By Cain O’Mahony
On 5 October, to whoops of joy from the Tory media, the Starmer government announced a new amendment to the Crime and Policing Bill giving police powers to ban or put limits on protests. Everyone knows this is directed at the pro-Palestinian marches, which have attracted hundreds of thousands and have been overwhelmingly peaceful, despite the horrors of the genocide in Gaza.
The amendment says that police forces, when deciding to take action, should consider “assessing previous activity”. Well, West Midlands Police did just that when it recommended banning away fans from the forthcoming Aston Villa vs Maccabi Tel Aviv football match.
They looked at the behaviour of the Maccabi fans – or more accurately, their ‘Ultras’, the ‘Maccabi Fanatics’ gang – at last year’s UEFA match against Ajax in Amsterdam. Before the match, the Fanatics attacked pro-Palestinian protestors, tore down Palestinian flags, and beat up an Arab taxi driver. During the match, they chanted obscene songs celebrating the deaths of thousands of children in Gaza. Not surprisingly, following the match there was a full scale riot, with many innocent Israeli fans attacked.
Birmingham has a population three times that of Amsterdam. Sadly, it is not a gentle city, having the highest gun and knife crime rate in the UK – last year alone police seized over 200 guns.
In the main, we all get along
We have a large Muslim community. In the city centre on the main drag of the High Street and Corporation Street, local mosques have a stall handing out free copies of the Koran. Vendors openly sell Palestinian flags which are very popular. Many taxi drivers have Palestinian pendants in their cabs. And in the main, we all get along.
[Photo – Cain O’Mahony]
Add to the mix, Tommy Robinson. He is currently in Israel, the guest of an Israeli government Minister. He told the Times of Israel (20 October) that he would be going to the Villa match too (no doubt with a mob of hotel-burning goons) to support the Maccabi thugs.
To put it mildly, the potential for a conflagration was very high. So West Midlands Police decided to follow the example of the authorities in Naples, who have banned away fans from the forthcoming UEFA tie between Napoli and Eintracht Frankfurt on 4 November because of the threat of violence. Strangely, there has been no international outcry over this ‘anti-German’ action.
The City Council’s Safety Advisory Group backed the police decision. Immediately there were howls of protest from the Israeli government, the Tories and their media and sure enough, Starmer and the Labour front bench were immediately bounced into attacking Birmingham, all screeching the accusation of ‘antisemitism’.
Protesting against the genocide in Gaza being carried out by the Israeli government is not antisemitism. Neither is making sensible decisions about public safety.
Antisemitism is the terror attack on the synagogue in Manchester. Antisemitism is the three Nazis (one of them from the West Midlands) sent to jail on 17 October for planning terror attacks on synagogues and mosques. Antisemitism is the vile essay written by Tommy Robinson in 2022 titled The Jewish Question (which strangely was taken down from his website before his new courtship with the Israeli government).
But Starmer still insisted the Maccabi fans be allowed to come, promising extra resources and declaring “We will not tolerate antisemitism on our streets” (Sky News, 18 October).
Local punished – not the perpetrators
But to accommodate these racist thugs, which Starmer and Co. hadn’t thought through, there would have to be ‘reverse control’ to make sure the Maccabi fans weren’t ‘offended’. Local people would have to take down their Palestinian flags, the streets cleared of free Korans, and thriving businesses boarded up wherever the Maccabi thugs wished to roam. It would be us locals who were punished for the Maccabi behaviour, not the perpetrators.
And then the 19 October derby match happened – or to be precise, didn’t happen. The disorder and violence was so bad before the Maccabi v Hapoel match in Tel Aviv that it had to be called off. Again, strangely, no screeches about antisemitism this time.
Maccabi have now said they will not send ‘fans’ to the Villa match, although still trying to make out they are the victims, saying ‘they wouldn’t feel safe etc’. In reality, of course, after that display of thuggery on 19 October, no one could justify allowing them anywhere near the Villa. The police and the Safety Advisory Group were right all along.
The Starmer leadership is driving Labour into the ground in Birmingham. Their stance on Gaza has totally alienated the Muslim community here who have turned to Independent candidates in what were once Labour strongholds.
Then there is the long running bins dispute which, we now learn from Unite, could have been settled in July, had it not been for the intervention of the government appointed Commissioners. Not to mention the Winter Fuel Payment debacle, the betrayal of the WASPI women and now Reeves threatening yet more welfare cuts.
On the night of the Safety Advisory Group decision, my constituency Labour Party met. Once, where around a hundred would pack into the hall, there were only 14 people. Following the meeting, a further activist resigned after Starmer calling Birmingham antisemitic. If Starmer and Co. continue these own goals, there’ll soon be none of us left.
[Featured photo montage of Birmingham – wiki commons (credit here) and picture of Sir Keir Starmer – wiki commons (credit here)]
Why are we worried about Sir Keir Rodney Starmer and Labour scoring own goals? Let the right wing Labour Party disintegrate and let the working class such as myself; start supporting whichever left wing party is our interests. Be it Plaid Cymru, The Green Party or Corbyn’s Your Party.
We should report and comment on these events, Jim, to show how bad the right-wing leadership of the Labour Party are. But there is another side to this that shouldn’t be forgotten – as bad as the leadership is, the Labour Party itself is NOT just going to disappear and it still has a considerably working class base and, yes, it still has some left-wing members. Sooner or later there will be a revolt against the party right wing and that will add a new dynamic to the left.