What does a Labour government mean for Britain's Jews?

Although pre-election polls showed Jews flocking back to Labour, JC focus groups revealed that their support was not unconditional and serious concerns remained over antisemitism in the party. One question is on everyone’s lips: What to expect from a Labour government?

First, let’s look at where we are and how we got here. It was clear from the start that Sir Keir Starmer understood the scale of that challenge when he became leader in 2019. One of his first acts after taking over was to apologise to the Jewish community. He later said that Jew-hate had been a “stain” on his party and vowed to tear it out “by its roots”.

There was much work to do. In the year prior to Sir Keir’s election, Jewish Labour MP Luciana Berger had called her party “institutionally antisemitic” and left to join Change UK and later the Liberal Democrats. Fellow Jewish Labour MP Louise Ellman said previous leader Jeremy Corbyn – for whom Starmer served as shadow Brexit secretary – was unfit to be prime minister and that under his leadership “antisemitism has become mainstream in the Labour Party”. Both former MPs have since returned to the fold and, ahead of the election, they urged British Jews to back the party.

Early in his leadership, Starmer also sacked one-time Corbynite leadership rival Rebecca Long-Bailey from the frontbench for praising an interview with Maxine Peake in which the left-wing actress shared an antisemitic conspiracy theory.

He also booted Corbyn out of the parliamentary party for refusing to accept the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC)’s report into antisemitism in Labour – although Corbyn has now exacted his revenge, retaining his Islington North seat after running as an independent and declaring on polling day that in this election, “Palestine is on the ballot” .

Starmer accepted the EHRC’s findings and said the party would implement its recommendations. In February 2023, Labour was taken out of special measures by the equalities watchdog.

There is every reason to believe that Starmer’s approach to Jew-hate will continue when he is prime minister: apart from anything else, his wife and children are Jewish, and he declared during the campaign that when he took office, family shabbat dinners would be sacrosacnt. However, concerns remain. In the Rochdale by-election in February, Labour’s candidate for the seat, Azhar Ali, was initially backed by the party after the Mail on Sunday revealed he had said Israel “allowed” the October 7 attacks to happen to get a “green light to do whatever they bloody want”. The party eventually withdrew support for him after further comments about Jews who worked for the media came to light.

At the time, Starmer was criticised for using antisemitism as a factional tool. A Guardian editorial claimed that Ali’s comments were “more egregious than those committed by MPs on the left who had been swiftly suspended”.

Some concerns have been expressed over deputy leader Angela Rayner, who was forced to apologise for praising Jewish anti-Zionist Norman Finkelstein’s book The Holocaust Industry. She also deleted a social media post which appeared to suggest antisemitism in Labour was a “smear”, although she denied this, claiming she was talking about smears more generally.

And in another ominous sign, Diane Abbott – a long-time Corbyn supporter – was allowed to re-stand as the Labour candidate for Hackney North and Stoke Newington despite the fact that Starmer himself said her comments, made in a letter to the Observer, that Jews do not face racism, only prejudice similar to ginger people – were antisemitic. She retained her seat last night.

Protecting the Jewish community

Although Labour’s election manifesto does not mention “Jews” or “Judaism”, Starmer has pledged to match the Conservative government’s record levels of funding for the Community Security Trust.

The manifesto also pledged to “reverse the Conservatives’ decision to downgrade the monitoring of antisemitic and Islamophobic hate”, a reference to former home secretary Suella Braverman’s decision to change guidance to police on so-called non-crime hate incidents. At the time, Braverman claimed this was a decision taken to protect freedom of expression.

Education

Labour’s plan to remove VAT exemptions for independent schools was widely attacked by the Conservatives in their campaign. The Tory candidate for Hendon, Ameet Jogia, told the JC during the election that “Jewish schools that I visited have said that they may have to shut down because they can’t afford it, and parents won’t be able to afford it either.”

