Phil Woolas, the former government minister and Labour MP for Oldham East and Saddleworth, who has died after a short illness at the age of 66, was widely respected in the Jewish community.
He had emerged as a staunch defender of Jewish rights as the general secretary of Manchester University Student Union in the early 1980s. It was at Manchester University that Phil first encountered antisemitism, disguised as antizionism, and resolved to confront it, working closely with what was then the largest student Jewish Society in Europe.
He was joined in this firm belief by a fellow Labour student who became a life-long friend and political ally, John Mann (now Lord Mann of Holbeck Moor), who later became the chair of the all-party parliamentary group against antisemitism, and is now the government’s independent adviser on antisemitism.
In 1985, shortly after Phil was elected President of the National Union of Students, Sunderland Polytechnic banned its Jewish Society for being “Zionist”. Phil threw the weight of the NUS behind a National Union of Jewish Students campaign to get the ban overturned, and travelled to Sunderland to address an emergency rally alongside UJS chairman Simon Myerson.
When the polytechnic’s student union continued the ban, offering instead a humiliating compromise, Phil quietly encouraged Jewish student leaders to keep fighting for a complete rejection of any interference in the work of the Jewish Society. He was instrumental in shepherding a vote through NUS conference that year demanding the reinstatement of the Polytechnic Jewish Society, which finally occurred in October. At the same time, he encouraged the candidacy of Linzi Brand, the first official UJS representative ever elected to the NUS executive. Phil’s firm stance rallied the NUS leadership and sent a strong signal to other student unions throughout Britain where Jewish societies faced similar attempts to curtail their activities.
Later that year when Phil made history by becoming the first NUS President to address UJS annual conference. He continued to work closely with UJS to protect Jewish student rights, which were frequently under attack from extreme Trotskyist and antizionist groups, and even mainstream members of Phil’s own National Organisation of Labour Students.
Phil liked to recall that many right-wing students at the time were also causing him problems, urging their unions to disaffiliate from NUS. Defending NUS at a debate in the undergraduate club at Peterhouse, the notoriously conservative, (then) single-sex Cambridge college, Phil was interrupted by the entry of the rowing club hearties, whose leader started heckling the “pinko socialist”.
“You do realise,” Phil replied, “that if you disaffiliate from NUS you’ll lose your subsidised beer?” The reaction was immediate: “Lose our cheap beer? Who proposed this bloody motion? All those against?” There was a show of hands. “Motion defeated! Back to the bar!”
Phil and John first visited Israel and the West Bank in 1984, shortly after Phil’s election as NUS president, where they met Israeli and Palestinian peace activists, and some government officials. They were the first NUS delegation for some years to make the trip, which prompted criticism from both sides. Arriving at Ben Gurion Airport, the pair were treated like any other young British men with jeans and rucksacks. Asked what they were planning to do in Israel, Phil responded: “We’re here to see Mr Peres.” They were promptly bundled into a room containing silent men with large guns – until a few minutes later an official returned rather sheepishly to confirm that they were indeed due to meet the Israeli prime minister – at which point they suddenly became, and were treated as, visiting VIPs.
Phil’s support for a secure, peaceful two-state solution to the conflict, and for the rights of the UK Jewish community, continued throughout his life. After his term at NUS, he began a career in communications, becoming a TV producer and GMB union communications officer. Following Phil’s election as an MP in Tony Blair’s 1997 landslide election victory, he was appointed to a series of ministerial jobs under both Blair and Gordon Brown, where he was instrumental in securing the first government funding for the Community Security Trust (CST).
I had the pleasure of first meeting Phil when he was at Manchester University and I was about to become the chair of the Union of Jewish Students. We worked closely together on student issues and became friends. The last time I saw him was in 2023, shortly before he was incapacitated by his final illness, when he visited Israel for the OurCrowd Global Investor Summit, a high-tech conference, where I was the compere. We were delighted to host him for dinner at our home in Jerusalem, just as we had during his first visit to the country in 1984.
Phil is survived by his wife Tracey, his sons Josh and Jed and their partners, and his first grandchild, Callan, born in January.
Phil Woolas: Born December 11, 1959. Died March 14, 2026
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