When President Donald Trump’s lawyer, Robert Garson, floated the idea of asylum for Britain’s Jews last month, saying “the UK is no longer a safe place for Jews,” a natural response was to focus on the likelihood of more terrorist attacks against Jews by radical Muslims. This concern is warranted, as we were reminded last week after the conviction of two men for plotting to murder hundreds of Jews in an Islamic State-inspired attack in Manchester. Sky News contributor Sophie Elsworth, in a segment on the convictions, echoed Garson’s words, saying that the rise of antisemitism in the UK is “incredibly frightening.”
Unfortunately, it’s not just ISIS and Al-Qaeda that British Jews need to fear. The populist left is engaging in its own form of Jew-hunting. Consider what happened to Jewish comedian Matt Lucas this month. He was harassed by a leftist activist while on an escalator at a Tube station. A man filming a video that he later posted on social media greeted him with the words: “Free Palestine. Free Palestine, Matt Lucas. Free Palestine.” Jewish News reports what happened next:
At the top of the escalator, Lucas says: “Hi, how are you,” to the person filming, “You don’t like what I’m wearing,” the person filming says, with the Little Britain and Great British Bake Off star responding, “no, I have no comment about it either way.” The individual filming continues to follow Lucas, asking him: “You have a problem with Palestinians?” Lucas responds: “No”, before attempting to push the phone away from his face. The individual filming says “you can’t do that, you can’t touch my stuff,” before muttering “Zionist.”
The attempt at intimidation is evident in the video:
The man who posted the video, Islamic convert Thomas Abdullah Bourne, 39, uses the social media handle “White British Muslim.” It turns out he’s a big fan of Jeremy Corbyn, the former leader of the Labour Party and notorious antisemite, as can be seen in a photo of the two posted in a Daily Mail article. The Daily Mail also reports that Bourne, a fundraising consultant, has a history of showing up at pro-Palestinian rallies.
The paper further notes that Lucas has not been a loud voice on the Gaza war. His unforgivable crime? He signed the “No Hostage Left Behind” open letter in October 2023, celebrating the release of two American and two Israeli hostages — an unforgivable action to anti-Israel protesters like Bourne, who apparently prefers the phrase “Death to the IDF” over “No Hostage Left Behind.” Bourne attended a demonstration in support of the rapper Bob Vylan, who chanted that death call at a performance at Glastonbury.
Related: Is It Time to Offer Spain's Jews Asylum?
A spokesperson for Campaign Against Antisemitism commented on Bourne's harassment of Lucas:
If you’re Jewish in Britain, there’s a good chance you may be harassed by pro-Palestine fanatics as they attempt to force you to denounce Israel – the world’s only Jewish state – in order to pass their perverse purity tests.
This type of racist intimidation makes no exceptions, as actor and comedian Matt Lucas found out when he was accosted while simply trying to go about his day. Intimidating Jewish celebrities is not some righteous form of progressive activism. It is the behaviour of dangerous obsessives and needs to be called out as such.
Okay, but surely you’re safe from these leftists if you’re not a celebrity and are just minding your own business at home, right? Well, not if you live in an area that they want to make an “Apartheid Free Zone.”
Leftist activists have been going door-to-door in cities like Brighton and Sheffield, pressuring people to boycott Israeli goods. Alex Hearn, director of Labour Against Antisemitism, appeared on a TalkTV segment and said the canvassers are making lists to intimidate residents, calling them a “totalitarian enforcement brigade.” The segment referred to this activity as “Jew Hunting,” a phrase I borrowed for my headline. In other words, this is nothing more than a purity test.
A former Green Party leader passed that purity test with flying colors.
A video shows Carla Denyer MP, who served as co-leader of the Green Party from between 2021 and 2025, praising the “Bristol Apartheid Free Zone" campaign. She calls the campaign "brilliant" and celebrates that it "got over 5,000 households already signed up to boycott apartheid goods from occupied Palestine – and I am one of those people who have signed up." It’s no surprise that Jeremy Corbyn also supports these groups, which are documenting their home visits in the same intimidating manner that Bourne employed at the Tube station.
Hearn warns that “no one is pure enough for these inquisitions. Jews fled the Soviet Union. They were expelled from communist Poland and fled the Middle East, except from Israel, because of antizionist campaigns.”
Will they now have to leave the UK?
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