The Labour Leader of Barnet Council has tabled a motion for the council meeting on October 20 entitled “Antisemitism is Racism”.
At first glance, this seems a welcome gesture of solidarity with Barnet’s Jewish community. At a time when many of us are experiencing unprecedented levels of fear, and some are questioning whether they have a future in our country, such solidarity matters.
Yet I cannot help but regard this motion as a deeply cynical political exercise. It appears designed to capitalise on the controversy surrounding antisemitism within the Green Party, allowing Barnet Labour to point an accusing finger at its political opponents while conveniently deflecting attention from the continuing problem of antisemitism within its own national party, which many of its local representatives have failed to confront.
After all, antisemitism is already recognised as a form of racism under UK law. The Equality Act 2010 protects Jewish people as an ethnic group, while criminal law recognises antisemitic hostility as grounds for racially or religiously aggravated offences. We do not need a council motion to establish a principle that is already firmly embedded in British law.
The question, then, is why Barnet Labour feels the need to restate the obvious. I believe the answer lies not just in what this motion says, but in what it seeks to conceal, and the profound hypocrisy at the heart of it.
The motion condemns the Green Party’s commitment to campaign against the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism. It also proudly reminds us that under Conservative control, Barnet was the first local authority in the country to adopt the IHRA definition. But if Barnet Labour is so eager to champion that definition, surely it should be willing to reflect upon its own conduct against the same standards?
One of the IHRA definition’s examples of antisemitism is the application of double standards to Israel, by demanding behaviour not expected of other nations. Yet Barnet Labour has been conspicuously silent in the face of its own government’s recent sanctions on Israel, while making no calls for comparable sanctions against any other country. This raises an obvious question: why does Israel alone appear to warrant such treatment?
The motion also condemns the Greens for undermining the Jewish community’s sense of belonging and respect. I have family members and friends who have felt increasingly alienated by the actions of this Labour government, particularly decisions concerning the world’s only Jewish state, since it took office in 2024. Yet why does Barnet’s Jewish community’s sense of belonging appear not to warrant the same defence when failed by the Labour Party, but considerably more attention when members of that same community feel threatened by the Green Party?
This, I suspect, is the political calculation at the heart of the motion. Barnet Labour wants to demonstrate its solidarity with Jewish residents without risking an uncomfortable confrontation with its colleagues in Westminster. It is an attempt to occupy the moral high ground at minimal political cost, condemning the Greens while avoiding difficult questions about its own party. I have little doubt that this motion will be enthusiastically promoted on doorsteps across Barnet in future elections, presented as evidence of Labour’s unwavering commitment to the Jewish community.
But solidarity should not be something politicians invoke when it is electorally convenient and quietly set aside when it becomes politically uncomfortable. Barnet Labour cannot expect to be applauded for condemning antisemitism elsewhere while refusing to scrutinise the actions and decisions of its own party, particularly given the history of those within its ranks who once campaigned to make Jeremy Corbyn Prime Minister.
I believe the Green Party’s conference motion is antisemitic at its core and deserves unequivocal condemnation. But condemning the failings of a political opponent is a poor imitation of taking a principled decision. Barnet’s Jewish community deserves representatives who are prepared to demonstrate principle even when doing so comes at a political cost. Mike Freer demonstrated that commitment in 2014 when he resigned as a parliamentary private secretary rather than abstain on a Commons motion to recognise Palestine, enabling him to vote against it. What we need is action and not more politically self-serving platitudes.
Martha Levy is a Conservative councillor for Garden Suburb ward on the London Borough of Barnet
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