Our new prime minister, Andy Burnham, must stop the increasing normalization of antisemitism. So far, the signs aren't good.
Andy Burnham, who was appointed Britain’s seventh prime minister in a decade by King Charles III, is the symptom, not the cause, of a political system in turmoil.
There are 403 Labour MPs in the House of Commons , but, incredibly, not one of them was deemed good enough by its warring factions to replace the former Labour Party leader Sir Keir Starmer. And so Burnham—a Cabinet minister under Tony Blair in the early 2000s who had gone in a leftwards direction after becoming Mayor of the city of Manchester—was brought back without even a leadership election. A polite British coup.
Britain knows very little about our new Prime Minister. He has refused any big TV interviews and his ascension to the most powerful position in the land appears to be based more on “good vibes” than policy or substance. He’s articulate, smiles a lot and has nice eyelashes—and talks a lot about redistributing power outside London.
But if how a ruler approaches the Jewish community is a marker of how healthy a society is then there is already cause for concern. For more than a decade, the Labour Party’s internal battles have been most glaring on how much they are willing to overlook antisemitism.
Starmer’s predecessor, Jeremy Corbyn, presided over a culture that brought anti-Zionist Jew-hatred into the mainstream, a kind of blueprint for some of the more radical Democrats in the U.S. The British Equality and Human Rights Commission concluded that the Labour party was liable for unlawful harassment of Jewish members, including the use of antisemitic tropes and minimizing or dismissing complaints as "smears". One of the now ousted Starmer’s rare achievements was to fight back against this.
Yet even on Starmer’s watch, life has become much more dangerous for British Jews, including a terror attack which left two dead at a synagogue on Yom Kippur in Manchester, a spate of fire bombings on synagogues and two Jewish men being stabbed in London’s Golders Green neighborhood. Burnham insists he is against antisemitism. But the symbolism of his first political moves have caused Britain's Jews considerable alarm.
There is a perception that he wants to make an effort to win back the support of areas with large Muslim populations, whose voters have been abandoning Labour for several years, as well as “progressives” who appear preoccupied about Israel above all else. Labour has haemorrhaged votes to a group known as the Gaza Independents and the Green Party, whose election campaigns repeatedly focus on Gaza at the expense of other issues.
While he has told us next to nothing about his policies, in a video interview—among the first things he did when it was clear he would become leader unopposed—he officially apologized for Labour’s initial response after the October 7 Hamas attacks by saying: "I know many people feel that at the start of Israel’s military action in Gaza, my party didn’t get it right, and I am sorry about that.
" The response he’s apologizing for? Starmer said Israel had a right to defend itself. To this writer and others in the community, the message seems to be, “We should have been more critical of Israel from the start. ” Although pro-Palestinian sentiment does not necessarily mean antisemitism, British Jews I know found the timing of his statement alarming.
Compounding this, while eschewing mainstream media ahead of his anointment, he granted an interview to Gary Lineker, the former England footballer turned commentator and podcaster, who was had to step down from his high-profile role at the BBC for sharing an antisemitic Instagram image, which had a rat emoji symbolizing Zionists . Again, it was the symbolism of who we had agreed to be interviewed by as much as the substance.
He didn’t flinch as Lineker discussed “a genocide”—instead he simply reiterated his apology and underlined the point that he had first called for a ceasefire a mere 20 days after the Hamas massacre. In cynical political terms, this is understandable. But the past three years has seen hatred against Jews in Britain whipped up to new levels in public discourse. It never ends well.
As a Jew, I am frightened that the ramping up of rhetoric, which has already seen too many of us hurt—physically and mentally —as part of the Gaza backlash. We are Brits not Israelis, but this obsessive focus on this one war and hysterically poisonous discourse about Zionists makes life more dangerous for us.
And while one of Starmer’s parting gifts was millions more for British Jews to spend on security—so we can build higher walls around our synagogues and schools—that won’t make up for hatred against us becoming increasingly normalized. And as a Brit, I am concerned that our latest PM has adopted a simplistic reading of the Gaza conflict, as if Hamas came and went on October 7 and Islamist groups are simply benign freedom fighters.
Britain has had enough Islamist terror attacks on our own soil that surely we should know better? Burnham needs to open those lovely-lashed eyes to where the danger is coming from. The vibes aren’t good. He can criticize Israel all he wants but it won’t appease those who are already demanding he label the Gaza war a genocide, or help tackle how this sentiment translates to antisemitism in the West.
