Town Centre Safety

Michael Ellis Excerpts

Tuesday 5th December 2023 Commons Chamber

[Sir Michael Ellis (Northampton North) (Con)]

I commend this debate. When it comes to safety in town centres, my constituency of Northampton North has seen knife crime, and it has had a very painful impact. We all want safety in our town centres, and at the moment that is particularly true of the Jewish community, who have been subject to numerous antisemitic incidents in the last few weeks.

I would like to tell the House about a shocking example. I can relate this to an incident way back in 1963—60 years ago—in Bristol, when a boycott of the buses was organised by the people of Bristol because black people were barred, believe it or not, from working as crew on the Bristol Omnibus Company’s buses. Nowadays, the Bristol bus boycott of 1963 is rightly celebrated—I can see that Opposition Members know about it. It is celebrated as a reason for the racial discrimination laws that were passed later in the 1960s.

I mention that case because something similar is happening today, and over the last few days. That was 60 years ago, but in 2023 there is another heinous prejudice on the buses—this time on the London buses. The Independent newspaper today is among many reporting that Jewish children in north London are experiencing buses deliberately failing to stop to pick them up at bus stops. Several incidents are being investigated by the police, and the Metropolitan police have tweeted about this or spoken about it today.

In one incident, several Jewish schoolboys were waiting at Egerton Road bus stop in Stamford Hill and signalled for a bus to stop. The driver slowed down, but then continued without stopping. It is claimed that several passengers were encouraging the driver’s actions, making antisemitic remarks and thanking the driver for not stopping. Three days later, a similar incident occurred. A 13-year-old Jewish girl was on the bus, and she reported that the driver slowed down, but did not stop for Jewish schoolboys who were waiting to be picked up. This was early in the morning on their way to school. At the next stop, the driver did stop, proving therefore that it had been done for prejudiced reasons. That is a live example, 60 years on from the horrific boycott in Bristol—the boycott was a good thing, of course, but the reason for it was prejudice.

The Community Security Trust is a charity that I know is strongly supported by both the Conservative and Labour parties. I have been to its events, I am proud to say, and I have seen Labour leaders there for years, as well as Conservative leaders. It is an excellent charity and is strongly supported by all. It has reported the following incidents in the past few days: a young girl shouted out of a passing car, “dirty effing Jews” at a Jewish person walking past; a Jewish boy was at a bus stop and a group of youths shouted,

“let’s see you run Jew boy”,

and then chased him; at a London train station, a man approached a Jewish girl and said,

“I hope you and all your people die in the war.”

A Jewish organisation that works in holocaust education received a message via its website saying:

“Nazi Israel, which has nuclear weapons, must all surrender and be arrested to stand trial. White-hat hackers blast these Nazis.”

In Manchester, two men were walking towards a woman wearing a star of David, shouting, “Gas, gas.” In Essex a woman was woken up by banging on her front door, and a group of men shouting “get out bloody Jews.” In London, a woman said to a visibly Jewish man:

“Oh you are everywhere, just like the rest.”

On a bus in Brighton, a man repeatedly called a woman an “evil Jew”. A woman at a pro-Palestinian protest in Glasgow was holding a sign saying,

“one holocaust does not justify another.”

A rabbi in the west midlands received a phone call saying—I will not use offensive words—“I wiped myself on your Torah.” A woman shouted:

“You effing Jews think you own the world”

at a passer-by in London. A Jewish boy was getting changed at school when two other students shouted, “you’re bombing Gaza.” Those are just a few examples from the past few weeks.

In the 54 days between the Hamas attacks and last Wednesday, CST recorded at least 1,747 antisemitic incidents across the United Kingdom, which is the highest ever total reported to CST across a 54-day period since it was established 40 years ago in 1984. Right now, in the last few minutes, in the Regent’s Park area of London an incident has been occurring. I have been told of large numbers of police attending Regent’s Park because of an incident to do with a banner that has been placed on a building which says, “globalise the intifada.”

When it comes to safety in town centres, it is crucial that safety applies to all. I would want to stand and defend any ethnic group or any person of any faith if they were subject to those sorts of attacks. I know people on the left and on the right who have spent their careers doing that. They are proud of doing so, and have done so for generations. We now see members of a very small community—a Jewish community which amounts to less than 0.5% of the total population of this country; only about 250,000 people in a population of 70 million—who are subject to the sort of abuse that frankly would not have been seen since the days of the Ku Klux Klan in America, and probably would have been the subject of disgust 70 or 80 years ago in this country. It certainly would have been at the time of the battle of Cable Street.

When it comes to safety for all, now is an opportunity for those who are not of the Jewish faith to support those who are. I commend Labour for holding this debate. I know that this issue goes across party political divides; this is not a party political point at all. That gives me comfort, because I know that all those of good faith in this country of any religion, and of none, and people of all ages, ethnicities, colours and social backgrounds, would know that the sort of examples I have been giving to the House today are abhorrent and a disgrace to this country. I must demand that the police, the Mayor of London, and everyone else in authority, including those responsible for Transport for London, immediately take action to deal with the examples I have given. This is becoming an emergency situation and the offenders must be caught. People who are driving buses and behaving in such a fashion should not only be dismissed for gross misconduct, but should attract serious criminal charges.