Antisemitism: University Campuses

Tim Farron Excerpts

Tuesday 30th June 2026 Westminster Hall

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

It is an honour to serve under your guidance in the Chair this afternoon, Sir John, and a genuine privilege to follow the hon. Member for Leeds South West and Morley (Mark Sewards); I congratulate him on making an excellent speech, on putting this issue forward and on giving it the prominence that it deserves. Like him, I was a sabbatical union officer—some time before him, I suspect.

In the late ’80s and early ’90s, I was a member of the national executive of the National Union of Students, when the marvellous Maeve Sherlock, now Baroness Sherlock, was president, followed a year after by a friend of many of us here, Stephen Twigg. I remember the role that the Union of Jewish Students played not just through the Jewish society in Newcastle University, where I went, but nationally. It was a place where I felt safe as a non-Jewish person spending time with Jewish students who just wanted to talk about the things that students mulled over in the late ’80s—normally the fate of Margaret Thatcher and other such things.

I was aware even then, in a perhaps less fevered time, of the threats to Jewish people, as someone who comes from a gentile background and a relatively non-diverse part of north-west England. As I became friends with many in the JSoc at Newcastle, I understood what it means to live life as a Jewish person and the persecution that is always around the corner. Antisemitism is perhaps the oldest and most insidious form of racism—and all forms of racism are thoroughly evil. I pay tribute to the UJS again today for the work it is doing in even more fevered and dangerous times: supporting its members, reassuring Jewish families and challenging university establishments so that they actively take care of Jewish students and positively fight against antisemitism on campuses.

I recall being in this place a week or a fortnight after the 7 October pogrom. I was in Portcullis House at about 8 o’clock in the evening, and saw two Jewish friends of mine having a cup of tea in the atrium, as everything else had closed. “Why are you still here at this time?” I asked them, and their answer was, “I don’t feel safe going out in this”—there were, of course, anti-Israel, pro-Palestine protests taking place on the street right around Westminster.

As the hon. Member for Leeds South West and Morley said, it is perfectly legitimate to strongly criticise the Israeli Government; I do it all the time. Netanyahu is an appalling man and the current Israeli Government are guilty of all sorts of terrible actions. That is probably the view of the majority of citizens in Israel, and we await an election there with some eagerness. Nevertheless, let us remind ourselves what it means for two young Jewish people to feel that they cannot leave this building when there are protests of that sort going on outside. Give me all the what ifs and what abouts—that does not change the fact that two Jewish people felt unsafe walking on our streets.

All of us here have security at our surgeries these days. We regret that we have to have it, but after the deaths of our dear friends Jo Cox and David Amess, we accept it. Last week, I was talking to the security guard at my surgery in Kendal. He said his work has increasingly been around Greater Manchester supporting Jewish communities at primary school gates and synagogues. It occurred to me that I can just walk into our local primary school and go to my church without any thought whatsoever of security. Yet for some Jewish people in our communities, these are not safe spaces to go.

We have heard accurate reports of Jewish children who go to Jewish schools being told not to wear their uniform on public transport. That should make us shudder and feel totally appalled. In the past couple of years, I have been privileged, as many Members have, to meet with the hostages’ families. We post supportive comments on social media and then see the bile we get for having done that. That gives us a tiny fraction of a sense of what it must be like to be Jewish in this utterly toxic environment.

Earlier this year, I was privileged to do something that I had never done before: I took advantage of a four-day visit to the west bank and Israel. I am obviously not an expert from having spent that time there, but it gave me great insight. It gave me the opportunity to meet with victims of the Nova festival massacre and visit a kibbutz where Hamas murderers—racist, violent thugs—attacked and murdered people in front of their children and children in front of their parents. I got a sense of why the people of Israel feel a sense of utter and complete collective trauma. Unless we understand that, we will not have wise reactions to what is happening.

Again, that does not change the fact that I am a complete opponent of the current Israeli Government, but we can separate that from the question of believing that the state of Israel has a right to exist and the people of Israel have a right to self-determination. I saw how appalling the illegal settlements on the west bank are. I saw how the Israeli Government withholds tax money from the Palestinian Authority in the west bank. That is costing schools and hospitals and causing active harm. I spoke to many Palestinians and saw many things that I am deeply angry at the Israeli Government for, but I also saw a country that is the only liberal democracy in the middle east, which we should be careful to respect.

I also recognise how important Israel is in the hearts and minds of so many Jewish people around the world and in this country. If we conflate the Jewish people with the state of Israel, and especially with the actions of the current Israeli Government, we will have sadly tip-toed, if not strode confidently, into antisemitism.

The Minister will be unsurprised to hear me ask: what can we proactively do to tackle antisemitism in education? My constituency may not be the most diverse, but, as the Minister and hon. Members will know, it is the place where half of the children who survived the Nazi death camps were rehabilitated in August 1945. They are collectively known as the Windermere children, and we are deeply proud of their legacy. Some are still with us, but sadly most have now passed on. Their story is one of the horrors of the consequences of antisemitism in Europe in the 1930s and 1940s, but there is a little extra something to the story of the Windermere children. It is a story not just of the horror of the death camps and of where antisemitism can lead, but of hope and what it meant for those young people when they began life on the banks of Windermere in my constituency.

Those young people, in their own words, went “from hell to heaven.” They went from the horrors they had experienced to being welcomed by a country that they fell in love with, served and became utterly committed citizens of. That is a reminder of what is true about Britain—certainly in my community, and everywhere else as well. In our hearts, we are an accepting and tolerant people. That does not apply only to our Jewish communities, of whom we are deeply proud.

As the Minister knows, we have put a bid in to honour the lasting legacy of the Windermere children by rebuilding the Lakes school on the site where they lived. It will be a place for Holocaust education and remembrance, where hope can be built for a country that does not tolerate antisemitism and where we teach a hatred of hatred to the youngest in our society. That is a real opportunity, and I ask the Minister to look favourably on the bid to rebuild the school and create a lasting memorial to the Windermere children.

Antisemitism is with us in every single generation, as is racism of all kinds, and that makes me angry, but it is our job to sow the seeds to tackle antisemitism from the youngest possible age and to declare proudly that this is a country where we welcome our Jewish family and friends—our brothers and sisters—and that we support and stand alongside them against the scourge of antisemitism.