It won’t stop the fundamentalists who don’t believe in democracy at all. Prime minister for just a few hours, and already this country feels more dangerous. Nicole Lampert is a former showbusiness editor of the Daily Mail and a columnist for The Jewish Chronicle. The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.
Andy Burnham, who was appointed Britain’s seventh prime minister in a decade by King Charles III, is the symptom, not the cause, of a political system in turmoil. There are 403 Labour MPs in the House of Commons , but, incredibly, not one of them was deemed good enough by its warring factions to replace the former Labour Party leader Sir Keir Starmer.after becoming Mayor of the city of Manchester—was brought back without even a leadership election.
A polite British coup.. He has refused any big TV interviews and his ascension to the most powerful position in the land appears to be based more on “good vibes” than policy or substance. He’s articulate, smiles a lot and has nice eyelashes—and talks a lot about redistributing power outside London.
But if how a ruler approaches the Jewish community is a marker of how healthy a society is then there is already cause for concern. For more than a decade, the Labour Party’s internal battles have been most glaring on how much they are willing to overlook antisemitism.
Starmer’s predecessor, Jeremy Corbyn, presided over a culture that brought anti-Zionist Jew-hatred into the mainstream, a kind of blueprint for some of the more radical Democrats in the U.S. The British Equality and Human Rights Commission concluded that the Labour party was liable for unlawful harassment of Jewish members, including the use of antisemitic tropes and minimizing or dismissing complaints as"smears". One of the now ousted Starmer’s rare achievements was to fight back against this.
Yet even on Starmer’s watch, life has become much more dangerous for British Jews, including a terror attack which left two dead at a synagogue on Yom Kippur in Manchester, a spate of fire bombings on synagogues and two Jewish men being stabbed in London’s Golders Green neighborhood. Burnham insists he is against antisemitism. But the symbolism of his first political moves have caused Britain's Jews considerable alarm.
There is a perception that he wants to make an effort to win back the support of areas with large Muslim populations, whose voters have been abandoning Labour for several years, as well as “progressives” who appear preoccupied about Israel above all else. Labour has haemorrhaged votes to a group known as the Gaza Independents and the Green Party, whose election campaigns repeatedly focus on Gaza at the expense of other issues.
While he has told us next to nothing about his policies, in a video interview—among the first things he did when it was clear he would become leader unopposed—he officially apologized for Labour’s initial response after the October 7 Hamas attacks by saying:"I know many people feel that at the start of Israel’s military action in Gaza, my party didn’t get it right, and I am sorry about that.
" The response he’s apologizing for? Starmer said Israel had a right to defend itself. To this writer and others in the community, the message seems to be, “We should have been more critical of Israel from the start. ” Although pro-Palestinian sentiment does not necessarily mean antisemitism, British Jews I know found the timing of his statement alarming.
Compounding this, while eschewing mainstream media ahead of his anointment, he granted an interview to Gary Lineker, the former England footballer turned commentator and podcaster, who was had to step down from his high-profile role at the BBC for sharing an antisemitic Instagram image, which had a rat emoji symbolizing Zionists . Again, it was the symbolism of who we had agreed to be interviewed by as much as the substance.
He didn’t flinch as Lineker discussed “a genocide”—instead he simply reiterated his apology and underlined the point that he had first called for a ceasefire a mere 20 days after the Hamas massacre. In cynical political terms, this is understandable. But the past three years has seen hatred against Jews in Britain whipped up to new levels in public discourse. It never ends well.
As a Jew, I am frightened that the ramping up of rhetoric, which has already seen too many of us hurt—physically and mentally —as part of the Gaza backlash. We are Brits not Israelis, but this obsessive focus on this one war and hysterically poisonous discourse about Zionists makes life more dangerous for us.
And while one of Starmer’s parting gifts was millions more for British Jews to spend on security—so we can build higher walls around our synagogues and schools—that won’t make up for hatred against us becoming increasingly normalized. And as a Brit, I am concerned that our latest PM has adopted a simplistic reading of the Gaza conflict, as if Hamas came and went on October 7 and Islamist groups are simply benign freedom fighters.
Britain has had enough Islamist terror attacks on our own soil that surely we should know better? Burnham needs to open those lovely-lashed eyes to where the danger is coming from. The vibes aren’t good. He can criticize Israel all he wants but it won’t appease those who are already demanding he label the Gaza war a genocide, or help tackle how this sentiment translates to antisemitism in the West.
It won’t stop the fundamentalists who don’t believe in democracy at all. Prime minister for just a few hours, and already this country feels more dangerous.
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