Appointed to his role by David Cameron in 2015, one of his top achievements he sees during his time in office was the creation of the IHRA definition of antisemitism and its formal adoption by the government in 2016.
“You can't deal with it [antisemitism] unless you've got a definition, and it's been adopted all around the world. I know there are a lot of people who don't like it, and they don't like it because it's more effective”, Pickles said.
He also takes pride in a similar step with regards to anti-Roma discrimination, especially given the persecution of Roma groups during the Holocaust.
Yet he added that a key challenge remains in terms of dealing with the emergence of what he describes as “Holocaust distortion”.
“When I started out doing this, it was all about Holocaust denial”, but today a big task is dealing with those who are “deliberately trivialising the Holocaust”, taking away from the unique horrors of it and comparing it to more inconsequential issues like alleged vaccine injury, as was done by some during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Lord Pickles(Photo: Getty Images)
This challenge will only become more difficult when ageing survivors are no longer well enough to share their testimony in person, or when there are no living survivors alive, Pickles added.
“We are on the cusp where there won't be any Holocaust survivors to be able to talk in schools. I don't think people have really come to terms with the difference that will make”, he warned.
“When I first started out, I was told that empathy was the key, and then once you got empathy, everything else would fall. Well, if you look at the indifference the world's had towards Israelis [after the atrocities of October 7], you realise how fragile empathy is. So, I felt it actually needed to be built on a firmer foundation, 'show me’: which is landscape, archives – including testimony – and objects.”
Pickles also paid tribute to the recent “My Hometown” project – which was showcased in Parliament – where students from different parts of the country created research projects exploring links between their local areas and the Holocaust.
But the Conservative Peer insisted that there needs to be better sharing of resources – including survivor testimonies – from charities and academics, with the intent of making material accessible.
“If you a survivor has given a series interviews over many decades to different organisations, you can bring it all together, and that should be available, not just for researchers, but for members of the public.”
Pickles sees it as vital to be able to put together a reachable and informative narrative to counter disinformation about the Holocaust: “When people say, 'the Holocaust didn't exist', you want people to be able to say, 'no, that's not true. Because I've seen this’”, he explained.
Although he is stepping down from his role, he is certain he will continue to champion the issues he cares about from the House of Lords, chuckling: “I was interested in the Holocaust and Israel before I became the envoy”.
Pickles is a passionate supporter of the long-planned Holocaust Memorial and Learning Centre set to be right next to Parliament in Victoria Tower Gardens.
An artist's illustration of the plans for the Holocaust memorial and learning centre in Victoria Tower Gardens, next to the Houses of Parliament[Missing Credit]
He sees it as an important tool to try and tackle Holocaust distortion, reach a wide-range of audiences and act “as a gateway to greater knowledge”.
Although he acknowledges that the memorial itself is “not silver bullet”, its location in Westminster is central to engaging a broad audience.
“People are going to go there that will never go to Yad Vashem or even to the one in Washington, because they’d have to make a special journey. But this will be part of the experience of coming around Westminster”, he explained, adding: “It's not going to cure everything. It's just part of a pattern that we need to be a little smarter about.”
Lord Pickles (far left) in David Cameron's cabinet (Image: Getty).Getty Images
In the time since the plans for the Holocaust Memorial and Learning Centre were announced in 2015, there have been six prime ministers, but Pickles is optimistic that progress is imminent: “We will break ground this year or early next.”
Part of the delay was caused by failure to properly take into account the London County Council (Improvements) Act 1900 – which prohibited construction on the site.
The former MP for Brentwood and Ongar laid some of the blame for the lack of progress at the feet of high-powered NIMBYs: “There are some people who don't like the idea of a memorial, full stop … And there's a whole bunch of people, important people, who have flats nearby, and they've objected. Anywhere else, if it was a parish council, not only wouldn’t they be able to talk about it, they wouldn't be allowed in the room, and they certainly wouldn’t be able to vote. Those rules don't apply here.”
“Some people have been quite open that it's about taking the dog for a walk, a child for a walk, their view, the value to their property”, he added.
Lord Pickles is a firm supporter of the Westminster Holocaust memorial and learning centre (Image: X)[Missing Credit]
The former Communities Secretary also dismissed arguments against having the centre next to Westminster for security reasons.
“You know, this is right next to Parliament. For God's sake. This is the number one terrorist target in the UK, we're pretty well pretty protected. We've got MI5 right across the road."
He added: “I've had opportunity to talk into the security services and nothing is risk free, but I trust to the security people, and they seem happy to be able to deal with it and to deal with any problems”.
“The law is going to be changed. So, if some moron decides to clamber on top of it with a flag or wants to demonstrate, there's going to be a separate act of Parliament to make it a criminal offence to do that, that's important. We cannot allow Hamas and Hezbollah and antisemites to determine where we have this”, he said, adding: “It should be wonderful. It enhances a park that has been essentially neglected.”
Elsewhere, like the Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis, the government’s independent adviser on antisemitism Lord Mann and Professor David Hirsh from the London Centre for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism, Pickles didn’t attend a recent Israeli-government organised conference on antisemitism.
In an open letter explaining why he would not be attending, Hirsh hit out at the presence of some far-right parties and said that: “Israel could listen more attentively to the advice of local Jewish communities and it should not offer the populist right, which has fascistic antisemitism in its heritage and amongst its support… [a] Jewish stamp of approval.”
Although he acknowledged that there may be some figures who might be trying to “grab Israel in order to give them some respectability”, Pickles insisted that he didn’t think the Israeli government was trying to politicise antisemitism.
“I’m a frequent visitor, and I'm a frequent visitor to various sort of institutions. I don't think that's what Israel is trying to do at all”, but he warned about those trying to “wash their history through the Holocaust”.
People who he says claim “'We protected the Jews, nobody collaborated.' It simply isn't true and mature democracies admit that”.
But Pickles says that doesn’t mean the door should be completely closed on engagement with political parties on the right, even those who have their origins in supporting Nazism, depending on whether they are truly changed.
“I always see the best in people, and I'm willing to give people the benefit of the doubt, but not forever”, he explained.
“I think we need to be more confident in what we're doing, more determined. Be prepared to call things out”, wherever the remarks come from.
Finally, Pickles told us that he “cannot make my mind up” about whether Elon Musk’s hand gesture at the Trump inauguration was a Nazi salute, the Community Security Trust’s Dave Rich is adamant that it was, while the Anti-Defamation League says otherwise.
But the former cabinet minister is scathing about the billionaire founder of Tesla’s other interventions in British politics and his vocal support for far-right activist Tommy Robinson.
“I think there is a kind of naivety in American politics about Europe. A basic lack of knowledge. And the idea that Tommy Robinson was regarded by anybody as a champion of free speech, it's just nonsense.”
He added: “I think that even in American law you can’t shout ‘fire’ in a crowded theatre”.
