British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, long accused of failing to act in the face of rising antisemitic incidents, is now promising to use the “full power of the state” to prosecute those who celebrate or condone violence.
Starmer visited Thursday the scene of this week’s stabbings in Golders Green, where he was greeted by demonstrators carrying signs and chanting “Keir Starmer, Jew Harmer.”
Having previously made a boilerplate statement about antisemitism being unacceptable in Britain, the premier offered a far stronger message in a televised speech from 10 Downing Street.
“People are scared — scared to show who they are in their community, scared to go to synagogue to practice their religion, scared to go to university as a Jew, to send their children to school as a Jew, to tell their colleagues that they are Jewish, even to use our [National Health Service],” he told the public.
He promised a legal crackdown on individuals or groups who publicly engage in the “extreme racism” that has “left a minority community in this country scared, intimidated, wondering if they belong.”
Noting the “marches that happen regularly across Britain,” Starmer said those “marching with people wearing pictures of paragliders” are “venerating the murder of Jews.” Imagery of paragliders began popping up in pro-Palestine rallies following the attacks of Oct. 7 in reference to militants who used such devices to cross the Israeli border and participate in the massacre.
“If you stand alongside people who say ‘globalize the intifada’, you are calling for terrorism against Jews — and people who use that phrase should be prosecuted,” he continued in the address, promising to “fast-track the necessary legislation” to “bring the full power of the state to bear on this.”
It’s a jarring escalation in rhetoric from the premier, who has long been criticized as inactive on the issue of rising rates of attacks against the country’s approximately 300,000 Jews.
Shloime Rand, 34, and Moshe Ben Baila, 76, were stabbed in north London on Wednesday in an incident that national authorities are now characterizing as a terrorist attack.
The attacker was apprehended and subdued by Shomrim, a volunteer security organization that provides supplemental emergency services in Jewish communities. Responding personnel subdued the knife-wielding man with a taser before the Metropolitan Police could arrive.
The suspect has not been officially identified by Metropolitan Police, in accordance with standard procedure, but British media outlets have named him as Essa Suleiman. Suleiman is reportedly a British citizen of Somali heritage and came to the United Kingdom as a child.
Harakat Ashab al Yamin al Islamia, an ostensibly Iranian-aligned terrorist collective that claims to have operatives scattered throughout the continent, has taken credit for the attack.
London Metropolitan Police believe that it is part of a wider campaign by Iran to spread terror in Western nations by using “thugs for hire” willing to commit hate crimes for “easy money.”
Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood announced Thursday that the U.K. terrorism threat level has risen to “severe,” meaning that another “terrorist attack is considered highly likely.”
“The terrorist threat level in the UK has been rising for some time, driven by an increase in broader Islamist and extreme rightwing terrorist threat from individuals and small groups based in the UK,” the Home Office said.
Starmer specifically noted “malign threat posed by states like Iran” on Thursday, promising to “introduce much stronger powers to shut down charities that promote antisemitic extremism.”
“We will prevent hate preachers from entering our country, bar them from our campuses, our streets, our communities,” the premier said. “Work with our justice system to speed up sentences on antisemitic attacks so there is a stronger deterrence factor as we do with riots.”
The prime minister may have been pushed to a stronger course of action after Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu denounced his “weakness” and warned “words are not enough” to confront “one antisemitic attack after another in London.”