Politics: surrender to the mob

By Richard North - October 21, 2025

So it came to pass that the Maccabi ban came to parliament for MPs to hear a statement from Lisa Nandy, secretary of state for culture, media and sport in response to an urgent question from Nigel Huddleston, Conservative MP for Droitwich and Evesham.

Having told us what we already knew, that last week, Aston Villa had released a statement that away fans would not be permitted to attend their game against Maccabi Tel Aviv on 6 November, Nandy – without any great emphasis – finally put the record straight by declaring: “The decision was taken by Birmingham City Council on the advice of the safety advisory group, and based on a risk assessment by West Midlands police”.

There we have it, from the horse’s mouth. It was not a decision taken by the police. It was not a decision taken by the Safety Advisory Group. It was a decision taken by Birmingham District Council – as I have been pointing out for some little time.

Whether Nandy understood the implications of this isn’t really clear, but the information sailed over the head of at least one MP, Danny Kruger – Reform’s turncoat recruit with his constituency in East Wiltshire. When it came to his turn to speak, he complained that all the secretary of state was doing was offering more resources to the police and “asking them politely if they will change their decision”.

It was Nandy’s response that suggested she hadn’t really understood the information she had given to members, muddying the water in response to Kruger by saying that: “I have been clear that the risk assessment and decisions around what would be needed for the game to go ahead safely, with all fans present, is for the police”.

That then was enough for Kruger to rush to his social media account to post on X the statement that: “Lab, Con & LibDems today all agreed the decision by Weds Mids police to ban the Jewish fans is wrong, disgraceful etc”.

He may be right about the other MPs sharing his own ignorance, in the face of pitifully low comprehension levels that clearly prevented them from understanding what Nandy had said about the source of the banning decision.

Kruger was echoing a point made by Tory shadow home secretary Chris Philp, who had written on X that Mahmood should use powers in S.40 of the Police Act 1996 to direct West Midlands Police “to protect Tel Aviv fans from any threat and allow them to attend the Aston Villa game”.

As of October 2025, though, there was no public record of the home secretary ever having used S.40. The law was meant as a reserve power for the central government to intervene as a last resort in cases of police failure and would be expected to be applied only after extensive discussion and negotiation.

With Kruger demanding that the government clarify the law to ensure that they do have the power to overturn decisions such as the Maccabi ban, Nandy had retreated behind the “long-established principle in this country” that the police are operationally independent.

What she should have done, of course, is remind Kruger that the decision had not been made by WMP but by Birmingham City Council and, this being the case, using the Police Act to overturn the decision would hardly be appropriate. She might also have stated that Aston Villa FC did have the option of appealing against the decision but, unfortunately, she was silent on that.

Nandy did, however, go on to say that the decision had far wider implications. In any situation, she said, there is a risk that must be assessed, but in this case “the inherent risk that the event presents is in no small part down to where the away fans come from and who they are”.

And there she made the crucial but error-strewn observation that: “It is in that context that the solution that is proposed – to exclude a group from attending is wrong”. It chooses, she said, “exclusion, rather than looking at the full range of options available to manage that risk and include”.

What she thus failed to do is pinpoint the central flaw in this whole episode, in that Birmingham City Council had no powers to exclude the Maccabi fans on the basis of the factors set out in the risk assessment, where the main concern was the risk of violence outside the stadium.

It is a measure of the total inadequacy of our legislature, though, that not a single MP in the whole House sought to make that point. Kruger was left bleating that there was nothing the government could do “because ‘operational independence’”, resorting to the somewhat dubious proposition that “Only Reform UK will change the law to put the police under the control of elected politicians”.

For her own part, though, Nandy is also left bleating. She admits to Paula Barker, Labour MP for Liverpool Wavertree, that the decision has been taken to ban away fans entirely from attending a game, where “the risk assessment is based in no small part on the risk posed to fans attending to support Maccabi Tel Aviv because they are Israeli and because they are Jewish”.

Yet all she can do on the day is bleat: “We should be appalled by that and never allow it to stand”. But allowing it to stand is precisely what she does. “The fundamental principle that people, whoever they are, should be entitled to walk the streets and attend football games in our country is, for us, non-negotiable”, she says, but she is not prepared to make that a reality.

What she could have done was to observe that, within the terms of the Safety of Sports Grounds Act 1975, there was no provision for the local authority to serve a Prohibition Notice on the football club because of conditions outside stadium, over which it has no control.

This is evident from the law itself, the relevant parts of which must be reproduced on the Prohibition Notice. This refers to the Notice including directions as to the steps which will have to be taken to reduce the risk to a reasonable level for the notice to be removed.

Crucially, the law excludes directions “which would require the provision of the services at the sports ground of any members of a police force unless the chief officer of police of the force has consented”.

Essentially, Aston Villa FC has been served with a ban arising from conditions which lie out of its control, which was never what the Act was intended to do. Nandy, in pointing this out, could have publicly “invited” Birmingham City Council to revisit its ban, pointing out that the home secretary had already committed to ensuring that WMP had the resources needed to police the streets.

Looking at this in context, we have seen the faulty application of a law referred to the very legislative body which made the law, where the members seemed unaware of the nature of the law and the way it was being interpreted.

Thus, parliament has failed once again to perform its vital task of holding the government to account, while the government has proved to be impotent in the face of an egregious breach of the rule of law.

And now it looks as if it is too late. In a measured statement Maccabi Tel Aviv FC has “taken the decision to decline any [ticket] allocation offered on behalf of away fans”, effectively removing the opportunity for any of its fans to attend the match.

In coming to that decision, the club states that “As a result of the hate-filled falsehoods, a toxic atmosphere has been created which makes the safety of our fans wishing to attend very much in doubt”.

“Inflammatory rhetoric, trafficking in half-truths is never healthy”, it says, “but in this particular case the remarks being generated are of the most concerning variety. Not for Maccabi Tel Aviv or football, but for the sake of society and its underlying values, maybe the agendas involved here should be looked at more closely”.

“For the sake of society and its underlying values”, the club says. It is right. There is so much more here than just a football match. This is about who we are as a nation and whether we have left in us the will to govern ourselves without surrendering to a sectarian mob.