A candidate for the leadership of the Conservative Party has criticised the police’s handling of anti-Israel protests.

Former security minister Tom Tugendhat, who is a practicing Catholic but has Jewish heritage, said that “The approach to public order policing has been inconsistent and, too often, too weak. There was inaction in the face of blatant criminality during the anti-Israel protests.”

He later added, “Criminal acts committed during protests – whether by Extinction Rebellion, Just Stop Oil or the Palestine Solidarity Campaign – were not stopped, with police seeming to stand by the wayside.”

However, the MP for Tonbridge rejected claims of “two-tier policing” and argued that comparing far-right riots with anti-Israel marches “isn’t quite right.” He continued, “There is a difference between public protests in which a minority turn violent, and disorder started deliberately by those intent on violence” and said that a more appropriate comparison was the 2011 riots where “the police were robust, and the judges quite rightly very tough.”

The Tory leadership hopeful also criticised Reform UK leader Nigel Farage’s behaviour in the aftermath of the killing of three girls in Southport.

Tugendhat said, “Nigel Farage claimed ‘the truth is being withheld from us.’ Later he justified amplifying this false information by saying he had believed influencers like Andrew Tate and chose to condemn the ‘breakdown’ of law and order preceding the riots, but not the riots themselves. I want to be clear: this is not leadership. It is deeply irresponsible and dangerous.”

He also called on Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer to sack Home Office Minister Jess Phillips after she claimed on social media that the intimidation of a Sky News reporter by a group of men in Birmingham took place “because it has been spread that racists were coming to attack them”.

The former British army officer also claimed that there had been denial and complacency over much of the state of social unrest in the United Kingdom. He said, “My friend Sir David Amess was murdered nearly three years ago by Ali Harbi Ali, a fanatical Islamist, and instead we found ourselves, for no related reason, debating online civility.”

Tugendhat is one of five other candidates vying to succeed Rishi Sunak as Conservative Party leader. Other candidates are former business and trade secretary Kemi Badenoch, former foreign secretary James Cleverly, former home office minister Robert Jenrick, former home secretary Priti Patel and former work and pensions secretary Mel Stride.