Safety of the Jewish Community

Debate between Mark Sewards and Gregory Campbell

Tuesday 8th September 2026 Westminster Hall

[Mark Sewards (Leeds South West and Morley) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Christopher. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey and Friern Barnet (Catherine West) on securing this important debate.

I do not speak today as a member of the Jewish community, or as somebody who can fully understand the experience that many British Jews live with every day, but I have seen a small snapshot of it, from my time at the University of Leeds and throughout my continuing engagement with the Jewish community ever since. At university, I saw some of the challenges faced by Jewish students on campus. More recently, I spoke at the Leeds Leads Against Antisemitism demonstration, where I heard directly from members of the community about the challenges that they are now enduring. It has been a particular issue in recent years, but it is a long-standing problem, as many Members know. I will return to the experience of Jewish students later, because what is happening on our campuses tells us something important about the wider problems we face.

The Jewish community in Britain is facing a profound crisis of safety and security. It cannot be said often enough that the first duty of any Government should always be the safety and security of their citizens—we hear it often enough in the Chamber, but it needs to be said again—and that means that the responsibility for protecting the Jewish community cannot rest with the community itself. Nor should Jewish organisations be expected to shoulder the burden alone. The CST is amazing and should of course be well funded, but it cannot fall on the CST to look out for the community every single time. It is the responsibility of us all, and of the Government.

[Mr Gregory Campbell]

A few years ago, we had an appalling incident when a reporter of Jewish extraction, from Israel, was in licensed premises in Northern Ireland. He was coolly and calmly asking punters, some of whom were not under the excessive influence of alcohol, what problem they had with Jewish people, and one punter said, live on television: “The only problem with Hitler was that he didn’t kill enough Jews.” I raised with the Public Prosecution Service why that person was not subject to prosecution; I could not get a legitimate answer about a comment made live on television to a Jewish reporter.

[Mark Sewards]

Goodness me! I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. It is a disgraceful turn of events when people feel confident enough to say something like that on camera, especially if they are not even intoxicated and inebriated, not that that would justify any comments of that nature. That is sickening and it goes to the heart of what we are trying to get to. Because of the way antisemitism has been allowed to flourish, a lot of people now confidently say such things even on camera. It is disgraceful.

We need to think about what it means to belong to a society in which we are repeatedly forced to ask whether it is safe to live openly as a Jewish person. The threat is the threat itself; that is the problem, as is the effect it is having on Jewish people who have to live in anticipation of it. Over the past year, Jewish communities have seen attacks on communal organisations and threats against places of worship and institutions, as my hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey and Friern Barnet set out, alongside appalling levels of antisemitic incidents.

The significance of that cannot be measured simply by counting the incidents, because it is changing the everyday, ordinary lives of Jewish people in this country. Familiar places and ordinary routines become questions of security. Precautions that might once have seemed extreme, maybe even paranoid, have instead become reasonable considerations that Jewish people have to make as part of their ordinary daily lives. That is why security outside synagogues, schools and community institutions sadly remains all too essential; why Jewish societies at universities do not always publicise where their events will take place; and why celebrating Jewish life in public can require precautions that few other communities in this country ever have to consider.