NHS England weaponises ‘antisemitism’ to silence Palestine support

NHS England (NHSE) – in what it euphemistically calls a ‘Request for action on racism including antisemitism’ but which is really overwhelmingly about supposed antisemitism – has told all its trusts to adopt the so-called ‘IHRA working definition’ of antisemitism.

The so-called ‘IHRA’ has been condemned by legal and human rights experts, including in Israel, as well as by its author Kenneth Stern, as unfit for purpose. Unfit for failing to define anything and being constructed to quell criticism of Israel as well as enabling false accusations of antisemitism.

In fact, the non-definition ‘definition’, which was one of the main tools of the Israel lobby’s war on Corbyn’s Labour, weaponising antisemitism against Corbyn and the left, was so unfit for purpose that in 2016 even arch-Zionist Keir Starmer was among the MPs who wanted to have it amended before it was adopted. This was even confirmed by the Starmer-commissioned, barrister-created Forde Report.

NHS England reinforces Israeli hasbara (propaganda)

But what NHSE – a body of the Starmer government’s Department of Health and Social Care – gives away about its real agenda shows that the IHRA’s very unfitness is exactly the point, because the real goal is to clamp down on pro-Palestine speech and symbols, and to impose ‘training’ on trusts designed to reinforce Israeli propaganda.

NHSE starts with a warning that trusts must ban any expressions of solidarity with Palestinians against genocide and occupation – without being quite that plain, of course, but plain enough (emphases added, apart from the section header):

Uniform and workwear guidance update

Ensuring everybody feels safe to present for care and treatment when they need it and in working environments for our colleagues is a patient safety matter.

Working with stakeholder groups, we will update our existing uniform and workwear guidance, drawing on the policies developed in Manchester, UCLH and other good practice. The guidance will continue to uphold the principles that underpinned its creation including freedom of religious expression, ensuring patients feel safe and respected at all times, and that staff political views do not impact on patients’ care or comfort.

Here’s what it means in practice: Do you oppose genocide and want to wear a watermelon pin, Palestine flag badge or keffiyeh-themed earrings to show your solidarity with its victims? No way, that would impinge on the ‘religious expression’ of a Zionist patient to support the genocidal colony without being made to feel bad by your empathy for its victims!

And the goal becomes more explicit as NHS England goes on to tell trusts that they must undergo ‘core’ — ie mandatory, as it then makes clear — ‘training’ approved by one of the worst figures of the UK Israel lobby, and do so right the hell now, not when the usual staff training cycle comes round (emphases again added, apart from the section header):

Antiracism including antisemitism training

We are also updating the existing NHS Core Skills Framework module on Equality, Diversity and Human Rights, extending the section on discrimination and content on antisemitism and Islamophobia, and including new questions on this in the assessment. We are working to ensure all NHS organisations are aligned to the Framework to ensure that all 1.5m NHS staff are required to complete this training as part of their mandatory training.

Working with Lord Mann, we will update the content developed with EDI, racism, antisemitism and Islamophobia subject matter experts and aligned to the core skills training framework.

The existing training is completed by staff every three years, but we are asking for your help and support to ensure that all staff in your organisation refresh their EDI training as soon as this content is available rather than waiting for the prompt in the current three-year cycle.

Separately, work is underway to draft a new Statutory and Mandatory Training competency framework which will replace the Core Skills Training Framework (CSTF) – setting out all nationally recommended subjects to be mandated and is due to go live by April 2026.

A Mann with a Plan

Former ‘Labour’ MP John Mann, made a peer by a grateful, outgoing Theresa May for his services to nobbling Jeremy Corbyn and fighting the left ‘politics’ and immediately appointed as ‘antisemitism tsar’ by her replacement Boris Johnson. He is the parliamentary bully and antisemitism-weaponiser who ambushed former London mayor Ken Livingstone.

Mann risibly accused Livingstone of being “a Nazi apologist” and “liar.” This is because Livingstone had pointed out in an interview that German Zionists worked with early Nazi Germany to settle Jews in Palestine.

Mann has been interviewed by police over an anti-Gypsy hate incident in which Mann, then an MP, published a leaflet for constituents describing Gypsy-Roma people as “anti-social behaviour.” He also features in Paul Holden’s new book The Fraud for his unsuccessful antisemitism attack on Skwawkbox and The Canary by commissioning an Israel lobby-linked academic to write a ‘report’ comparing both sites with far-right antisemites.

This is the politician who will be approving the mandated ‘training’ on antisemitism. The Starmer government has just announced that its mandatory training to university staff and teachers will be provided by a genocide-apologist group that has boasted of its allegiance and contributions to Israel and hounded an anti-Zionist professor out of his job, so it takes no imagination at all to work out what kind of group(s) will be delivering the NHS equivalent.

An observant but naive reader might point out that the NHSE quotes above mention Islamophobia and “other forms of racism” too. Appearances have to be maintained, no doubt – but NHSE then goes on to make clear that this isn’t parity. The parliamentary definition of Islamophobia, significantly based on the IHRA, is not being adopted in the same way.

Other forms of racism? Never heard of it

Instead, the NHS England communication notes that the government is:

also reviewing the recommendations of the independent working group on Islamophobia.

But the Starmer government is scrapping the definition originally proposed by the ‘all-party parliamentary group’ on Islamophobia – unsurprisingly considering Islamophobia is rampant among the Labour right – and, if it issues a replacement at all, doing so with one constructed to “protect the freedom to criticise Islam”, though even that is too much for the Israel lobby, which is insisting that a definition would overly restrict their right to attack Islam and, presumably, its adherents.

To a careful reader, NHSE’s mandatory ‘request’ appears to be about entrenching the privileged position of Israel and its supporters while paying lip service to “other forms of hatred and racism”. Given the government to which it reports and the war that government is already waging, on behalf of the Israel lobby. A war on anti-genocide and pro-Palestinian speech; this conclusion seems inevitable.