Ed Miliband has warned that nowhere in the UK should be a “no go area” for Jews and Israelis.
The energy secretary has intervened as the row over the decision by West Midlands Police to ban football fans of Israeli club Maccabi Tel Aviv from attending their match in Birmingham against Aston Villa has continued to escalate.
It comes as Aston Villa prepare to play Tottenham Hotspur, the club which has Britain’s biggest Jewish support, in the Premier League today at Villa Park.
The energy secretary, who has Jewish heritage, was asked by Sir Trevor Phillips on Sky News to respond to a petition by independent MP for Birmingham Perry Barr Ayoub Khan, which called for the match to be halted and for a boycott of Israeli teams playing in the UK was justified, Mr Miliband said: “No, I profoundly disagree with that approach, with what is being said in that petition.”
Mr Khan is an ally of Jeremy Corbyn sitting in the former Labour leader’s independent group.
His petition, signed by just 3,987 people, said: “This is not a normal match, and one reason that’s given is that the Maccabi fans are arriving in Aston, a diverse and predominantly Muslim community.”
Mr Miliband warned: “We cannot have a situation where any area is a no-go area for people of a particular religion or from a particular country, and we’ve got to stamp out all forms of prejudice, antisemitism, Islamophobia, wherever we find them.”
Asked if a petition, supported by independent MP for Birmingham Perry Barr Ayoub Khan, which called for the match to be halted and for a boycott of Israeli teams playing in the UK was justified, Mr Miliband said: “No, I profoundly disagree with that approach, with what is being said in that petition.”
The “vast majority of Muslim people in this country would disassociate themselves” from suggestions that Maccabi Tel Aviv fans could not come to Aston Villa because it was a predominantly Muslim area, Mr Miliband said.
But Mr Miliband stressed that “integration is not something you can ever take for granted”, when asked about concerns that a lack of integration had contributed to the situation.
The row continues as the chief executive of the Holocaust Education Trust Karen Pollock warned that the West Midlands Police decision “should chill us all”.
Writing for The I she said: “We have decided that one set of supporters must be excluded because of who they are and the team they support. Because they are Israelis. Because they are Jews.”
The concerns over the police and antisemitism were also fuelled with footage showing a Jewish lawyer being arrested by the Metropolitan Police for wearing a Star of David.
The Jew who was arrested was told that the symbol “antagonised” pro-Palestine protesters but accused the police of trying to “ban the Star of David.”
Mr Miliband said that the government was in talks at resolving the situation so the match could go ahead as normal with fans from both sides attending.
