The Observer view: the scale of antisemitism blights our politics and our country | Observer editorial

Antisemitism is often referred to as the world’s oldest hatred; its roots can be traced to the ancient civilisations of Greece and Rome. Alarmingly, it appears to be flourishing in the UK in 2024: new figures show a huge rise in the number of antisemitic incidents reported last year, particularly in the wake of the terrorist atrocities perpetrated by Hamas on 7 October.

The Community Security Trust, a charity that tracks antisemitism in the UK and provides security advice and training for Jewish schools and synagogues, last week published its annual summary of antisemitic incidents reported in 2023. It recorded more than 4,000 incidents, well over double the number in 2022. There was a huge spike following the Hamas attack on Israel: two-thirds occurred in the last three months of the year, a rise of 589% on a year earlier. The Israel-Hamas conflict has clearly acted as a trigger, with some appearing to hold British Jews responsible for Israel’s actions in Gaza; this reflects similar findings by the anti-Islamophobia charity Tell Mama that anti-Muslim hatred also rises during conflict in the region, and in the wake of fundamentalist terrorist attacks.

But the Community Security Trust data also shows antisemitism was already on the rise before 7 October, and that antisemitic incidents increased immediately after Hamas inflicted its atrocities on Israel, before Israel had launched a coordinated military response. Some of this antisemitism was therefore clearly triggered not by Israel’s response, but by Hamas terrorism itself.

There are no signs that this is abating. Just last week, Soho theatre in London had to issue an apology after Jewish audience members were subjected to verbal abuse and aggressive demands to leave the theatre by the comedian Paul Currie. A Jewish chaplain at Leeds University has been forced to move with his family to a safe location on police advice after threats were targeted at him and his family. These are abhorrent incidents that require a strong political response.

But the Labour party became enmeshed in its own issues last week after it emerged that Azhar Ali, its candidate in the Rochdale byelection, told a meeting last October that Israel had “allowed” the Hamas attack. Labour first accepted his apology then sacked him after a further recording came to light of him blaming “people in the media from certain Jewish quarters” for the suspension of the MP Andy McDonald from the Labour party, leaving no official Labour candidate in the byelection later this month. Another parliamentary candidate has been suspended for comments made at the same meeting.

Starmer has prioritised tackling the scourge of antisemitism within Labour; his efforts led to the Equality and Human Rights Commission lifting its special measures on the party a year ago. But the concern must be that there may be other candidates or members leaning into antisemitic conspiracy theories. Depressingly, the Conservatives tried to make political capital out of fears of rising antisemitism, despite the fact the party had to expel one of its own councillors after they allegedly made antisemitic remarks: the party clipped and published a video of Sadiq Khan making a verbal slip in which he said he was proud to be antisemitic, without his immediate self-correction and with a caption claiming he was saying the “quiet part out loud”.

All parties need to be committed to rooting out antisemitism from within their own ranks. We need our political leaders to be clear that it has no place in our society, ever, and that all in society share responsibility for confronting the increasing levels of this pernicious form of racism.