for anti-Semitism” and promised his government would do all it could to “stamp it out”. Sadiq Khan, the London Mayor, said he stood with Jewish and Muslim Londoners “against all those who espouse hate and division”. The Metropolitan Police vowed to take a “zero-tolerance approach” to criminal activity.

The reality was, of course, something different. While thousands were arrested and many jailed for “hurty words” directed at immigrants and Muslims, rampant expressions of antisemitism were allowed free rein on the streets of London and other British cities,

Arbuthnot relies on Suella Braverman, the home secretary in office on 7 October, to set the scene. She thinks “there’s been an institutional complacency combined with an institutional cowardice, and that has made for a fateful combination”.

Expanding on this, Braverman ventures that political leaders – Sunak, Starmer, Sadiq Khan and Mark Rowley – “have felt there isn’t really a problem, and that people have been overreacting about the threat”. As to the cowardice in that, with Starmer and Khan, “they are ultimately terrified of upsetting certain communities and pointing out that there is a problem there. They don’t dare take a tough line.”

It comes as no surprise to learn that the “certain communities” are Muslim. Rakib Ehsan – a frequent writer in the Telegraph is cited here, arguing: “We’ve been a soft touch on extremism”.

He adds: “We’ve always known that British Muslim communities are disproportionately anti-Semitic, but I think there has been a discomfort to really talk about that, as it’s one minority versus another minority. It’s easier just to talk about the white majority, saying: ‘They have these attitudes, they’re xenophobic, they’re racist’”.

While the police were happily locking up white “racists”, Braverman recalls the response to her describing the Palestine marches as “hate marches”, which was seen by many as beyond the pale.

She remembers battling to get police to intensify their response to the inflammatory language that was often on display at the protests, but that “it was like hitting a brick wall”.

While police were happy to show up at the protests in vast numbers, there was a reluctance to actually do much once they were there – to, say, arrest people on the spot for anti-Semitic chants or banners. “They kept saying zero-tolerance,” Braverman says, “but they didn’t do zero-tolerance”.

Yet, the statistics support the perception of rising antisemitism. The 1990s and 2000s – which included much of the first intifada, and all of the second – were relatively peaceable for the Jewish community yet, since 7 October, there has been a dramatic rise in reported anti-Semitic incidents.

The Community Security Trust charity (CST) recorded 3,700 incidents across the UK last year alone, the second highest ever recorded (the highest was the 4,103 spike in 2023).

By contrast, there are more reported Islamophobic hate crimes, but the Jewish population is far smaller – so the rate of anti-Semitic crimes reported by the police is nine times higher than the number of Islamophobic offences, with 106 hate crimes per 10,000 Jews, compared to 12 per 10,000 Muslims.

At last, with the spate of attacks against Jewish communities, police chief Rowley seems to be waking up. On Friday, he warned that the anti-Semitism now plaguing Britain is “fuelled by hateful and extremist ideologies” which “are given space to operate when civic debate is weak, when hatred is excused and when people are unwilling to challenge it directly”.

Perhaps ironically, given that many Jews were asking similar questions of the Met Police in 2023, he asked: “Where are the voices against hate? Where is the solidarity with fellow Londoners who are being targeted simply for who they are?”.

One response so far has been a suggestion by Starmer that some pro-Palestinian demonstrations could be stopped, as he indicated that he wanted the language expressed on some protest marches to be subjected to “tougher action”.

But when it comes to “tougher action” by his own government, that seems notably lacking. In the Sunday Telegraph we see a report that tells us: “Iranian network linked to Revolutionary Guard openly operating in the UK”, identifying the Islamic Radio and Television Union (IRTVU) as a “propaganda network” whose messaging is aligned with the Iranian regime and its regional proxies, including Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis, the Yemeni militant group.

In 2020, it was sanctioned by the US, which said it was “owned or controlled” by the IRGC, and functioned as their “propaganda arm”. But several of its member organisations are registered in Britain. These include the Manchester-based Hidayat TV, Ahlul Bayt TV and Al Masirah TV, the main Houthi media channel.
Another IRTVU member is LuaLua TV, which uses its online broadcasts and social media channels to heap praise on senior Hamas and Hezbollah commanders, whom it describes as martyrs and heroes.

Then, from the Sunday Times, we have an article explaining: “The three ways Iran is targeting Britain”, listing direct operatives, proxy groups and the nurturing of homegrown terrorism” that “are emerging as a major threat in the UK”.

Some of this we’ve covered in an earlier piece and since almost all of this activity is directed at British Jews, this is effectively state-sponsored antisemitism by a foreign power.

There is some talk in the article of the government introducing new anti-terror laws, but so far it has not even managed to proscribe the IRGC. In countering a wide spectrum of hostile activity, the Starmer’s regime seems paralysed by inactivity.

While some are calling for charges, deportations and bans against the murderous agents of Tehran, we are reminded that, earlier this year, senior Foreign Office officials attended the Iranian Embassy in London to celebrate the anniversary of Iran’s Islamic Revolution only weeks after the IRGC had reportedly massacred up to 30,000 Iranian protestors.

When it comes to the Muslim communities, it seems that nothing is too much trouble for Starmer, rushing to visit a mosque in Peacehaven after a rather suspicious fire, pledging £10 million in additional funding for security costs.

This same man, on a flying visit to Golders Green last week refused to face the angry crowd, with one cynical commentator remarking: “He’d be happier going to the mosque”.

They say that a fish starts to rot at the head, and if we’re looking for a cause for the rise in antisemitism in this country, Starmer’s inaction is a good place to start.