Starmer dismissed Holocaust survivors’ anti-genocide letter. Will Burnham ignore this one?

In May 2026, Holocaust survivors and descendants wrote an open letter to Keir Starmer for his war on anti-genocide speech and protest. As with their earlier letters, Starmer ignored it. But how will Burnham act…

Now, the group has written to incoming PM Andy Burnham to demand the reversal of Starmer’s police-state policies targeting protest and speech against genocide and in support of Palestinians. And the Jewish activists are asking, “Will Burnham ignore us like Starmer did?”

The full letter, which points out the prominence of Jews in anti-genocide protest and the fact the only abuse they receive is from Israel fanatics, reads:

Andy Burnham MP
House of Commons
London
SW1A 0AA

Dear Mr Burnham,

How the Labour Government responds to Jews who support Palestinian rights

We are Jewish and write as members of Holocaust Survivors and Descendants against Gaza Genocide (HSD), Jewish Voice for Liberation (JVL – formerly Jewish Voice for Labour) and Jews for Justice for Palestinians.

Since October 2023, when the Israeli Government’s retaliation to Hamas’s murderous attack on 7th October was brutal and indiscriminate, we have marched along with the large Jewish Bloc on the Palestine Marches in support of Palestinians in Gaza, calling out what we firmly believe has become a clear case of genocide. We eagerly await your premiership in the light of your recent call for stronger action against Israel along with your apology for the Labour Government’s slowness to call for a ceasefire.

Our immediate concern relates to the letter from Sarah Jones at the Home Office in response to a letter to the Prime Minister from 44 Holocaust survivors and descendants. The letter criticised statements by Keir Starmer and others that linked attacks on Jewish persons and property to pro-Palestine marches. Symptomatic of the dismissive, we would say insulting, letter to the survivors and descendants is Ms Jones’s attempt to reframe their experience of harassment on the Marches. As noted in the response on 10 July from the survivors and descendants:

“… you fail to mention that this [hostility] has come not from our fellow pro-Palestinian protesters, from whom we have received only goodwill and support but from the pro- Israel counter-demonstrators”.

There are several Jewish ‘communities’ and a wide diversity of views on Israel among Jewish people in the UK and we trust that you will meet with us and other members of the Jewish Bloc in the near future.

There has been an increasingly charged disagreement over the interpretation of antisemitism, since 2015 in particular. Supporters of Israel have found a useful tool in the definition of antisemitism by the IHRA, long discredited among most Jewish scholars – and its original author, Kenneth Stern, who has vociferously condemned its abuse as a weapon to curtail free speech. See this article for example here in the Guardian from 2019. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/dec/13/antisemitism-executive-order-trump-chilling-effect

In effect many of the examples in the IHRA encourage the conflation of antisemitism with criticism of Israel. The Labour Party’s treatment of allegations of antisemitism, guided by this conflation, was deeply flawed and resulted in around 70 Jewish members of the Party being accused in some way of antisemitism. Remarkably, even questioning the Labour Party’s interpretation or its processes was itself ammunition for a charge of antisemitism.

This false interpretation has been destructive in its effects. It has spoilt relations between all communities, has given Israel a protective cloak around the brutality of its actions, has undermined the right to freedom of speech and the right to protest and, we now believe, is contributing to an increase in antisemitism by appearing to privilege Jews above other ethnic groups.

We hope you will oppose any further attempts to muzzle the Palestine marches.

Yours sincerely,

Jenny Manson (Co Chair JVL)
Leah Levane (Co Chair JVL)
Stephen Kapos and Agnes Kory (both child survivors of the Hungarian Holocaust)
Richard Kuper (JVL and JJP)

So far the signs are not promising — Burnham has approved of Starmer’s war on UK freedoms for Israel and shows every sign of going even further.

Featured image via the Canary