by Noa Hoffman, Spectator
Andy Burnham last week issued a grovelling apology for Labour’s position on Gaza. In a three-minute social media video, he lamented his party’s weak response to the conflict in Israel while vowing to ‘do better’ on Palestine. A sentence or two was devoted to a bog-standard, tick-box condemnation of anti-Semitism before Burnham returned to listing his Gaza credentials – much to the delight of party activists and MPs.
Days later, the incoming prime minister has still found no time to address what lies behind much of the anti-Semitism he fleetingly addressed: radical Islam and its growing legion of supporters on the left. While Islamists wage a campaign of terror against British Jews – not to mention Persian dissidents – the domestic threat has apparently not proved worthy of Burnham’s time. That stands in stark contrast to the conflict in Palestine, over which Britain exercises laughably little influence.
It comes as the Home Office today announced that it will formally proscribe Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a threat to Britain’s national security. In one of Sir Keir Starmer’s final acts in office, the Islamic Movement of Companions of the Right (IMCR) was also named as one of the first organisations to be designated under the new National Security (State Threats) Act. Under the legislation, those carrying out acts of sabotage, including arson, on behalf of these groups could face life imprisonment. Sir Keir also confirmed that police forces will receive a £250 million funding boost to protect Jewish communities from the growing Islamist threat.