Action to protect Britain's Jewish community

Whatever you think about who is responsible for the tragic events in the Middle East - I have made no secret about my own views - none of the communities who live in this country are responsible and it is totally unacceptable that anyone should stir up hatred against innocent members of any community here.

This week the UK government announced £3 million of extra funding to protect schools, synagogues, and other Jewish community buildings in the UK– as we do all we can to protect the Jewish community here in the UK. 
  • Israel’s defensive action against Hamas must not be used as an excuse to stir up hatred against the Jewish population. The Jewish people are under attack in their homeland – we must do everything in our power to protect Jewish people everywhere in our country. 
  • That is why the government is increasing protection for the British Jewish community, providing £3 million of extra funding to the Community Security Trust – an organisation established to protect British Jews from antisemitism and related threats. This will bring total funding for Jewish Community Protection Security to £18 million this year, ensuring schools, synagogues and other Jewish community buildings have additional security guards and protections. 
  • The UK government is also working round the clock to ensure British nationals are able to leave Israel if they wish to do so. Yesterday we commenced evacuation flights for vulnerable British nationals stranded in Israel and will continue directly contact those eligible for evacuation flights.The government will do everything possible to protect Jewish people in the United Kingdom and in Israel. If anything is standing in the way of keeping the Jewish community safe, it will be fixed. The Jewish community will have our steadfast support.
In the past week there have been over a hundred anti-Semitic incidents reported in Britain, each of which is unacceptable - and there have also been instances of Anti-Muslim attacks and these are unacceptable too.

Comments

Anonymous said…
And Palestinians?
11:25 pm
Chris Whiteside said…
Did you not make even the slightest effort to read the post?

I refer you to the very first sentence which includes

"none of the communities who live in this country are responsible and it is totally unacceptable that anyone should stir up hatred against innocent members of any community here."

and to the last sentence, which reads

"In the past week there have been over a hundred anti-Semitic incidents reported in Britain, each of which is unacceptable - and there have also been instances of Anti-Muslim attacks and these are unacceptable too."
1:14 am
Anonymous said…
So the UK government is doing nothing for Palestinians in the UK.
7:15 pm
Chris Whiteside said…
That is not correct.

The government has made very clear that violence or stirring up hatred against any community in the UK will be met with the full force of the law. That specifically includes violence or stirring up hatred against Palestinians or Muslims.

The PM has also announced an increase of £10 million in humanitarian aid to Palestinians. This is a 37% uplift. Obviously that is in the Middle East rather than in the UK.
10:50 pm
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Nick Herbert on his visit to flood hit areas of Cumbria

Please note that the post below was published more than ten year ago on 21st November 2009 Nick Herbert MP, shadow cabinet member for the Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs, was in Cumbria this morning to see the areas affected by the flooding. He writes on Conservative Home about his visit. Here is an extract. I’ve been in Cumbria today to see the areas affected by the floods. I arrived early in Keswick where I met officials from the Environment Agency. Although the river levels had fallen considerably and homes were no longer flooded, the damage to homes had been done. And the water which had got into houses wasn’t just from the river – it was foul water which had risen from the drains. I talked to fire crews who were pumping flood water back into the river, and discovered that they were from Tyne & Wear and Lancashire. They had been called in at an hours’ notice and had been working on the scene ever since, staying at a local hotel. You cannot fail to be impressed by the
Read more

Quotes of the day 19th August 2020

Image
"Wise men profit more from fools than fools from wise men; for the wise men shun the mistakes of fools, but fools do not imitate the successes of the wise."  ( Cato the Elder , who lived 234 BC - 149 BC, quoted in "Lives" by Plutarch.) There is a similar saying by Germany's Iron Chancellor, Otto von Bismarck: Benjamin Franklin is supposed to have put the same saying in a more humorous form: "Wise men profit by the mistakes of others, while fools will not learn even from their own blunders." See also this thread on the "Quote Investigator" website . Let us all be wise and learn from the events of the last few days.
Read more

Quote of the day 24th July 2020

Image
I was moved to put the passage below forward as a quote today when I saw a horrible post on twitter from someone writing that it was "excellent" that someone who took a different view from her about Brexit had died. I won't write which way round it was so that all the Remain supporters can assume the post was from a Brexit fanatic welcoming the death of a remainer and all the Leavers can assume it was a Remainiac welcoming one less Brexiteer. There's been plenty of nasty stuff on both sides but if you catch anyone of your own viewpoint  posting something like that who might listen to you, please do call them out on it - and point out that they're giving everyone on your side of the argument a bad name. Anyway, here's the quote from John Donne.
Read more