Ninety years ago this month hundreds of thousands of Londoners, including many from the Jewish community, stood shoulder to shoulder on Cable Street to face down Oswald Mosley and Blackshirts. For so many, including me, this act of solidarity is one of the proudest days in this city's long history.
Unbelievably, in 21st-century London, the Jewish community once again feels as threatened, unsafe and frightened a it did during that dark period.
But the menace today does not wear a black shirt, instead it comes masked with a keffiyeh, waving the flag of the Islamic Republic of Iran, marching in an unholy alliance of the radical left and Islamists who have made hatred of the world's only Jewish state a cause, and who too often aim that hatred at the Jews who live in our great city.
I do not write this as an observer, I live it through my Jewish husband. Every day the fear that Jewish Londoners carry sits at my kitchen table. I feel it when we are out as a family. And I hear first hand shocking experiences of antisemitism through family members.
I know the quiet calculations that have become a daily habit for so many families. Whether to proudly display the Star of David in public. Whether to wear a kippah on the Tube. Whether to stay out of central London to avoid the march. Children go to schools protected by security guards and synagogues are guarded like embassies. In the city that faced down the fascists in the 1930s how have we allowed this to become normal?
A fortnight ago was the third anniversary of October 7, the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust. As the community once again mourned the dead, a masked mob gathered outside the offices of the Board of Deputies and sickeningly branded them "genocide deniers". On a day of grief, the people who speak for London's Jews were singled out for intimidation, simply for being who they are.
Just three days later, so-called protesters marched through Westminster with Iranian regime flags flying among the crowd. And in another disgusting example of the values these people hold, they attacked the Battle of Britain memorial next to the River Thames, the memorial to the Few who stood between this country and Nazi tyranny. The poppies that adorn it and the wreaths laid at its foot destroyed by mindless thugs. Several people were arrested, including one sicko who made a Nazi salute.
The right to protest is important, but this is not peaceful protest about a conflict overseas. It is intimidation, plain and simple, and it demands leadership from City Hall.
Marking the third anniversary of October 7 Sadiq Khan rightly branded the massacre that day an atrocity. But, rather than simply calling out the barbarism inflicted on the Jewish people he then spent most of his statement on commenting on Gaza and on what he called the "reprehensible actions" of the Israeli government.
On the one day the London’s Jewish community needed its mayor to stand with it, he could not resist weaponising their grief for his own political ends. The Campaign Against Antisemitism called his statement “worse than nothing”, and they were right. Their polling shows 85 per cent of British Jews are dissatisfied with how he has served them since October 2023.
My approach will be different, and it will be simple.
First, the Mayor sets the priorities of the Metropolitan Police. As mayor of London I will make tackling antisemitic hate crime and intimidation a top priority by writing into my Police and Crime Plan.
Second, I will expect the Met Police Commissioner to use every power he has to keep Jewish communities safe. This means keeping marches away from synagogues, Jewish schools and communal buildings. If you are a peaceful protester there is no need to cover your face so masks should be banned on all protests. There should be immediate arrests for hate chants and for support of proscribed terrorist groups. And when the legal test is met, I will back the police in seeking a ban on the hate marchers.
Third, I will work hand in glove with the Community Security Trust and with the communities it protects, so that the people who have kept Jewish London safe for decades have a partner in City Hall, not a bystander.
In 1936, ordinary Londoners decided that hatred would not march through their streets unchallenged. The threat has changed its uniform, but the choice before us is the same. I have made mine. For my family, and for every Jewish family in this city, I will stand where Londoners stood on Cable Street.
Alex Challoner is a businessman who is running to be the Conservative candidate in the Mayor of London election
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