Tens of thousands of people marched through London on Sunday at a demonstration organized by the Campaign Against Antisemitism group amid rising antisemitism levels in the country.
Campaign Against Antisemitism (CAA) thanked the participants, but noted that the ruling Labour party had not sent an official representative as other parties had, calling it a “scandalous absence.”
Labour had not replied to an invitation to do so for weeks, until it offered on Thursday to send “a backbench peer,” said the CAA. “As this came at the last minute and did not fulfil our requirement for a representative of the Government—let alone a high-ranking official with a relevant portfolio—we could not accommodate this suggestion,” the group added.
Labour claimed to the CAA that “it is not the government’s policy to provide representatives to marches and rallies,” the CAA revealed. The Conservative Party sent Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp. In a speech at the rally, he said: “Jewish students are being abused and persecuted. It is immoral,” adding: “We’re here to say enough.”
The right-of-center Reform UK party sent politician Richard Tice, who said that if anti-Israel marches were “been banned as they had in other countries, we would not have seen the increase of antisemitism in this country.”
Lance Forman, a former European Parliament member from the United Kingdom who attended the march, wrote on X: “Never Again Is Now,” adding that the Hamas massacres of Oct. 7, 2023 were “the biggest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust.” The rally sends “a message that British people stand with Israel and Britain’s Jewish community. Jew hate will not be tolerated!”
The march took place shortly after the publication of a poll that suggested that more than one in five Britons harbors or agrees with antisemitic views—the highest rate since similar studies began 10 years ago.
U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer has said his country would recognize a Palestinian state along with France and several other countries later this month, unless Israel agrees to a ceasefire in its war on Hamas in Gaza, among other conditions.
The CAA argued that this would constitute a form of appeasement, something which will “embolden extremists,” who will choose to hang on for another month “to receive their reward.”
On Sunday, Leah Benoz, founder and director of Scotland Against Antisemitism, warned that recognition of Palestinian statehood and other actions to punish Israel would fail to achieve that goal, but would hurt local Jews.
“Not one Palestinian life will be saved by these measures, but Jewish life in Scotland will be put further at risk,” she wrote in a letter to her local government.
The Community Security Trust (CST), a British-Jewish watchdog and security organization, recorded in the first half of 2025 a total of 1,521 antisemitic incidents in the United Kingdom, the second-highest first-half figure ever.
The highest-ever half-year statistic was recorded in 2024. That whole year, a total of 3,528 antisemitic incidents in the United Kingdom were documented. It was the second-highest total ever reported to CST in a single calendar year, after the 4,296 anti-Jewish hate incidents recorded by CST in 2023.
CST recorded 1,662 antisemitic incidents in 2022, 2,261 in 2021 and 1,684 in 2020.
Across Western Europe and beyond, antisemitic incidents surged following the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack on Israel. In response to the massacre, Israel launched a military campaign in Gaza later that month, aiming to dismantle Hamas and secure the release of the hostages.
