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 that has Britain’s biggest Jewish support, in the Premier League today at Villa Park.
Speaking on Sky News, the energy secretary, who has Jewish heritage, was asked for his response to a petition by independent MP for Birmingham Perry Barr, Ayoub Khan, which called for the match to be halted. 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 Alliance group.
His petition, signed by just over 4,000 people, says: “This is not a normal match.” It goes on to note the “track record of violence by Maccabi Tel Aviv fans”, who, were the match to be played, would be “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."
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 Paper, 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 by footage showing a Jewish lawyer being arrested by the Metropolitan Police for wearing a Star of David.
The man was told that the symbol “antagonised” pro-Palestine protesters, but he accused the police of trying to “ban the Star of David”.
Mr Miliband said that the government was in talks over resolving the situation so the match could go ahead as normal, with fans from both sides attending.
