Addressing Thursday’s terrorist attack on Heaton Park shul, the shadow home secretary went on: “A tolerance for that kind of hatred, a tolerance for that and a tolerance for that kind of extreme language, leads to a dark place, and that dark place we saw just a few miles from where we now stand”.
“Last Thursday morning at 9.31 in the morning … we saw the appalling spectacle of an antisemitic terrorist attack designed to kill people simply because they were Jewish. It's one of the most disgusting things to have happened on these shores, and we must do everything we can to stand up against that and make sure that never ever happens again.”
Part of the solution, and something he said would “clear extremism here is unacceptable”, would be to deport foreign nationals who display antisemitism.
“If there are people here who are foreign citizens, not UK citizens, if they exhibit racial religious hatred, including antisemitism, if they express extremist views, or if they express support for violence or terrorism … we should deport them”.
This statement was received with raucous cheers from the audience of around 500 people.
Philp’s comments come after the JC revealed that the father of the Heaton Park synagogue terrorist, who named his son Jihad, posted a Facebook message on October 7 gushing with praise for the Hamas terrorists.
CFI’s parliamentary chair in the House of Lords, Lord Pickles, who compered the event, claimed the group’s reception was the “largest reception in the party conference”, and noted that the audience included opposition leader Kemi Badenoch’s husband Hamish.
Queues snaked to outside the venue as Tory activists waited to hear from frontbenchers including shadow foreign secretary Dame Priti Patel, shadow communities secretary Sir James Cleverly, shadow attorney general Lord Wolfson, solicitor general Michael Ellis, party chair Kevin Hollinrake, and former home secretary and the CFI’s parliamentary chair in the House of Commons Suella Braverman, as well as Israel’s deputy foreign minister Sharren Haskel.
Israel's deputy foreign minister Sharren Haskel (Image: Elliott Franks Photography).[Missing Credit]
The latter paid tribute to the victims of the Heaton Park terror attack, Adrian Daulby and Melvin Cravitz.
“This was a terror attack directed at the very soul of the Jewish community. The British Jewish community is under attack, and I'm here tonight to express my solidarity with the British Jews all around this country, to call out antisemitism that is out of control in the UK” Haskel said.
The Israeli government representative went on to robustly criticise how the Labour Government has handled antisemitism in the UK.
“What is the UK Government going to do about the tsunami of Jew hatred and violence on Britain's street that has exploded since the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust?”, she asked.
Referring to the poor reception Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy – who until recently served as the home secretary – received at a vigil held for the victims of last week’s attack, she added: “Is it any wonder the government representative was booed the other day in Manchester?”
Haskel then contrasted the two parties’ record when it came to Israel.
“When Labour betrayed Israel by recognising a Palestinian state, it was not diplomacy, it was appeasement. It was not was not a gesture of peace. It was a reward for terror.
“And it is to the credit of the Conservative Party that you recognised it for what it was. For that, on behalf of Israel, I thank you. You have been steady when others faltered … You have shown that the Conservative Party is not just a friend of Israel, it is a partner in the defence of democracy itself.”
The Israeli minister then took the unusual step of critiquing Britain’s “out of control” immigration policy and said that allowing Islamists to live in the UK was reshaping the country for the worse.
“It is fuelling antisemitism on your street. It is straining your social cohesion. It is importing the demonisation of Jews and the hatred of the Middle East into British cities. We saw it in the marches calling for Israel's destruction. We saw it in the intimidation of Jewish students and Jewish families, and we saw it in the way some in Labour rushed to appease those crowds, rather than confront them.
“Israel knows the struggle when we live with it daily, but we have learnt a harsh truth. You cannot appease extremism.”
Patel praised Haskel’s speech, adding: “We have just been soulmates together, standing firm against this awful Labour Government and the type of direction that they've taken.”
Shadow foreign secretary Dame Priti Patel (Image: Elliott Franks Photography)[Missing Credit]
She added that Tory MPs would hold “Labour to account when they abandon our closest ally” and damage the UK’s “national interest”.
Cleverly, a former foreign secretary, applauded the role the CST and volunteers for the organisation played in preventing further atrocities in Heaton Park on Yom Kippur.
Two days prior, he was a keynote speaker at a fundraising dinner for the group where he told attendees that CST was “an organisation that I admire enormously, but I wish did not need to exist”.
Like others, he also took aim at pro-Palestine marches.
“What happened on Yom Kippur here in the UK, that is the internationalisation of the intifada. If that is not what you wanted, that is not what you should call for … Perhaps, grow up, go home and reflect on your stupidity”, he said to thunderous applause.
Earlier in the evening, Braverman said the attack in Manchester “served as a damning indictment on the crisis of antisemitism in this country today” but also a “stark reminder as to why the state of Israel must exist”.
The former home secretary struck a poignant tone as she recounted her visit to Israel and the sites impacted by Hamas’ atrocities on October 7.
Former home secretary Suella Braverman (Image: Elliott Franks Photography)[Missing Credit]
Braverman concluded her speech with an optimistic message amid the grief: “For centuries, for millennia, the Jewish people have been under attack, besieged by hatred, violence and terror, and yet, through every trial and tribulation that has been thrown at the Jewish people, they have prevailed.
“In these dark days for Israel and for the Jewish people all over the world, I have no doubt, no doubt whatsoever, that again the Jewish people will prevail.”
