Antisemitism: time for action

NHS staff could be barred from wearing political badges on their uniforms, such as pro-Palestinian symbols, as part of proposals to help tackle antisemitism.

The measure is one of a number of recommendations in a review by the government’s independent adviser on antisemitism, Lord Mann. Other recommendations made by Lord Mann include stronger accountability for NHS managers, improved recording and monitoring of racist incidents, and enabling more patients to record their ethnicity as Jewish.

There was an excellent interview by Amol Rajan with Lord Mann about his proposals on  Thursday’s Today programme. However, one  issue not  raised by Rajan or Lord Mann was: why was this report necessary at all? There have been numerous  accounts over recent years of  NHS workers wearing anti-Israel or antisemitic badges and pro-Palestinian symbols. So why haven’t NHS managers dealt with this and banned such symbols by making wearing them a sackable  offence?

Imagine if white NHS workers wore racist slogans or symbols, either anti-Black or anti-Muslim. How quickly would NHS managers have reacted and how many reports would we have  read in our newspapers or seen on TV news? Wes Streeting, the former health minister, and senior NHS executives would have been widely vilified. The truth is  that until  there were attacks on synagogues and Jews in recent months, antisemitism was not taken seriously enough by our media.

Of course,  this is not just about the health service. There have been a number of cases of people working in well-known theatres wearing pro-Palestinian insignia who were not disciplined or dismissed. Antisemitism in our theatres is not confined to  wearing insignia. Back in 2022 London’s Royal Court Theatre apologised “unreservedly” after hosting a play accused of perpetuating an anti-Semitic stereotype. The theatre lost two financial backers after putting on a new play, Rare Earth Mettle. The row surrounded the role of Hershel Fink, a manipulative billionaire who, despite his name, is not Jewish. The theatre admitted it “fell short” of its “ambitions in terms of inclusivity and anti-racism”.

There have been even more  examples of allegations of antisemitism  in our universities. The most prominent case involved Professor David Miller of the University of Bristol. Miller was fired in 2021 after making comments characterizing Zionism as racism and accusing Jewish students of acting as “political pawns” for a foreign state. An independent tribunal later ruled that he had been “wrongfully dismissed” regarding procedural employment law, but his views and rhetoric were heavily criticised by Jewish organizations and the university as antisemitic.

Following an independent inquiry, Goldsmiths was found culpable in 2025 for failing to prevent a culture of antisemitism on campus. The resulting action plan required sweeping changes to complaints and disciplinary processes, which remain a flashpoint in discussions between university administration and faculty.

University College London (UCL) has failed to deal effectively with significant incidents of antisemitism, most notably a November 2025 event where a lecturer repeated the antisemitic “blood libel”. While the university took swift disciplinary action, Jewish students have continued to report high levels of harassment, prompting ongoing concerns about campus climate.

In our hospitals, in our universities and throughout the arts, antisemitism and anti-Israel hatred  have flourished in Britain in recent years. Too little action has been taken and there has been tooo little debate about this in our mainstream media until recent violent  attacks on Jews and synagogues. Lord Mann’s report has drawn attention o these issues, but it is time the issue of antisemitism  in Britain, even in some of our most important institutions, was not only widely debated but for action to be  taken. Ushers and health workers wearing pro-Palestinian badges and making antisemitic remarks should be  dismissed,  just as we would  expect people guilty of any form of racist hatred to be removed. No one should be subjected to such treatment, regardless of race, religion or gender.

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