At first glance, this seems a welcome gesture of solidarity with Barnet’s Jewish community. At a time when many of us are experiencing unprecedented levels of fear, and some are questioning whether they have a future in our country, such solidarity matters.
Yet I cannot help but regard this motion as a deeply cynical political exercise. It appears designed to capitalise on the controversy surrounding antisemitism within the Green Party, allowing Barnet Labour to point an accusing finger at its political opponents while conveniently deflecting attention from the continuing problem of antisemitism within its own national party, which many of its local representatives have failed to confront.
After all, antisemitism is already recognised as a form of racism under UK law. The Equality Act 2010 protects Jewish people as an ethnic group, while criminal law recognises antisemitic hostility as grounds for racially or religiously aggravated offences. We do not need a council motion to establish a principle that is already firmly embedded in British law.
The question, then, is why Barnet Labour feels the need to restate the obvious. I believe the answer lies not just in what this motion says, but in what it seeks to conceal, and the profound hypocrisy at the heart of it.
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