Sammy Wilson
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Maccabi Tel Aviv FC: Away Fans Ban
Sammy Wilson Excerpts(1 day, 6 hours ago)
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Sarah Jones
To the right hon. Gentleman’s first point, the Prime Minister’s view was very clear: the wrong decision was made. That is our position. We believe that the decision made was the wrong one.
On the safety advisory groups, we have asked the inspector to look at them, their role and their function. Of course, the right hon. Gentleman is right to point out that across all our public bodies, we need to stamp out antisemitism in all its forms, wherever we find it and wherever we see it. I will certainly support him in that.
Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)
Confidence in the police is very important, and the Jewish community have every justification for not being confident in the police—whether it is some of the policing we have seen here in London or in the west midlands. Given that the reports in The Sunday Times seem to contradict totally what the police in the west midlands said, is it not accurate to say that their recommendations on which Israeli fans were to be banned from the Aston Villa match were nothing but a tissue of lies? If they had really wanted accurate information, would they, as experienced investigators, not just have lifted the phone or sent an email to the police in Amsterdam to find out the facts about the match that occurred there?
It appears that the West Midlands police have given in to pressure from Muslim politicians and Muslim thugs. As a result, the Jewish community are once again left feeling that they are the disadvantaged people. Will the Minister assure us that the inquiry will look very clearly at what political pressure was put on the police in the west midlands to reach their decision?
Sarah Jones
The right hon. Member is right to say that confidence in policing is incredibly important. We need that confidence across all our communities, and we know that there is a lot of work to do in some areas in particular. I am not going to comment on what appears to be the case, but I can reassure him that, as I have said, the Prime Minister believes it was the wrong decision in the first place. We want to understand what happened, and we want to take a wider look at the safety advisory groups, which, as I said, were set up in response to a problem of safety within our football venues. We recognise that things have moved on, and we need to look at whether the SAGs are working in the way that they should be.