I Am British, I Am Jewish, I Am Fearful, and I Am Angry
In 2026 Britain, it is not safe to be visibly Jewish. I hope that will change. I fear it will not. I love this country. I hope I will be able to stay here.
Another weekend passes. Another massive pro-Palestine protest takes place in central London. We saw signs that said “Hang Every ZOG Pedo” (Zionist Occupation Government) and signs that told us “Marty’s Do Not Die, Their Blood Blooms Revolution”1. I remember when these protests were about securing a ceasefire in Gaza. We are now seven months since that ceasefire came into effect and the situation for Britain’s Jews has only worsened.
In Britain in 2026, it is no longer safe to be visibly Jewish. What a terrible sentence for me to have to write. While I usually write on economic issues, please allow me to use this opportunity and platform to speak about something different. As some of you may know, I am Jewish. I never thought that I would have to write a piece of antisemitism, because I never thought Britain would be such a hotbed for it that I would feel compelled to.
Antisemitism has existed in Britain for as long as there have been Jews in Britain. Being wary of the threat towards myself and my community is simply part of being Jewish. I went to a Jewish secondary school. You had to get through two separate security gates and two sets of security bollards to get in. When we went on school trips, armed security came with us. It was only at university that I came to understand that Jewish schools were the only schools in Britain that required armed security for field trips. During previous large-scale conflicts in Israel, we were sometimes told to remove our school jackets on the journey home so we couldn't be identified as Jewish. My school was found on a Hamas target list during a previous Israel-Gaza conflict. Every synagogue I have ever attended maintains meticulous security, because it simply must given the horrors that would occur otherwise.
For the vast majority of my childhood and adult life, though, it was safe to be Jewish in Britain - and there were few countries in the world where it was safer. There were incidents, sometimes minor, sometimes more serious. But overall, Britain was a remarkable country to live in as a Jew. I use “was” deliberately. That is no longer the case.
I have felt the need to write this piece partly to vent out the anger and emotion that I have felt over the past few years; partly, so that I can use my platform to explain to my friends, colleagues, and readers what it is like to be Jewish in 2026 Britain; and partly, because I feel like I simply need to. If you are not part of a community and do not experience a threat directly, it is hard to fully understand what that community goes through.
As I was travelling home from the theatre with my partner this past weekend, I received a few messages asking if I was safe. My immediate thought after the recent Golders Green attack, was that another antisemitic attack had occurred in North London and my friends were checking to make sure I was not harmed in it. Thankfully, the messages were about something else entirely, but that reflect speaks to the constant dread running through every Jew in Britain. When will the next attack come? Will I be nearby? Will I be attacked?
For the first time in my entire life, I would not answer honestly if asked by a stranger if I was Jewish. I am not obviously identifiable as Jewish, so I have a choice. Many of my friends do not have that luxury, and I fear for their safety every day. When I am on the Tube and find myself near a group of orthodox Jews I do not know, I keep a careful watch - knowing that something could kick off. I know many of my friends do exactly the same.
We are told that “globalise the intifada” is just a slogan. Then the intifada is globalised. Synagogues and Jews are attacked. Then we are told that our sense of unsafety is merely a “perception”. I could fill pages listing the attacks against Jews and the Jewish community in Britain over the past year alone. But that is not the primary purpose of this piece. The primary purpose is to help non-Jews understand what the Jewish community in Britain is actually feeling right now.
What the Jewish community in Britain is feeling right now is scared.
The scale of what has happened since October 7th 2023 is not a matter of perception. The Community Security Trust (CST), which has monitored antisemitic incidents in Britain since 1984, recorded 4,103 antisemitic incidents in 2023 - a rise of 147% - with 66% occurring after October 7th. In 2024, there were 3,556 incidents. In 2025, 3,700 - the second-highest annual total ever recorded - with, for the first time ever, more than 200 antisemitic incidents in every single calendar month of the year. The monthly average in 2025 was exactly double what it was before October 2023.
Behind these numbers are real events. Just to remind you of a few of them. On 2 October 2025 - Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar - a man drove a car into worshippers and then stabbed people outside the Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation synagogue in Manchester. Two Jewish men we killed. On 23 March 2026, four Hatzola ambulances - run by Jewish volunteers who provide emergency medical services to those of all religions in the community - were set on fire in Golders Green in the early hours of the morning, their gas cylinders exploding and blowing out the windows of nearby homes. Then on 29 April 2026, two Jewish men were stabbed in broad daylight on the streets of Golders Green simply because they were Jewish. I do not even mention the multiple arson attacks against synagogues in the last two months.
A pattern of Jew hatred has taken over the UK.
Conversations about moving to Israel used to be half in jest. Now they are serious. I was speaking to a mother recently whose primary school had to cancel their field trip to a nearby park to draw the nature there because it could not be made safe for a large group of visibly Jewish children to be out together. Her and her husband are currently seriously considering if they need to move to Israel. Not 'should' - need to because it is no longer safe to be identified as a Jew in the UK. A survey by the Campaign Against Antisemitism found that 61% of British Jews have considered leaving the UK in the past two years due to antisemitism, and 51% do not feel they have a long-term future here.
The Jewish community is also angry.
We are angry at a Government that has allowed antisemitism to spiral out of control. Angry that our country - a defining part of our identity as British Jews - is turning its back on us. Angry that every time there is an attack - whether the arson attack on the Hatzola ambulances, the firebombing of synagogues, or the multiple violent and sometimes murderous attacks against Jews over the past year - we hear warm words from our leaders and then nothing changes. Nothing is really done.
