The justice minister has said that that using describing “two-tier” justice and policing can be a “lazy term to tar whole institutions with”.
Speaking at the Jewish Labour Movement (JLM) one-day conference on Sunday, Sarah Sackman, who is Jewish, was asked by the JC whether she thought that the phrase “two-tier” was an accurate description of policing and justice in the UK and what she’d been doing to combat that perception.
The MP for Finchley and Golders Green responded that although the question was “really important”, she was “going to answer in a slightly odd way”.
“It's the joke about the restaurant that serves really awful food. The food here is terrible, and the portions, they're so small.
“The reason I say that is when it comes to the grassroots, I know that there is this perception around policing in London and across the country, and yet what Jewish communities ask me for more is police … around our synagogues, around our community events.”
Sackman went on to praise the police in her borough of Barnet in response to a spate of attacks on Jewish communal institutions.
“The police were proactive. They were empathetic. They harnessed the very highest levels of resources, bringing in counter-terrorism specialists and CCTV specialists … and they caught the man, charged him … I thought it was gold standard. No sign of two tier.”
However, the justice minister did say that there were clearly problems with policing and highlighted the saga involving West Midlands Police’s decision to ban fans of Maccabi Tel Aviv, which she said had left the force with “real questions to answer”.
But Sackman said the government’s response ought to be to “provide police with the support and the tools to do what is a very difficult job, and do it well” and mentioned the legislation being introduced by the government to allow police to take account of the impact of “cumulative protests”, in order to “equip the police with what they need”.
The justice minister said that she would therefore “resist the phrase of ‘two tier’”, which she said “can be a lazy term to tar whole institutions with” but not hesitate to criticise what they thought were mistakes.
However, an audience member took issue with Sackman’s rejection of the phrase.
She pointed to the protests outside Israeli restaurant Miznon in Notting Hill and said that anti-Israel demonstrations appeared to be being treated more leniently than those the audience member had been in as an environmental activist.
Sackman said she had been unaware of the Miznon incident, but condemned it and said: “It's absolutely clear that targeting places like this, like the restaurant you mentioned, like synagogue, like Jewish places, is clearly antisemitic in nature” and that the government’s new legislation would help crack down on similar protests.
Earlier in her session, the MP for Finchley and Golders Green brought up her survey of her constituents’ experience of antisemitism which she presented directly to the prime minister and said “did not make for pretty reading”.
“We cannot accept the ambient antisemitism, the fear and insecurity that so many feel as they just try to go about their daily lives. Friends – who take off their kippah on the tube, who’ve removed their mezuzah or hidden their Jewishness from colleagues.”
She added: “It is right that this government has committed the highest ever amount of funding to keep our community safe, administered through the CST.”
Sackman said she would refuse to allow the Jewish community to be cowed: “Now is the time to be bold and unapologetic as British Jews. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again - I will be damned if antisemites make us feel that this is not our home.”
The justice minister praised JLM’s role in combatting antisemitism when Jeremy Corbyn’ was leader of the Labour Party.
Speaking about Reform UK leader Nigel Farage, Sackman said he and his party were “no friends of our community” and brought up allegations of antisemitism made against him by some former pupils of his old school which he has denied.
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