Anti-Semitism in the UK

Baroness Fox of Buckley Excerpts

Wednesday 21st February 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My noble friend asks a number of questions which I am afraid impinge on the operational activities of the police. I am obviously not able to comment on those. On whether we are satisfied that the police are sufficiently aware and have sufficient powers to stop marches and control public protest, we are, and I went into that in some detail earlier. Crowd policing is a very difficult thing to do, for obvious reasons. In some cases, I would absolutely defend the police’s right to carefully gather evidence and consult the experts whom they have available to them before potentially inflaming tensions—this is me dangerously straying into operational areas; I probably should not say even that—because the decisions that the police take have to be context-specific. It is not right for us to second-guess those decisions; the police could of course be challenged on them afterwards if they are found wanting.

We need to be careful when talking about these things, but we are confident that the police have the right powers. I am not aware of any particular incidents today. I did not feel particularly intimidated, although I completely accept that my noble friend might well have done. I am sure all those feelings and thoughts are being taken into account by the House authorities and by other police when they keep us safe.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I really thought that the noble Lord, Lord Mann, spoke very powerfully and that it was not hyperbole. We almost cannot describe how serious the mood is at the moment. This is a serious time, historically, in terms of anti-Semitism, and this is not just some rhetorical flourish. I want to have that on record.

I am not frightened by the phrase “Free Palestine”, and I do not want to give the Minister any more excuses to clamp down on demonstrations or free speech, because goodness knows he has done a fair amount of that over the period I have been here. However, it is grim, or maybe fitting, that this Statement on the frighting rise of anti-Semitism is against the backdrop of the debate today on a Gaza ceasefire in the other place—albeit performative, because I note that not one life will be saved and there will not be a ceasefire as a consequence of this. That debate descended into a nasty mood of sectarianism. Worse, tonight we are hearing dark allegations that physical threats were made to elected Members, poisoning the democratic procedures of this Parliament. You associate anti-Semitism with those kinds of dark stories. We are in a building that has witnessed it today, never mind the protestors outside.

A much smaller incident that I would like the Minister to comment on is one that cheered me up. It might sound minor, but, after the unpleasant incident earlier this week of the Star of David necklace on the statue of Amy Winehouse being covered up, which the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, rightly referred to—it was so shocking, even though it seemed so small—I was pleased to see that a non-Jewish member of the public had gone out of their way to skive off work and scrape off the sticker from the statue. I know that because it was reported by the group Our Fight, a new grass-roots campaign of non-Jews challenging British anti-Semitism, which was set up after 7 October.

Would the Minister agree on the importance of such solidarity, which cuts across identity politics and all sorts of party tribalism? This was summed up by the New York mayor, Eric Adams, when he said in a speech:

“Israel, your fight is our fight”.


So much of the anti-Semitism we are seeing today, and much of the reaction to the war in Gaza, is, I am sad to say, around religious and racial identity and some of the most divisive, regressive sides of society. We should call for a universal condemnation of the racism of anti-Semitism.

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

I agree entirely with the noble Baroness. She will know that I am not brave enough to restrict her freedom of speech in any way. I think this goes back to what I said when I quoted Rabbi Sacks. He pointed out that anti-Semitism may begin with the Jews but it does not end there, so it is for all of us to combat it.