These concerns were echoed by Raisel Freedman, assistant director of PaJeS, who warned that Labour’s private school plans could have a disastrous impact: “Of the almost 20,000 Jewish children in independent Jewish schools, the vast majority do not have an alternative option in the state sector that is culturally and religiously appropriate for them.

“Should independent Jewish schools shut down as a result of Labour’s measures, there will be nowhere for the children to go.”

Labour shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves has said the measures are necessary to pay for the party’s plans to recruit 6,500 additional teachers.

Israeli-Palestinian conflict

In the aftermath of October 7, Starmer said that Israel had a right to defend itself and condemned Hamas. In an interview with radio station LBC on October 11, Starmer was challenged by host Nick Ferrari about whether he supported Israel cutting off water and electricity to Gaza. The Labour leader replied that Israel “has that right” – something frequently brought up by many of his left-wing critics – but that everything should be done “within international law”.

Months into the war in Gaza, however, Starmer defended David Lammy when he said he supported the decision of the International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor Karim Khan to ask for arrest warrants against Israel’s PM Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence minister Yoav Gallant. He also called for Israel to cease its operations in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip.

Labour’s manifesto called for the recognition of a Palestinian state as part of “a contribution to a renewed peace process which results in a two-state solution”, a policy pretty much identical to that pursued by the Conservatives for the past 14 years. Although such a policy is seen by some Israelis as pie-in-the-sky thinking, others believe it could be a constructive approach going forward.

Richard Pater, Director of the Britain-Israel Communications and Research Centre (BICOM) told the JC: “If recognition is incorporated into part of a peace process, the UK could balance it and make it part of dual reward, incentive to both sides. It could include moving the embassy to Jerusalem and recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of the Jewish State.

“In recognising the State of Palestine, it could announce that this state is the solution for Palestinian refugees, with no ‘right of return’ to Israel.

“Recognition should also be contingent with significant reforms of antisemitic incitement and inducements to carry out terror attacks in the current formulation of ‘pay to slay.’ There is also scepticism that so corrupt and ineffective an institution as the Palestinian Authority is capable of such reform.”

Nevertheless, the election results, which saw Labour’s vote falling by an average 15 points in seats with large Muslim electorates, Corbyn ‘s victory and two shadow cabinet ministers, Jon Ashworth and Shabana Mahmood unseated by pro-Palestinian candidates endorsed by radical campaign group The Muslim Vote, will increase the pressure on the incoming government to dilute its support for Israel. It is likely that in office, Starmer and his colleagues will amplify their existing calls for a Gaza ceasefire.

Iran

Labour’s manifesto does not explicitly call for Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) to be proscribed. However, in January 2023, David Lammy told parliament: “We would proscribe the IRGC, either by using existing terrorism legislation or by creating a new process of proscription for hostile state actors.”

According to the Daily Telegraph, Labour plans to bring in a “bespoke” proscription mechanism to make it easier for “state-based actors” to be formally declared as terror groups.

They also apparently intend to update the government’s counter-terror strategy, called Contest, and create a new Home Office and Foreign Office “joint cell” to deal with state-based threats to the UK.

Stephen Silverman, Campaign Against Antisemitism’s Director of Investigations and Enforcement, told the JC: “The IRGC is an antisemitic state-sponsored Iranian paramilitary group that sows chaos and murder in the Middle East and threatens the UK.

“We strongly welcome the party’s pledge to proscribe it. Given what is happening in the region right now and the global effects, this proscription cannot come soon enough.”

BICOM’s Richard Pater said: “The IRGC is an entity which poses both an existential threat to the UK’s closest regional ally, Israel, and a clear and present danger to the UK itself.”

He hoped proscription would be “allied to a serious effort, in concert with our Western allies, at imposing meaningful sanctions on the Iranian regime which target its nuclear enrichment and weaponisation programme, its ballistic missile programme and its wide nexus of regional terror armies.”

pre-election polls showed Jews flocking back to Labour, JC focus groups revealed that their support was not unconditional and serious concerns remained over antisemitism in the party. One question is on everyone’s lips: What to expect from a Labour government?

