As more than 105,000 marched against antisemitism in London yesterday, actor Eddie Marsan addressed the crowd in Parliament Square at the largest Jewish march since Cable Street. We’re publishing his speech here in full. 

I am so grateful to be given the opportunity to speak here today and express my solidarity with my Jewish friends in the face of the recent appalling rise in antisemitism and, at the same time, condemn the sevenfold increase in Islamophobia.

Now I'm not religious in any sense, l'm not a Christian, Muslim, a Buddhist, and l'm not Jewish.

So, if I'm not religious, what is my culture? What informs the values that I pass down to my children? That I know, deep down, made me the man I am. What is the essence of my 'Friday night dinner?’

I'll tell you what it is, it's the celebration of diversity, the multi-ethnic, multicultural, upbringing I was privileged to receive as a child in the East End, that's my culture.

That's what I'm here today, to defend.

And it wasn't always easy growing up in the multi-cultural East End, it wasn't always plain sailing because it invariably meant that you were living cheek by jowl with people who had completely different historical and cultural narratives. I went to school with kids whose great aunts or uncles were killed in the Holocaust, I went to school with kids whose fathers were policemen and teachers in the Caribbean, but who could only get jobs washing dishes over here, kids whose parents were refugees after the great partition of India and Pakistan. And yet I was taught to take pride in the British Empire and the fact that we ruled so much of the world.

It wasn't easy.

And living under such circumstances you could go either way - you could retreat to a fixed, belligerent sense of self and racial identity. That's why it has always been such fertile ground for fascist organisations like the NF or the BNP, who used to walk through Bethnal Green on a regular basis and stand on the corner of Brick Lane every Sunday morning, spewing their hate.

And there are some people, the next incarnation of the National Front or the BNP, who think that they can capitalise on the current vulnerability of the Jewish community to spread their own divisive message of hate, Islamophobia, and bigotry. Well, I've got a message for those people; you're wasting your time. This all may be new and exciting to you, and social media may give you the kind of platform and validation you never had before, but this isn't the Jewish community's first rodeo, they saw off your lot, the fascists in Cable Street back in 1936, and they took you on as the 43 group and then the 62 group and they're still doing it in the form CST, and numerous, brilliant organisations like my friends at the Campaign Against Antisemitism.

But, growing up in the East End, there was another choice and, in fact considering what is happening today, I realise that it wasn't just a choice at all, but a necessity.

You could transcend that fixed sense of identity and learn to listen to those other people's stories and accept their narrative, as well as share your own, and through that, find a common humanity.

Following the events of October 7th there were those who rushed to express horror at the destruction of Gaza and the loss of innocent life, which is totally right, but they seemed reluctant to explicitly acknowledge or condemn the brutal attacks against Israel by Hamas, and to call for the hostages to be released.

When I saw this, I asked a Jewish friend of mine in the film industry why they can't do both. And they said it's because they are afraid of the backlash.

But as Neils Bohr, the Danish physicist said, for every great truth, the opposite is also true and for every simple truth the opposite is always false.

It's my job as an actor to avoid being binary and divisive, and instead explore the complex, even sometimes paradoxical great truths, a prerequisite to empathy, understanding and peace.

And at a time when our country is being torn apart and racial attacks are on the increase because of a conflict that has two just causes. Then surely, more than ever, it's our duty to tell all stories, not tell one and deny the other, no matter how fashionable or popular that may be.

And if we told both stories perhaps, we wouldn't have people tearing down the posters of kidnapped Jewish, children, some as young four months old, because their simple truth can't bear to acknowledge the other side's suffering. But instead, you'd have people putting up beside them, pictures of innocent Palestinian children killed in the bombing. And those two tragic images side by side, would represent the greater truth.

Extremists always scream the loudest and try to drown out the voices of moderate people, and in my experience, people aren't moderate because their turning a blind eye to injustice, its quite often because they see both sides of an argument, they sense a greater truth.

I think it's about time, in fact I think it's essential that moderate people stand up, and find their voice, and speak up against extremism, against all forms of racism and xenophobia

I'm here to defend my culture, the culture of diversity, and to stand in solidarity with my Jewish friends, the people I grew up with, the people I work with, and to tell you, that you are not alone.