Sarah Sackman, the Labour candidate standing in Finchley and Golders Green, the constituency that has a higher proportion of Jewish voters than anywhere else in Britain, has pledged to be a “strong Jewish voice in government” if her party wins the general election on 4 July.
Sackman, a prominent barrister who has been active for many years in the area’s Masorti New North London Synagogue, said in an interview with the JC that although she would do whatever it took to combat antisemitism, she did not wish Jewish life in Britain to be defined by it, because “there is so much more that we can be proud of, which I want to see flourish”.
Her constituency is currently held by the Tory Mike Freer, who announced he was standing down after his office was firebombed. With an electorate that is more than 20 per cent Jewish, it is seen as a key Labour battleground that the party must win if it is to take office.
Sackman was insistent that her party, whose handling of antisemitism under Jeremy Corbyn was strongly criticised by the Equalities and Human Rights Commission, had now changed “beyond recognition”. Sackman added she had been heartened to find that this was widely accepted by Jewish voters on the doorstep: “They recognise that in this election, Jews have a choice.”
According to Sackman, many of the issues swaying Jews are shared with the rest of the electorate, such as the state of the NHS and the cost of living crisis. Nevertheless, “the spike in antisemitism that we have seen since October 7 is also a major concern” – which, she pledged, Labour would deal with.
She said she was especially worried by antisemitism on university campuses: “There have always been antisemitism and extremism in universities, but I have never known it to be so bad. University authorities have a duty to ensure that students live free from fear, and where people cross the line from supporting a Palestinian state to voicing hatred of Jews, they has to be action.”
She also called for stronger action to be taken to curb antisemitism online, saying that “we need digital solutions to a digital problem”.
As for the ongoing war in Gaza, she said she had conveyed Jewish community’s concern over the decision by the International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor Karim Khan to seek arrest warrants for Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu and defence minister Yoav Gallant to shadow foreign secretary David Lammy, who said last week he supported ICC process.
Sackman told the JC: “I trust the Israeli people to hold their leaders to account, and I think they will in due course. I think the request to issue warrants in the middle of a war was unjustified.”
Lammy, she went on, “has always been clear that he believes in Israel’s right to defend itself, and that he does not see any equivalence between Israel and Hamas.”
