On Yom Kippur, worshippers outside the Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation in Manchester are rammed and stabbed by a terrorist in a deadly rampage. The police acted swiftly to end the attack. And then, as if on cue, our national choreography resumed: statements were issued, brows furrowed – and within hours, London’s streets again became a stage upon which eliminationist slogans were chanted with gusto.
If this is what caring for minorities looks like, it resembles abandonment with better manners.
Let’s be clear: Lawful protest is a jewel in the crown of British liberty. We should polish it, protect it, and pass it on untarnished. But a protest is not a permit to menace. It is not a day-pass to call for the eradication of a people or the dismantling of the world’s only Jewish state. It does not entitle anyone to transform the public square into a theater of intimidation – least of all on the day after Jews were murdered outside a synagogue.
A rise in antisemitism
Since October 7, 2023, we have witnessed a measurable souring of public life: a marked rise in antisemitic incidents; the normalization of chants once thought beyond the pale; a creeping tolerance for placards and slogans that would, not long ago, have prompted a collective inhalation of horror.
There has also been the growth of a tiresome scholasticism in which words plainly intended to terrify are treated as seminar topics for late-night undergraduate disputation. “Context,” we are told. “Contested interpretations,” we are reminded. Anything, it seems, to avoid doing the obvious: intervene when the line from protest to incitement is crossed.
What makes the British government’s posture so lamentable is not a lack of tools but a lack of nerve. There are powers to impose conditions on marches when there is a risk of disorder or intimidation; powers to restrict routes, amplification, and proximity to places of worship and schools; powers to act against the glorification of terrorism and support for proscribed groups.
This is not a plea for new statutes, fresh quasi-NGOs, or another grim consultation to be filed under “lessons learned.” It is a plea for the timely, even-handed use of the law we already possess.
Yet the day after Manchester, the familiar ritual played out. Ministers expressed sympathy and urged reflection. Police “requested” that organizers postpone their demonstration. The organizers declined. So the marches proceeded with their now-familiar soundtrack, while the bereaved were still beginning the dreadful administrative business of death.
This is not an unavoidable clash of rights. It is a choice, and one widely read as weakness. Radicals see that a state that asks nicely and retreats at the first refusal is a state that can be played; victims see that the price of their safety is measured in platitudes and temporary cordons.
There is something almost theatrical about our response – superb costuming, impeccable diction, but no plot development. We are offered, with great gravity, the distinction between policing and politics, between operational independence and ministerial responsibility. Splendid, but what earthly comfort is such doctrine to the family who must walk to a funeral through a chorus of eradicationist chants?
Our institutions have mistaken the appearance of even-handedness for the exercise of judgment. Neutrality is not the refusal to act; it is the willingness to act fairly. That means stepping in when conduct becomes criminal, not applauding the steely valor of officers who bravely take no decision.
Resources are stretched; arrests are made – eventually. Yet the question is not whether enforcement is possible in a general sense; it is whether we will enforce the law when it costs reputational capital in the moment.
Will we restrain, condition, or – where there is a pattern of criminality – prohibit an event on the very day when restraint is most needed? If your strategy is to plead with radicals and shrug when they refuse, you have mistaken governance for wishful thinking.
Necessary action
What would moral seriousness look like?
First, set up sterile zones around synagogues and Jewish schools during high-risk periods: no megaphones, no swirling columns of marchers, no theatrical confrontations at the doors of worship.
Second, set conditions on routes and timings that place public order over performative piety.
Third, on-the-day intervention: stop the chant that crosses the line, remove the banner that breaches the law, and arrest principal offenders with the calm assurance that the law is not a suggestion.
Fourth, fast-track the evidence – body-worn video, transcripts, timecodes – to prosecutors within 72 hours.
Fifth, publish weekly data on reports, arrests, charges, and outcomes so confidence can be restored by facts rather than flannel.
And, crucially, end the pantomime in which online platforms act as accelerants while mouthing their liturgy of “community standards.” Illegal content is illegal in any medium; evidence should be preserved, and penalties should be memorable.
Nor should universities and public bodies be permitted to outsource courage to committees. Eliminationist chants and the glorification of terror are not “teachable moments.” They are grounds for discipline. Protect targeted students and staff. Withdraw facilities from organizers who cannot keep within the law. Academic freedom is not an academic license to intimidate.
None of these muzzles protest. It simply draws the bright lines where the law already has – and holds them when it matters. The right to assemble is not the right to terrify; the right to speak is not the right to incite. These are not frail orchids that wilt at the first gust of political weather; they are sturdy oaks of our settlement, and they require the occasional pruning saw.
The best of Britain
Britain at her best is steadfast and decent, with a national instinct toward fairness that is one of the wonders of the world. However, fairness is not paralysis. There are people – there always have been – who interpret courtesy as capitulation. They do not want apologies; they want submission. Their appetite grows when they sense hesitancy; their rhetoric swells when they hear equivocation. Radicalism, like any bully, thrives on weakness.
If ministers truly mean what they say, let them prove it where it counts: on the streets, in real time, with the law as their warrant and courage as their companion. If not, let us drop the pretense and admit that we have decided, out of convenience or cowardice, that the public performance of hostility is more precious than the right of a minority to mourn its dead in peace.
Britain must look squarely at the spectacle it has permitted and decide, finally, whether it will exchange the theater of sympathy for the practice of protection. The time for euphemism is over. The time for law, applied without flinch, is now.
The writer is the executive director of We Believe In Israel.