About 20,000 Attend London Rally Against Antisemitism

About 20,000 people attended a demonstration against antisemitism in London on Sunday, following a surge in attacks on Jews, the Board of Deputies of British Jews said. The rally took place in Whitehall, opposite the Downing Street residence of the British prime minister.

Jeers and booing were heard when Secretary of State for Work and Pensions Pat McFadden spoke. McFadden continued speaking, saying he wanted Jewish people to have the freedom to wear religious symbols not only at worship but in daily life, in work and in all parts of daily life.

"Friends, I hear you. " — Pat McFadden (New York Post) The event was organized by the Board of Deputies of British Jews and the Jewish Leadership Council. It featured speeches by senior politicians, including the head of the Conservative Party, Kemi Badenoch, and Richard Tice, deputy leader of Nigel Farage’s right-of-center Reform UK party.

Tice told GBNews at the rally that politicians had offered words for a long time that had counted for nothing. He said the situation required courage and leadership that had been absent for too long and that it had to stop. Prime Minister Keir Starmer signaled his willingness to initiate legislation to ban the IRGC when parliament resumes in July, according to The Jewish Chronicle.

Sacerdoti, a British-Jewish broadcaster and journalist, said the jeering was indicative of a shift in recent years in the attitudes of Jews toward the Starmer-led Labour Party. He noted that when Labour ministers address Jews they are now often met with disdain and jeering.

Sacerdoti said frustration over authorities’ apparent inability to stop major terrorist attacks against British Jews, such as the April 29 stabbing of two Jewish men in Golders Green, is fueling resentment toward Labour, which used to be British Jewry’s political home.

He recalled that Justice Secretary David Lammy experienced similar hostility after an earlier terrorist attack on a synagogue in Manchester on Oct. 2, in which two people died.

The United Kingdom had in 2025 the highest per capita rate of real-life antisemitic assaults of any country with a large Jewish community, according to a report published last month by Israel’s Ministry for Diaspora Affairs and Combating Antisemitism.

It recorded 121 violent antisemitic incidents in a country with a Jewish population estimated between 292,000 and 313,000. The total number of antisemitic incidents recorded in the U.K. last year, including threats, vandalism and intimidation, reached 3,700 cases in 2025.

That figure constitutes a slight increase over the previous year and the second-highest tally on record, the Community Security Trust watchdog group said earlier this year. The 2025 tally represents a 4 percent increase from the 3,556 anti-Jewish hate incidents recorded in 2024.

Last year’s total was 14 percent lower than the highest-ever annual total of 4,298 antisemitic incidents reported in 2023. The latest report indicates a continuation of the elevated levels of antisemitic incidents in the U.K. since Oct. 7, 2023. In 2021 and 2022, the Community Security Trust recorded 2,261 and 1,662 antisemitic incidents, respectively.

Last year, 872 Britons made aliyah, a 40-year high and a significant increase compared with pre-war levels.