Consider this: the Metropolitan Police Commissioner requested £35 million to keep London's Jewish community safe - a rounding error in Government finances. The Government would not provide it in full. Instead, £18 million came from the Home Office and a further £4 million from the Jewish Community Protective Security Grant - enough to fund 100 new officers, when the Commissioner had said 300 were needed. The Met's own Commissioner said the Jewish community would not be safe without the full funding. The full funding did not come. So apparently the Jewish Community will have to make do with not being safe.
So how did we get here. How did anti-semitism spiral so out of control that the majority of Britain's Jews are now having to consider if they will have to leave Britain?
It started with the protests. On the same day as the October 7th massacre - while Hamas terrorists were still running wild in southern Israel, killing indiscriminately, raping women, murdering children - the application for the first pro-Palestine protest was submitted to the Metropolitan Police. The first recorded antisemitic incident in Britain following that massacre came at lunchtime on October 7th itself, while Israelis were still being killed. When two Jewish men were murdered on Yom Kippur last year, pro-Palestinian protesters held demonstrations hours after the attack across the UK. Have some basic British decency.
These protests aren't about British values though. Indeed, you would be lucky to see a British flag at any of them that have occurred over the past few years. These protests are about intimidating Jews. These weekly protests meant that Jews like my mother would not travel to central London for fear of her safety. We witnessed Jews wearing kippot - a visible symbol of our faith - being told by police that their mere presence near these protests was an act of provocation. Let that sink in. A Jewish man, doing nothing more than being Jewish on a British street, was told by a police officer to hide for his own safety. The worst thing about the incident is the police officer was probably right. It was not safe for him to be visibly Jewish near one of these hate marches.
I am not petitioning to ban these protests. I am ultimately a great believer in both free speech and the right to protest, but there is clearly a serious problem in Britain when significant numbers of people think it is openly acceptable to call for jihad and the murder of Jews on Britain's streets (and in Britain's classrooms - see the article from Robert Peston below and the recent Times report into antisemitism in our schools to see the daily horrors facing Jewish school children in mainstream schools).
I want to make clear, I have friends who go to some of these protests. They do not have an antisemitic bone in their bodies and I know that they have attended them due to genuine heartfelt concern over the images coming out of Gaza. I hope that the majority of protestors are like my friends. I say hope because if they are not, I fear that Britain will never be safe for Jews again.
Regardless of that hope and fear though, it is clear that at least a significant minority of the protestors including many of the organisers are driven by something much darker. Why else would "globalise the intifada" - a phrase evoking a period of systematic, violent slaughter of Jews - become the defining slogan of an entire political movement? Why else would Gail's bakery - a British business with an Israeli founder but no operational connection to Israel for years - be repeatedly vandalised, with its windows smashed and red paint daubed across its doors, simply because of the perceived ethnicity of its founders?
It started with the protests, intimidating Jews across the UK and creating a climate of fear for Britain's Jews. Then we have seen parts of the UK becoming effectively no go zones for Britain's Jews.
Evidence was manufactured by both the police and "community leaders" in Birmingham to ban foreign Jews from the area citing them as the problem. In actual fact, they sat on intelligence that local armed gangs were preparing to attack the visiting Jewish fans. The chair of the all-party parliamentary group against antisemitism put it directly: many Jews feared "the events in Birmingham are just the first step towards excluding them from British public life."
For those who say I am overreacting when I call these areas effectively no go zones for Britain's Jews, ask yourselves, do you actually believe that a visible orthodox Jew would be genuinely safe walking through parts of Birmingham, Bradford, and Luton? I can tell you that those of all religions are safe walking through Golders Green. This is not to mention the campaigns to hound Jews directly. Lets not forget that the Deputy Leader of the Green Party - a political party polling at 15%-20% - ran a campaign against Rabbi Zecharia Deutsch of Leeds that was so vicious and sustained that the rabbi and his family were forced to flee the country. Ali called the rabbi "an animal" and treated him worse than one.
It started with creating a climate of fear; then it moved to making sure that Jews would and could not feel safe in parts of their own country. Then it came to where we thought we were most safe - our most populous area as a community in Britain, the heart of Jewish London. They firebombed our synagogues, set fire to our charity ambulance services, attacked what they thought were headquarters of Jewish charities, and finally they violently attacked us in our previous safe haven. In one of the few parts of Britain where Jewish people genuinely believed they were safe, it has been made brutally clear that they are not.
In 2026 Britain it is no longer safe to be visibly Jewish. I well up as I write that sentence because I love this country. I believe that Britain for its long and rich history has been the greatest country in the world. I am a British Jew and proud to both. This piece will not end with any call to action or ask of the Government. I simply wanted my non-Jewish friends, colleagues, and readers to know what we as British Jews are feeling right now. We are fearful. We are angry. But we will not give up because we love this country, and we hope that we will be able to stay here.
Harry Richer is the Director of Fighting for a Free Future, working for Chairman the Rt Hon Steve Baker. He worked as the senior aide to Mr Baker for four years and was intimately involved in all of Mr Baker's national campaigns, including his work on the monetary system, Net Zero, and the Covid Recovery Group, acting as its Head of Research. He has also co-written multiple publications on Austrian School economics, including the 2024 Springer book, The Age of Debt Bubbles.
Harry. It saddens me to read your article, but I am not in the least bit surprised that you have written it. I won't try to pretend that I know how you must feel. What I will say though, for now at least, is that as a non-Jewish friend I will always stand with you.
I hear you Harry. It feels more alarming than has been the case at any time since WW2. I employ and work with wonderful, caring British Jews among others. Their safety in Britain must be re-assured by British culture and by British Government - as fact, not just by being offered slippery platitudes.