First, let’s look at where we are and how we got here. It was clear from the start that Sir Keir Starmer understood the scale of that challenge. One of his first acts as Labour leader was to apologise to the Jewish community. He later said that Jew-hate had been a “stain” on his party and vowed to tear it out “by its roots”.

There was much work to do. In the year prior to Sir Keir’s election, Jewish Labour MP Luciana Berger called her party “institutionally antisemitic” and left to join Change UK and later the Liberal Democrats. Fellow Jewish Labour MP Louise Ellman said previous leader Jeremy Corbyn – for whom Starmer served as shadow Brexit secretary – was unfit to be prime minister and that under his leadership “antisemitism has become mainstream in the Labour Party”. Both former MPs have since returned to the fold and, ahead of the election, urged British Jews to back the party.

He also booted Corbyn out of the parliamentary party for refusing to accept the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC)’s report into antisemitism in Labour.

Starmer accepted the EHRC’s findings and said the party would implement its recommendations. In February 2023, Labour was taken out of special measures by the equalities watchdog.

There is every reason to believe that Starmer’s approach to Jew-hate will continue in the same vein. But concerns remain. The Rochdale by-election raised genuine worries about the party’s ability to deal with antisemitism when it occurs among those ideologically closer to the leadership.

Labour’s candidate for the seat, Azhar Ali, was initially backed by the party after the Mail on Sunday revealed he had said Israel “allowed” the October 7 attacks to happen to get a “green light to do whatever they bloody want”. The party eventually withdrew support for him after further comments came to light.

At the time, Starmer was criticised for using antisemitism as a factional tool. A Guardian editorial claimed that Ali’s comments were “more egregious than those committed by MPs on the left who had been swiftly suspended”.

Some concerns have been expressed over deputy leader Angela Rayner, who was forced to apologise for praising Jewish anti-Zionist Norman Finkelstein’s book The Holocaust Industry. She also deleted a social media post which appeared to suggest antisemitism in Labour was a “smear”, although she denied this, claiming she was talking about smears more generally.

And in another ominous sign, Diane Abbott – a long-time Corbyn supporter – was allowed to re-stand as the Labour candidate for Hackney North and Stoke Newington despite the fact that Starmer himself said her comments, made in a letter to the Observer, that Jews do not face racism, only prejudice similar to ginger people – were antisemitic.

Protecting the Jewish community

Education

Labour’s plan to remove VAT exemptions for independent schools were widely attacked by the Conservatives in their campaign. The Tory candidate for Hendon, Ameet Jogia, told the JC during the election that “Jewish schools that I visited have said that they may have to shut down because they can’t afford it, and parents won’t be able to afford it either.”

“Should independent Jewish schools shut down as a result of Labour’s measures, there will be nowhere for the children to go.”

Labour shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves has said the measures are necessary to pay for the party’s plans to recruit 6,500 additional teachers.

Israeli-Palestinian conflict

Months into the war in Gaza, however, Starmer defended David Lammy who backed the decision of the International Criminal Court (ICC) to file for arrest warrants against Israel’s PM Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence minister Yoav Gallant. He also called for Israel to cease its operations in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip.

“In recognising the State of Palestine, it could announce that this state is the solution for Palestinian refugees, with no ‘right of return’ to Israel.

Iran

According to the Daily Telegraph, Labour plans to bring in a “bespoke” proscription mechanism to make it easier for “state-based actors” to be formally declared as terror groups.

“We strongly welcome the party’s pledge to proscribe it. Given what is happening in the region right now and the global effects, this proscription cannot come soon enough.”

BICOM’s Richard Pater said: “The IRGC is an entity which poses both an existential threat to the UK’s closest regional ally, Israel, and a clear and present danger to the UK itself.”