{"id":643525,"date":"2025-12-20T03:52:25","date_gmt":"2025-12-20T03:52:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/643525\/"},"modified":"2025-12-20T03:52:25","modified_gmt":"2025-12-20T03:52:25","slug":"high-levels-of-hate-crime-on-public-transport-in-london-still-fuelled-by-middle-east-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/643525\/","title":{"rendered":"High levels of hate crime on public transport in London still fuelled by Middle East war"},"content":{"rendered":"

Incidents of both antisemitism and Islamophobia have still not returned to levels seen before the current conflict in Israel and Gaza began in October 2023, reports Kumail Jaffer, Local Democracy Reporter<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"creditcredit British Transport Police<\/p>\n

The Israel-Gaza conflict is continuing to fuel higher levels of hate crime on London\u2019s transport network more than two years after the Middle East war started, senior police officers have admitted.<\/p>\n

Hate crime on Transport for London (TfL) services spiked in late 2023, particularly in antisemitic and Islamophobic incidents.<\/p>\n

But levels have failed to return to their pre-2023 figures, despite dipping slightly.<\/p>\n

Asked what is driving the high levels of hate crimes on buses, tubes and rail, Chief Superintendent Chris Casey, of British Transport Police, told a City Hall meeting that international conflicts were playing out on London\u2019s transport network.<\/p>\n

\u201cInternational events play a really big part\u00a0\u2013\u00a0they do generate increases in hate crime and we see those reports,\u201d he told the London Assembly\u2019s police and crime committee.<\/p>\n

\u201cTowards the end of 2023, we saw a big increase in terms of antisemitic hate crime.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd that is in the context of the Jewish community actually being a very small percentage of the population and then even a smaller percentage of those who are Jewish that decide to travel anyway on the network.<\/p>\n

\u201c[There was] a massive increase \u2013 and we did see exactly the increase that the Met did as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

Between January and August 2024, hate crime across the public transport network rose 27.8% year-on-year, from 1,551 to 1,982 offences, before falling by 8.3% from 1,383 in 2024 to 1,268 in June 2025.<\/p>\n

Mandy McGregor, head of policing and community safety at TfL, added:\u00a0 \u201cWe have seen a reduction in hate crime on public transport of eight per cent.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s from a peak when the Gaza-Israel situation [started]. So we have seen it come down, but it\u2019s still higher than levels before October 2023.\u201d<\/p>\n

London has been the site of hundreds of pro-Palestinian and pro-Israeli protests, even after a ceasefire was declared earlier this year.<\/p>\n

This has included protesting inside large train stations such as King\u2019s Cross and Liverpool Street.<\/p>\n

Ch Supt Casey said the transport hubs weren\u2019t an \u201cideal\u201d location for demonstrations but that the BTP needed to \u201cbalance those rights of individuals to protest\u201d with keeping the stations running normally.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs long as the station can safely operate and it doesn\u2019t impact critical national infrastructure then we have to find a way to balance those rights as long as it\u2019s lawful activity,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo there may be things that are said that will shock and offend and that maybe we don\u2019t like or people don\u2019t, but there is that balance.\u201d<\/p>\n

Officials were also asked about the impact of \u201csubvertising\u201d \u2013 also called guerilla advertising, when political groups flypost on top of approved marketing \u2013 on the TfL network and whether some posters should count as a hate crime.<\/p>\n

Despite the organisation banning political adverts, last week marketing material calling for a boycott of Coca-Cola appeared on some tube trains.<\/p>\n

Conservative assembly member Lord Bailey said: \u201cThese would appear to be hate crimes, there\u2019s certainly a large section of the public, myself included, who consider them a hate crime.\u201d<\/p>\n

BTP Superintendent Sam Painter said: \u201cWe do frequently see acts of what we call subvertising, so the subversion of advertising on TfL\u2019s network for a whole variety of different political groups.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen that\u2019s brought to our attention, we make sure that our cleaners will remove all that unauthorised advertising from across our network.<\/p>\n

\u201cClearly, advertising is a valuable source of revenue to TfL and unauthorised subvertising is not something that we would tolerate. So as soon as it\u2019s brought it to our tension, mostly through social media as well is when it\u2019s first noticed, then we will ensure that there\u2019s a thorough cleaning regime, checking every single advert.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019ll be aware that some of them are very subtle in terms of looking like the initial advert, but changed in particular ways. We make sure that they are removed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Independent news outlets like ours \u2013 reporting for the community without rich backers \u2013 are under threat of closure, turning British towns into news deserts.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

The audiences they serve know less, understand less, and can do less.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

If our coverage has helped you understand our community a little bit better, please consider supporting us with a monthly, or one-off donation.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

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More Information about donations<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Incidents of both antisemitism and Islamophobia have still not returned to levels seen before the current conflict in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":643526,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7757],"tags":[748,1221,393,4884,257,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-643525","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-london","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-british-transport-police","10":"tag-england","11":"tag-great-britain","12":"tag-london","13":"tag-uk","14":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115749870517530841","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/643525","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=643525"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/643525\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/643526"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=643525"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=643525"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=643525"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}