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Good morning. Yesterday it emerged that fans of Maccabi Tel Aviv will not be allowed to attend the Europa League match at Aston Villa on 6 November owing to safety concerns. The decision was taken by Birmingham’s safety advisory group, based on advice from the West Midlands police, who said the match would be “high risk” based on “current intelligence and previous incidents, including violent clashes and hate crime offences that occurred during the 2024 Uefa Europa League match between Ajax and Maccabi Tel Aviv in Amsterdam”. There is more on the announcement here.
The decision prompted widespread condemnation from political leaders. Keir Starmer said:
This is the wrong decision.
We will not tolerate antisemitism on our streets.
The role of the police is to ensure all football fans can enjoy the game, without fear of violence or intimidation.
Kemi Badenoch went further, saying:
This is a national disgrace.
How have things come to this?
Starmer pledged that Jews are welcome and safe in Britain. That he stands shoulder to shoulder with the Jewish community and will use the full force of his government to prove it.
Will he back those words with action and guarantee that Jewish fans can walk into any football stadium in this country?
If not, it sends a horrendous and shameful message: there are parts of Britain where Jews simply cannot go.
And Ed Davey, the Lib Dem leader, said:
A serious mistake by WM Police. You don’t tackle antisemitism by banning its victims. This decision must be reversed.
And Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, said: “This takes racial discrimination to a whole new level.”
But the decision has been welcomed by Ayoub Khan, the MP for Birmingham Perry Barr, the constituency where the match will take place. He organised a petition calling for the match to be either cancelled, relocated or held behind closed doors and last night he put out a statement saying:
From the moment that the match was announced, it was clear that there were latent safety risks that even our capable security and police authorities would not be able to fully manage.
With so much hostility and uncertainty around the match, it was only right to take drastic measures.
Khan is one of the five independent MPs elected at the last election wholly or partly because of their outright opposition to Israel’s war in Gaza and his petition suggests that his opposition to the match going ahead is motivated as much by the desire to make a political point about Israel’s conduct as by concerns about the risk of violence. The petition cites three reasons why the match should not go ahead. One is the “track record of violence by Maccabi Tel Aviv fans”, but the others are the “ongoing genocide in Gaza” and the “wider European context”. The petition says:
As Israel continues its assault on Gaza, killing thousands and devastating civilian infrastructure, sporting fixtures involving Israeli teams cannot be separated from the wider political context. Hosting such teams sends a message of normalisation and indifference to mass atrocities.
The petition has been signed by Jeremy Corbyn, the former Labour leader, who is another of the independent MPs in the Independent Alliance. Another MP in that group, Iqbal Mohamed, has welcomed the decision to ban Maccabi Tel Aviv fans on claiming the police have “put the safety of Aston Villa fans, Birmingham residents and the British public above the zionist and political pressure to let Israeli hooligans and terrorists run riot in our country”.
Will the decision stand? Perhaps not. This morning Ian Murray, the culture secretary, said ministers will be trying to see if there is a way of ensuring that Maccabi Tel Aviv fans can attend the match. He told Sky News:
[The decision is] just completely and utterly unacceptable, and the prime minister has said we will do everything we possibly can to resolve this issue.
It’s an operational issue for the police, and government doesn’t get involved in operational issues for the police.
But I know the culture secretary [Lisa Nandy] will be meeting with the Home Office and other stakeholders today to try and see if there’s a way through this.
I will post more on this shortly.
The Commons is not sitting today, but here are the things we are expecting.
9.30am: The ONS publishes figures for drug-related deaths in England and Wales.
9.35am: Ofsted chief inspector Sir Martyn Oliver speaks at the Confederation of School Trusts annual conference.
Morning: Kemi Badenoch is on a visit in London.
Morning: Ed Davey, the Lib Dem leader, is on a visit in Wokingham.
Morning: Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London, is making an announcement about air quality.
11.30am: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.
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