Sunday, May 3, 2026

Stop Talking and Start Acting, Starmer

By Seth Mandel

Thursday, April 30, 2025

 

In his speech announcing, for the millionth time, that he’s had it with anti-Semitism, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer said the following:

 

“We will strengthen the visible police presence in our Jewish communities. We will increase our investment in those Jewish Security Services. We will introduce much stronger powers to shut down charities that promote antisemitic extremism. We will prevent hate preachers from entering our country, bar them from our campuses, our streets, our communities. Work with our justice system to speed up sentences on antisemitic attacks so there is a stronger deterrence factor as we do with riots.

 

“And we need stronger powers to tackle the malign threat posed by states like Iran because we know for a fact that they want to harm British Jews which is why we will fast-track the necessary legislation. And yet the truth is while we can and we will bring the full power of the state to bear on this, this is about society every bit as much as it is about security. At moments like this we often say this is not Britain, that these attacks are an afront to British values, to British tolerance, British decency, but they keep happening.”

 

Stronger powers to fight the Iran threat?

 

Listen, prime minister, if you’re interested in joining the coalition against Iran, just say the word. Because last I checked most of the work was being done by the United States military and the IDF, plus some Gulf Arab states. And while Britain has certainly contributed here and there to the general anti-Iran fight since October 7, if the UK is constrained from doing more because it doesn’t have certain powers, it would surprise me greatly.

 

What I took from Starmer’s remarks today was that the UK is doing everything in its power. This is the best it can do, for now. Maybe Parliament can change that, but a London in which terror attacks against Jews is a daily concern is Keir Starmer’s government at the height of its power.

 

Who is supposed to believe that? Thank God Keir Starmer wasn’t prime minister during World War II.

 

What’s happening is this: A foreign power—Iran—has installed forces on British soil, making a mockery of British sovereignty. Those personnel have identified highly Jewish neighborhoods and recruited locals—again, making a mockery of Britain—to run an ongoing military operation against the Jewish community.

 

Who has more power in London, prime minister? You or Ahmad Vahidi of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps? Does Vahidi take care of trash pickup and street sweeping too, or is he just in charge of cutting throats in Golders Green?

 

Here’s another thing we learned from Starmer today: He knows that terrorists have constructed an entire network of foreign subsidy and sham charities. He must know who they are, because all he’s asking for is the power to shut them down. So why now? What took so long?

 

I will tell you what took so long. The British public by and large has put up with the global intifada taking place on their soil for several years, with part of the media egging it on, and now there is finally enough public outrage to force Starmer to do something. The humiliation of British sovereignty—by an enemy the government refuses to fight—has become so unavoidable that the prime minister has to act.

 

Which is to say: Now that it has become about something more that “just” anti-Semitism, enough is enough.

 

We’ll see if the government means it this time. But if this is the level of anarchy that raises enough public outrage to act, I suspect this will go nowhere significant. Slightly fewer throat-stabbings in broad daylight and Starmer could have continued ignoring the problem.

 

So, yes, prime minister, it’s about society. Let’s see how you plan to fix that.

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