Hatred in public

In the aftermath of the Manchester, London Bridge and now Finsbury Park terror attacks, almost every leading politician has spoken of the need to show zero tolerance of extremism. Theresa May, Amber Rudd, Sadiq Khan and Jeremy Corbyn have all, quite rightly, stressed the need for communities to pull together. And yet on the very afternoon of the Finsbury attack, the so-called “Al Quds Day” marchers were left free to spout unambiguous Jew hatred. One of the organisers blamed “Zionists” for the Grenfell Tower fire. “We are fed up with all their rabbis; we are fed up with all their synagogues; we are fed up with their supporters”, he went on. The crowd chanted, “We are all Hizbollah”. The police simply stood by and watched as a proscribed terrorist organisation was praised and Jews blamed for the Grenfell disaster. And in some ways even worse, this race hate on the streets of central London received almost no coverage. There could hardly be a clearer example of extremism. It is deeply worrying that no one appears to care.