I absolutely love the neighbourhood I represent as a ward councillor. I won’t bore the readers of the Jewish Chronicle with the whole list of reasons why, but near the top is the fantastic array of businesses, many small, independent and genuinely local, that we are blessed with in my corner of Westminster.
It chimes with one of the prime motivations for why I entered politics: my love and admiration for the wealth-generating, job-creating, community-enhancing private sector.
So let me tell you that when I first noticed the handsome-looking Aafaq bookshop on Edgware Road, I initially went in with genuine interest and enthusiasm for what appeared to be a significant improvement on what came before, namely one of the phone repair and vape shops that so blight British high streets. It seemed in-keeping with the broader re-development of Edgware Road, based around a long-term strategy to bring in higher-quality, reputable businesses and chains in place of the shadow, grey-market economy that dominated the street previously.
That enthusiasm didn’t last long. Because as I walked past one of the central display tables in the bookshop, an unmistakeable image caught my eye: that of a certain Austrian-born dictator who at the very least I personally associate mostly with the extermination of six million Jews and millions more from other backgrounds deemed by the Nazis to be racially, genetically, or morally inferior.
And this was no biography of Hitler, or history of the Second World War, it was instead his very own autobiography and political manifesto, Mein Kampf.
Now this sparked quite a debate online. Clearly there are some legitimate reasons to acquire this book. Imagine you are doing a PhD on Nazi Germany, or on Adolf Hitler, or on 20th-century fascist thought, or even the history of antisemitism. Mein Kampf would clearly be an important work to reference. But what needs to be made clear – and this seems like an absurd thing to say – is that this wasn’t just “any old copy of Mein Kampf.”
The most common response from those who seemed bizarrely desperate to defend this bookshop was to point to the presence of this book in libraries, or on the Waterstones website, or on Amazon. But let’s take the copy available at Westminster Library. I quote from the publisher’s note on almost the first page, which describes it as a book to remind us that “millions had to die to rid the world of this vile creed.”
That is not how the publisher described the version of Mein Kampf that I found in my hand last week. Instead, the publisher described the book as “shining a light on Hitler’s youth and the First World War, as well as the betrayal that led to Germany’s collapse in 1918.” And on the publisher’s website it mentions that Hitler was selected by Time Magazine as “one of the hundred figures who had the greatest impact on the history of humanity in the twentieth century." In neither case is the Holocaust, the Second World War or any of Hitler’s other crimes mentioned.
And who was the publisher of this version of Mein Kampf? It was the very same company that is behind the bookshop, Aafaq publishing.
As for whether a version is sold at Waterstones, if there is one thing I can guarantee it is this: any copies will be highly critical, reference works that will be located in the WW2 section. They will not be displayed on a main display table next to the latest Sunday Times bestsellers. This cannot be said for Aafaq bookshop, which chose to locate its copies next to works on anxiety and psychology on one of the main display tables.
A more chilling question now needs to be asked: why would such a small bookshop choose as one its first books to stock upon opening a completely uncritical at best and openly positive at worst edition of Mein Kampf? Just how popular did they expect this book to be, and why?
Fortunately the bookshop has seen sense and removed the book from its shelves. But it has shown no genuine understanding of the reasons for the outrage in the first place, only a reluctant acknowledgement that the outrage is not worth the hassle. And remarkably, the bookshop initially even won the support of the local Labour Party who spoke of their wonderful visit to the “beautiful” bookshop in a now-deleted post on X.
There have been times when sudden, dramatic events have shone a spotlight on the extent to which antisemitism is becoming normalised in society, demonstrated by the CST’s recent report showing that antisemitic assaults reached a record high during the first six months of 2026. But alongside those dramatic events is the slow, pernicious breakdown in norms and standards as to what is acceptable. The fact that uncritical copies of Mein Kampf are being openly and almost proudly sold on London’s streets feels like a case in point.
A spokesperson for Aafaq said: “The book was not prominently displayed in the store. We held only three copies, which were stacked together among other books on a table at the rear of the bookshop, approximately 18 metres from the entrance, in premises with a total depth of approximately 20 metres.
“The table contained predominantly history books.
“The three copies represented our standard minimum opening-stock quantity for individual titles and did not reflect any particular prominence or anticipated demand for this book. No copies of Mein Kampf were sold.
"We subsequently reviewed the matter and removed the book from sale out of respect for our visitors and the local community.
“The presence of a controversial historical text in a bookshop should not be interpreted as an endorsement of its contents or ideology. Aafaq unequivocally rejects Nazi ideology, antisemitism, racism and all forms of hatred.
“We would also like to make clear that the proximity of the bookstore to a synagogue had no bearing whatsoever on the decision to stock the title. The location of nearby places of worship was not a factor in our stocking decisions.”
Cllr Elliot Keck is a Conservative councillor for Hyde Park, Westminster
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