Free Republic

For months, Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labour government has been under intense pressure from scores of its own members to demonstrate more robust support for Palestinians, especially in Gaza. But a terrorist attack at a synagogue on Thursday in Manchester, England, which led to the deaths of two people during prayer services on Yom Kippur, exposed a competing political reality for Mr. Starmer: the growing anger among Jews in Britain who believe his government is doing far too little to protect them from hate and antisemitism. The police have said the synagogue attack was carried out by Jihad al-Shamie, a...

The prime minister has called for protesters to “respect the grief of British Jews this week” after the Manchester synagogue attack. Ahead of a planned demonstration against the ban on Palestine Action this Saturday, Keir Starmer wrote in the Jewish Chronicle that activists should recognise this is a time of mourning. “Peaceful protest is a cornerstone of our democracy – and there is justified concern about the suffering in Gaza – but a minority have used these protests as a pretext for stoking antisemitic tropes,” he wrote. “I urge anyone thinking about protesting this weekend to recognise and respect the...