{"id":939563,"date":"2026-05-05T15:16:26","date_gmt":"2026-05-05T15:16:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/939563\/"},"modified":"2026-05-05T15:16:26","modified_gmt":"2026-05-05T15:16:26","slug":"uk-police-probe-arson-at-ex-synagogue-as-pm-decries-antisemitism-crisis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/939563\/","title":{"rendered":"UK police probe arson at ex-synagogue as PM decries antisemitism ‘crisis’"},"content":{"rendered":"

UK police say they are investigating a new arson incident targeting London’s Jewish community, as Prime Minister Keir Starmer held talks on responding to a spate of antisemitic attacks.<\/p>\n

Sir Keir gathered community groups, government ministers and police chiefs to his official Downing Street office for talks on a response to what he called a “crisis” following several antisemitic attacks in Britain’s capital in recent weeks.<\/p>\n

In the latest incident, firefighters were called to a former synagogue in east London early on Tuesday, where a blaze caused minor damage, the capital’s Metropolitan Police said in a statement.<\/p>\n

“Given the nature of the incident and the location being a former synagogue, the incident is being investigated by Counter Terrorism Policing London,”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

the statement said.\"British<\/p>\n

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer says the UK government would introduce new legislation aimed at combating antisemitism. (Reuters: Stefan Rousseau)<\/p>\n

There have been several incidents recently, notably in the Golders Green area of north London which is home to a large Jewish community.<\/p>\n

Last week two Jewish men were stabbed and injured in the street<\/a>. A man has been arrested on suspicion of attempted murder.<\/p>\n

In March, an arson attack in the same neighbourhood destroyed four ambulances run by the Hatzola Jewish charity<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Bottles suspected of containing petrol have been thrown at two synagogues in separate incidents.<\/p>\n

A little-known group, the Iran-linked Harakat Ashab al-Yamin al-Islamiya (HAYI), has claimed responsibility for almost all the attacks, according to SITE Intelligence Group.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The group has also claimed attacks in other European countries.<\/p>\n

Surging Greens party accused of antisemitism<\/p>\n

Sir Keir told Tuesday’s meeting that he would rush through new legislation to tackle “malign threats”.<\/p>\n

“Our message to Iran or to any other country that might seek to promote violence, hatred or division in society is that it will not be tolerated,” he said.<\/p>\n

“We’re clear-eyed about the fact that antisemitism does not have one source alone: Islamists, far left, far right extremism, all target Jewish communities,” he said.<\/p>\n

The issue is dominating the run-up to local elections later this week, with the governing Labour Party accusing some candidates from the insurgent left-wing Greens of having made antisemitic comments.<\/p>\n

Labour is expected to lose swathes of councillors to the Greens and other parties in Thursday’s local council polls, particularly in London, as left-wing voters, many angry over the Gaza war, desert it for progressive alternatives.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Britain’s Green Party, under leader Zack Polanski, is denying accusations of rampant antisemitism in its ranks. (Reuters: Hannah McKay)<\/p>\n

In recent days, Labour has stepped up attacks on the Green party, led by self-styled “eco-populist” Zack Polanski, over alleged antisemitic comments by some members.<\/p>\n

Last month, two Green party candidates in London were arrested on suspicion of stirring up racial hatred over alleged antisemitic social media posts. They no longer appears as candidates.<\/p>\n

Government minister Steve Reed said Tuesday the Greens had been “taken over by a lot of the hard-left people that were kicked out of Labour for\u00a0antisemitism”.<\/p>\n

A Green party spokesperson on Tuesday accused Labour of being “desperate”.<\/p>\n

“Out of more than 4,500 candidates, a handful have made deeply offensive comments and they are no longer supported by the Green Party,” the spokesperson added.<\/p>\n

AFP<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"UK police say they are investigating a new arson incident targeting London’s Jewish community, as Prime Minister Keir…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":939564,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5018,3,4],"tags":[26388,748,393,252,4884,13593,25781,257,1144,529,712,144354,16,15,1764,170547],"class_list":{"0":"post-939563","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-britain","8":"category-uk","9":"category-united-kingdom","10":"tag-antisemitism","11":"tag-britain","12":"tag-england","13":"tag-fire","14":"tag-great-britain","15":"tag-greens","16":"tag-investigation","17":"tag-london","18":"tag-northern-ireland","19":"tag-police","20":"tag-scotland","21":"tag-synagogue","22":"tag-uk","23":"tag-united-kingdom","24":"tag-wales","25":"tag-zack-polanski"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116522635440899730","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/939563","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=939563"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/939563\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/939564"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=939563"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=939563"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=939563"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}